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Saturday 29 December 2012

Christmas Lull



I call this the Christmas Lull as it's the bit between Christmas and the New Year, the time to sort out your sewing projects, tidy up the sewing room, work out what you are going to make for who's birthday etc. As you know I tidied up my sewing room before Christmas, so I guess I am feeling a little smug. I now know where every thing is and I have found all those missing things I was looking for.

Firstly, I must show you a wonderful photo of a Nativity scene my friend sent me that she had made, it is all edible. It is just lovely, she is so clever, her sewing is wonderful too.

Alison's Nativity 

Me, I have been doing my Tax returns and I am happy to say they are finished and it only took me two days this time.


My next job is also a job I hate doing. I have designed a little wall hanging that the magazine Fabrications Quilting for you want to buy, which I am well pleased about of course. It is lovely seeing 
your work in print. However,  now I have to write the instructions, yuck!

 I gaily make things up as I go along, until I think it looks good,.This is a corner of the said wall hanging. I can not show all of it to you as the whole design will become Fabrications. If I ever get around to writing the instructions.!



In between times I have been making up my little log cabin blocks, 40 have been made so far. They are laid out on the spare room bed and every time I pass them, I rearrange them. Bit like a design wall really and I think they are looking good. Only another 41 to go.



 I have made up my 12inch star block with some scraps from our friendship quilt, I found a good tutorial for an eight pointed Twirling star by Edyta Sitar on The Quilt Show projects page, and as I have never made a good 8 pointed star, thought I would give it a go. Not perfect but very nearly, might have to try another one. I have marked up the quiltings lines and now have to quilt it.




I have only one quilting resolution for 2013 and that is to finish up some of my UFO or WIP's as some people call them. They are all in separate boxes waiting for me. Oh joy!!!!











Happy New Year to all the people who read this blog


Keep Safe and Keep Stitching........... Doti.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Merry Christmas


I do hope all my readers of this blog are having a great Christmas especially my recent readers from Poland and Latvia. Welcome! I am having a very quiet and peaceful one. Our family is very widely spread so this year instead of traveling we have stayed at home. We are very cosy with our log fire and have ventured out only to go to Church and to take the dogs for their walks, and also to feed the birds.


Mystery Button Club quilt

I have done very little sewing, though I did finish quilting my mystery button club quilt designed by +Lynette Anderson.  I am very pleased with it, though looking very closely at this photo of it, I see the squirrel button is on the wander, or is he chasing the bee?


We are only having cold meat and pickles today for lunch, so not a lot of cooking to be done. I hope to get on with sewing some more of these tiny log cabin blocks. I have not made log cabin blocks for over 20 years, but this is to be a quilt for my youngest son who loves log cabin Quilts. I must say they are fun to make, forgotten how easy they are, though I have given myself a task as I am making them very small (9" finished size) so I have to make 80 something to get anywhere near a good size quilt. 

The start of my log cabin blocks

I started writing this blog the 30th July 2012 and written 39 posts in all. It has been viewed 1,962 times from people as far away as Venezuela, China and Russia and of course Europe. Out of all those viewings only 31 have commented. Please, when you stop by, say hello.









Merry Christmas to you all.

keep safe and keep stitching...........Doti.. 















Thursday 20 December 2012

Quilting Bee



This was our last visit to the Bee before Christmas. A fun time was had as mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls were the order of the day. Only eight of us were there as the others had other commitments, Christmas being so near, we did however get some sewing done. I was quilting my Lynette Anderson button club quilt. This has been a fun quilt to make and I am pleased it is coming near to the end now, just a small amount of quilting to do and then the binding. I will put up pictures when finished, I do hope to get it finished before the New Year. 

Enjoying mugs of mulled wine
Jenny with her Christmas table runner
This is Jenny with her lovely table runner she designed, the rest of the girls were putting sleeves on wall hangings, making tree decorations and finishing off presents.



As you know from reading previous blogs I am often known to go off at a tangent, and this happened this week. I saw this lovely bunny and just had to make her, so here she is in all her glory. What am I going to do with her, you may well ask. I do not know but for now she can sit by my sewing machine and keep me company.







To all my readers where ever you are in the world, I hope you have a lovely Christmas.




Keep safe and keep stitching......Doti

Thursday 13 December 2012

Friendship Quilts

Early in the year,11 friends from our Wednesday Club Quilting group, which is as you know held at Quilters Haven  decided to make a friendship quilt. We chose a line of fabric called Olivia from QH.We each had to make 12 blocks all the same and 
that was the boring bit.

Ann's lap quilt
 A date was set when your 12 blocks were to be finished, and all  blocks were duly swapped. So we ended up with 11 different blocks and an extra one of our own. Now we had till December to sew them all together however we wished.  

Maggie's lap quilt

Fiona's table Topper


Alison's  Quilt

 Lap quilts , table toppers, bed throws etc were all duly put together in secret at home , and the great reveal was at our end of year party. This is just a few of them. Some were not quite finished and I don't have photos of all of them, sorry girls. 

My Quilt

This was great fun to do and I for one love my quilt, and shall cuddle up under it often. As I look at each block I think fondly of the friends that made it.


Our next years project will be a lot easier.We have decided to make only one 12" block each and the theme is Stars, the fabric to be used is scraps from this years friendship quilts, (my we are being green.) 
I think we have till Easter , and then some one will be nominated to sew it together.
 It will then go to  the Linus Charity.








Keep safe and keep stitching........ Doti

Friday 7 December 2012

Whoopee !


I have had a pattern published in this months Fabrications Quilting for You magazine. It is the second time they have featured one of my designs. Sorry I have not taken a very good photo, but it looks good in the magazine.


My stitchery sampler

I have hung my garland of Snow Men and Hearts up in one of the windows of my sewing room.
They are looking good,even though the window bars always seem to be in the wrong place, and the poor snow man sitting on his wreath does not know which side to look out from. The Christmas tree is up in the front window of my sewing room , but the photo does not do it justice.Will have to wait till it gets dark. 


side window of my sewing room


snowy scene under my tree

Mmmmmm. Am I just beginning to feel a tiny little bit Christmassy ?






keep safe and keep stitching....... Doti

Thursday 6 December 2012

What a busy time



Oh ! I have been busy since my last post, I had a blitz on my fabric stash and I can't resist showing you a couple of my drawers. I have 17 drawers in all. Full of tidy fabric, and believe me it feels great.
I  have two large scrap crates but  I am not showing you those.They never seem to go down and I always make one quilt a year from them for charity. I seem to add to them faster than I use up my scraps.



I finished all the socks I was knitting and now have to parcel them up.





 I also finished my snow man garland from Mandy Shaw's class. I am well pleased with them though I added little hats as they looked cold. Ha! Also I made my secret santa gift, from Joanna Figueroa book With Fabric and Thread. I have been meaning to make one of these for ages.




So all in all I had a productive as well as busy time. This weekend we always put up our Christmas tree, so I lose part of my sewing space as the tree goes up in the window.







Keep safe and keep stitching.....Doti...

Sunday 2 December 2012

Knitting


Well everyone, I have had to stop sewing and get on with my annual sock knitting or my children will not get their christmas pressies now only one more pair to go. I do like knitting socks. That and shawls and scarfs are about the only things I knit now. Gone are the days of always having a jumper on the go.

love these colourful socks 
 I buy this lovely sock wool from Anj of Meadow Yarns. She is part of my knitting group and we meet up at Mains restaurant in Yoxford weekly, though I mainly go in the summer as
 I do not like driving at night.


When we were at Wednesday Club at Quilters Haven this week a lady came in to ask how to put a sleeve on her  first quilt. She wanted to hang it on a wall. Below are two pictures of her quilt. It took her seven years to make and just took your breath away. It was all made by hand, even the quilting. She did however, buy herself a Bernina sewing machine before she left. Now that is one lady that deserves a Bernina sewing machine!

This is just part of it.

close up of one block

It made me think of my first quilt. It was a bed quilt and I too made it all by hand by English paper piecing. Though it is no longer in use I still have it and look on it fondly sometimes, all the little 
hexagons were recycled fabrics and its fun to remember where or who's dress or shirt they came from.




I have the urge to sort out all my fabrics, UFO etc and as you know this does not happen very often so I had better get busy before the urge leaves me.







Keep safe and keep stitching.......Doti... 













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