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Thursday 29 August 2013

Now where on earth did I get that.

That is what I thought when looking at my big ol' lumps of fabric in my stash, suitable for backings. Still not sure where it came from but it is just perfect for backing the Egyptian quilt. I needed something to give it a warmer look, as it is a very cool quilt, (temperature wise) to look at, all white and aqua.


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So the quilt was duly basted, and I have started to quilt it. I really wanted to hand quilt it, but having spent lots of pennies on my new machine with it's big throat, I thought I ought to bite the bullet and machine quilt it. At the moment, I am just outlining the triangles.

Now isn't that shot rusty orange just right for this quilt ? 
Who ever gave it to me, "Thank You "

Quilt showing backing.
Still got the urge to hand quilt some of this quilt, so it might get both, we will have to wait and see....


I have (bought yet other new book, Tula Pink's City Sampler (100 modern quilt blocks). I joined an online quilting Bee and it seems everyone is making modern blocks, so I had better keep up to date. Ha! I think I might be the oldest quilter in this group.



I have made one of the blocks from the book so far, with some scrap fabric from you know where. It's  6 1/2" square and, yes, it's quite nice. My intention is to make up blocks from scraps as I go along, then possibly I will have a sampler quilt at the end.



I have to show you my sock buddy, with the "Christmas Socks" to date. I am now on the third pair, I seem to be all behind this year. A bit like this blog post, life gets in the way sometimes.






Keep safe and keep stitching...Doti..

Friday 23 August 2013

Bits and Pieces

It does seem to have been a week of bits and pieces on the sewing front. I did add some borders to my Egyptian quilt and now it needs to be sandwiched with wadding/batting and backing, which is not my favourite task so I shall wait till the weekend, when I can use the big table in our holiday cottage to spread it out.


With the scraps I made a slab block, I wanted to see if it would look good as a 20" Block. Not quite sure about it at the moment but it is up on the design wall and I keep looking at it, and as yet I can't make my mind up.

20" slab block.

More bits and pieces in the shape of Mug Rugs. I have never made a mug rug before, but they seem to be all the rage. One of my friends asked us to make some for her church sale. The first one I made yesterday ended up a little wonky, so I found some more little embroideries and made a couple more. The last two are at least not wonky. I have quite a stash of these little embroideries, made when I was trying out new colours or threads or just new designs.So these at least have come in handy and hopefully put to to good use.



The "girls" at Wednesday Club were all busy as usual. Ann had brought her Mystery BOM to show, she still has to sew blocks 4 & 5 on but it was looking good, love the batiks.

Ann's Mystery Quilt.

 Annie was blanket stitching around her hearts, and had made some tiny butterflies. They were lovely, I might have to pinch that idea..

Annie's Quilt, note tiny butterflies.

 If you remember Allison's jelly roll race quilt in William Morris fabrics on
 the blog( Finish up Friday 24th of May 2013), well she has made a lovely William Morris design to go on top of it and was very busy machine appliquéing around the most intricate design.

Alison's William Morris Quilt.


Wednesday afternoon was Wickham Market's monthly market, so in the afternoon we all went and had afternoon tea in the Market Square. The sun was shining and we had a lovely time in the pop up tea shoppe, all 1950's delicate china, pots of tea and cakes,  including a guy playing a Saxophone it was Wonderful. A real Joy...




Might just make a few mug rugs for my self, now I have got the hang of it..







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


Monday 19 August 2013

Mr Bee and Me.

Have I been busy, indeed I have. Well not as busy as this Bumble Bee, that was collecting pollen on our Hollyhocks. He was truly loaded down with pollen, hope he got home safely.

Mr Bumble Bee busy working.

Every time I looked at my blog after my last post, it gave me the miseries, what a mess indeed.. It now looks a lot better. I will not bore you with lots of photos, but believe me it's a lot nicer place to work in.

One view of my sewing room after I was busy.

After the grand tidy up, it was time to get back to my "Nap like an Egyptian Quilt". I have changed it about quite a lot, as it was an odd shape, and this is it so far. I did not realise I had so many aqua fabrics, though it is a colour I am very fond of. I have paired it with Kona Snow but more work is needed on it so watch this space. 



I do the oddest thing some times. I see something that I really like and know would look great at home, but I don't buy it. I think, well if it's here next time I come, I will buy it. This happened a couple of  weeks back. I saw this lovely jug of artificial flowers, and yes it would be perfect at home ( I am not so hot with house plants) did I buy it NO.. well, it was there again when I went back, just sitting there waiting for me and YES home it came.

Dried flower arrangement.


I am very pleased, I went back again this week. They are so pretty, and remind me of my lovely daughters visit , she was with me when I first saw it.

It's too warm to do things in the garden today, so it's back to the sewing machine.








Keep safe and keep stitching...Doti..



Friday 16 August 2013

What a Mess.

What a mess indeed. I walked into my sewing room yesterday, and decided that no way could I do any sewing till I had tidied, sorted, and put away some of the mess. I am only putting these photos up small as to say the least I am a bit ashamed. You would think that not having a door on the sewing room, only a curtain, would make me keep it tidier. 


 WOW, seeing it in print it looks even worse. Its all because I had lots of odd deadlines, things that had to be posted or delivered etc etc.. 

 Well it is somewhat tidier today, and oh joy, I have found several things that were missing..

The Bee on Wednesday was fun as always, though several were missed as they were on holiday. Its a hand stitching group so lots of stitching, and much cake eating as usual. I took my Daisy Day blocks by Jenny of Elefantz Designs  to stitch. It makes a change to embroider someone else's designs, and not mine and they are so pretty.
Block 3 

This week, as I am not sewing until all the mess is all cleared up, I also sorted out my Christmas sock knitting. Lots of lovely sock wool purchased and the first pair well on the way. My wool basket looks great and my sock buddy(with attitude), which my daughter made for me many years ago out of an abandoned sock looks well pleased.

My sock Buddy

1st pair of christmas socks nearly there.

I have been following a blog  called "square grannie" by a lady called Deborah, who also knits socks as well, and when she photographs them she stands the little cuffs up. They look so cute. I can't seem to do it with mine, they are too floppy.

 I guess its time to get back to tidying the sewing room.






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

Monday 12 August 2013

Mystery Quilt Block 5

On my last post, I said I did not know where the weeks go. Well, now I am saying where do the months go. We are now on month 5 of our little mystery wall hanging, and after todays stitching it should look something like this. But in your own colours and fabrics, of course.

Block 5 added to blocks 1 2 3 & 4.

Corner of this months block.

Sorry, not wonderful photos. Not sure if it's camera, computer, or me playing up.






Cut 1 strip  1  1/2” wide by width of fabric 42” needed. in light fabric

Cut 1 strip 1  1/2” wide by width of fabric 42” needed in contrast fabric.

Cut into 2” oblongs and join together to form an elongated checkered board,  (all seams 1/4” )
11 pairs long and add to side of your previous blocks. (1 2 3 & 4)

Cut a 2 1/2” square of background fabric and join it to the 10 pairs of checkerboard oblongs and add across the bottom of your quilt. 

Now draw and embroider the little bird in the 2 1/2” square, and the musical notes on the corner of Block 1 (see main picture)

Cut a strip of contrasting fabric 1  1/2” X 17” and add to bottom of quilt.

Block 5 Finished...>>





Now back to my triangle quilt. It's not as easy as it looked in the book., and to say I am sorry to the 31 people who have already looked at my blog this morning for being a little late. Only just had my brecky and have not had my coffee yet.








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

Friday 9 August 2013

Wednesday Club Roundup.

 Where do the weeks go? It was Wednesday Club again, much laughing, much cake eating, and a little sewing, though mainly friends being together and having fun. Much of the laughter was directed at Maggie, bless her, when she told us she had read all three books of 'Fifty shades of Grey'. I did not know there were three books even. The laughter was more of a shock on our part as we teased her about being a church warden..

This is a little round up of what some of the girls were doing. This is Maggy's quilt top, it is called Fiona and several of us have made it, great for using up scraps. I am not sure which book it is from but if you would like to know, leave a comment and I will search it out.

Maggy's Fiona Top.

  This was Fiona's neat little piles of fabric, she was going to make place mats, nice colour combo.


 Annie was cutting out hearts to go with her nine patch blocks, scraps from a previous quilt.


  Ann had put her Churn Dash blocks together, and could not decide if  a.  was it big enough and b. should she put a border on it. Lots of conflicting advice given by the rest of us. Me, I would have put a nice border on it. It is going off to Spain afterwards to her sons holiday home. That is going to look so good in sunny Spain.


 Then there was Jan, sewing on the binding of her very colourful quilt.

Jan's lovely quilt.

Lots of others were doing lovely things but I did not take photos.

Me, well I had bought yet an other book. This one by Jo Colwill called Cushions and Quilts, so yes I am off at another tangent to make another cushion.

Making up the 25 patch.
Quilting the patches.
Then I spent some of Thursday finishing it off.  This is the finished cushion, already for me in the sewing room next to the wood burner where I sit to do my hand sewing in the winter.

Now I must get back to the triangle quilt, I did not take it to Wednesday Club as it needs a lot of concentration on my part. I also need to make sure I have written up the pattern correctly for the mystery BOM quilt, so till the 12th of the month..







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








Monday 5 August 2013

Little Bunny Quilt.

As promised, this morning we put all the names in a tea cup (as there were not many) and the winner is No 2 Hilly Filly. I have sent Hilly Filly an email, I do hope it looks good on the Nursery wall, Teresa!

Thank you to every one who commented, I am sorry you could not have all won, but there was only one little quilt.

This week has been a very odd week for sewing, and for that matter knitting wise. We have had our lovely daughter staying and as the weather has been so nice we have been out and about most days.

 I had bought another lovely book of Yoko Saito's a couple of weeks back. The lovely quilt shop in Bungay Sew and So's had got it in English. Amazon had only got it written in French....


 I had picked this little pouch to make, to practice my needle turned appliqué. I have got very proficient with raw edged appliqué on my sewing machine, but I do like hand turned appliqué  and alas, I am not very good at it (dreadful really).


 This is my finished pouch and it is slightly better than some I have done before, but it's far from perfect. So now I need to do some more, practise makes perfect they say. I would hate to tell you how much I have practised over the years and how many different techniques I have tried and I am still not happy. But as you know, I am a plodder so watch this space....

This was something else I started before my avalanche of visitors. Its from Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg & Cheryl Arkison. The quilt is called Nap like an Egyptian. Though I am changing it slightly and doing mine all with a light background. Amanda writes a great blog called crazy mom quilts.



I have been hoarding this lovely aqua fabric for a long time, looking for just the right quilt to make with it. As I would also like to make mine larger than Amanda's, I have lots of these triangular blocks to make, so this is work in progress. I need a break from my UFO's..








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