A Friday Finish for me at last!

Hello everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American quilting and knitting friends. I hope you are having a wonderful time with your families and friends gathered round. I am a teeny bit jealous and then again a teeny bit glad I don't have to organise another family feast. Christmas is probably enough for me.

Tuesday was the last class of our cutting mat bag course. It has been great to sew with some lovely ladies and a shame it has come to an end. I have spent this afternoon putting the final touches to my effort and I am just waiting for the varnish to dry on the handles to take a photo. They should be dry by the time I post this on Friday. The bag has pockets for a 24x6" ruler, a 12' x 12" ruler, a rotary cutter, a notebook and a 24' x 18" cutting mat. All the pockets are lined and quilted before attaching to the bag. We have appliquéd, patched and foundation pieced the various blocks before embellishing them. It was a lot of work but I am pleased with the result. I blogged about the bag here.
Guess who likes Kaffe Fassett and saturated colour? - me! I used Kaffe Fassett shirt stripes for the linings and binding, Benartex Essential Gradations for the maple leaves, Wickerweave for the background and various Kaffe Fassett prints for the flowers and stars.

Mike has made the sloe gin this year. We picked the sloes (blackthorn berries) in late September. Blackthorn has lethal thorns and they have to be picked so carefully. They were frozen then put in Kilner jars of gin until this week. The freezing means that the sloes do not have to be pricked for the gin to penetrate and for the flavours to mingle. The colour is glorious. The recipe does not need the best gin. We used bog standard supermarket brand gin. Mike added the sugar after decanting the gin from the berries and warmed it slightly to dissolve (Do NOT boil the alcohol off!) This saves the shaking of the sloes every few days and the sugar is added to taste. I find most commercial sloe gin too sweet so our is just sweet enough. Very fruity and warming. It is all bottled up and we might give a bottle or two away as presents.

Tomorrow I am attending a class on machine and free motion quilting. I have been practising and I think I am getting better but I need all the help I can get.

Have a wonderful weekend, especially to my dear friends Margaret and Colin whose son is getting married.

Catherine

Linking up to: TGIFF and  Can I get a whoop whoop?,

Stir Up Sunday, the start of the Christmas season.

Stir up Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent and is so called because of the Collect in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549.

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Traditionally this was the day for the making of Christmas Pudding but I'll let you in on a secret. I marinated the fruit on Friday and steamed the pudding on Saturday as the pudding requires 8 hours steaming and it was more convenient to steam when I was not cooking Sunday lunch. I use the Delia Smith recipe from her Christmas Cookbook. I love all the spicy smells and the traditional stirring and wishing. The pudding has now cooled and been put away to mature for Christmas Day.

I've been trying to finish off a few bits and pieces. I finally finished the Christmas Stocking for Bee Hive. All the members of Bee Hive are making them and they are to be donated to the children's ward in a local hospital. The front is quilted and the back has a simple star appliqué.

I am a bit behind with my "homework" for the cutting mat bag class. I have to make 12 maple leaf blocks as a panel and have only managed 8 before running out of background fabric so I've placed an urgent order and I hope it will be delivered for Tuesday morning.

I've removed the machine tacking out of the stems and stitched them down since the photo.

Last week I had the great pleasure of attending a class in Cheadle Hulme near Manchester at Patchfinders with Lucy Brennan of Charm About You. The shop has a fantastic fabric selection and I will be visiting it next time I am in the area.
Lucy was brilliant and the day passed too quickly. She was teaching the Japanese +x quilt block. I had been a bit concerned about my fabric choices as they were quite far out of my comfort zone but I am pleased with the 6 blocks I completed. It might have been more if I had not chatted as much.
This will not be the final layout!

I will put this project on hold until the New Year as there is so much to finish for Christmas.

I've been knitting up a storm to finish some hand knits for my granddaughters. I started the Tiny Tea Leaves cardigan last week for Lexie. This pattern was written by Melissa LaBarre and is meant to be a quick knit so here's hoping. I am knitting the size 6 for her (26" chest). The yarn is Sublime extra fine merino DK in a peacock blue colour. This is the first time I have knit a garment in the round from the top down. Everything has gone well so far but I am now waiting for a set of double pointed needles to finish the sleeves. This will another first as I have not knit anything in the round before either. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The button bands look like they may need a good stretch when I block- or should I unpick and adda few stitches- not sure what to do.

Other projects to finish before Christmas:

• Christmas Tree quilt- quilting started but lots to do.
• Christmas napkins
• Isobel's cardigan
• 2 chunky hats (also in the round!)
• Cushion covers.

Linking up to Janine's Wool on Sundays. Janine is celebrating her first year of Wool on Sundays with a giveaway so pop on over and take a look.

also linking to my unfinished cardi to Celtic Thistle Stitches:

and to Ho, Ho, Ho and on we sew, November over at Rose and Dahlia with my stocking

Also linking to Lee's WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. #wipwednesday

Have a great week and try not to stress about Christmas plans (note to self!). Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends too!

Catherine

Summer's end

The weather changed suddenly overnight and I woke to a blustery day and rain. A perfect day to get my sewing machine out if only for a short while. This afternoon we are back to summer but I am not sure it will last.

I settled down to finish the flower pot blocks which will be on the outside of the cutting mat bag that I am making in class. The flowers are saw-tooth stars with machine appliquéd stems and leaves. The green fabrics were scraps from my stash and I used a simple zigzag to outline the leaves.

The inside of the bag will be Kaffe Fassett Shirt stripes- I just love saturated colour!

We were asked to choose some highlight fabric to add a border to the group of 4 flower blocks but I decided that since I had so much bright colour I would use a dark colour to frame them. The following is an example of how not to take a photo- please excuse my shadow! The border will be squares of the gold background and squares of the dark green with black squiggles. It is  Pheasant Hill by Kanvas Troubles for Moda. The green matches the flower pots and the green in the Kaffe Fassett fabric perfectly.

I love autumn with a passion. Maybe it is because this is my birthday month or maybe it is the rich colours around in the garden. I picked a few dahlias for the table in the sitting room. We finished off the last of our ripe tomatoes on bruscetta for lunch and I labelled my green tomato chutney for the cupboard. There is something so satisfying about filling the cupboards with preserves for winter.

My friend Jane gave me 4kgs of green tomatoes last week. The recipe contains onions and sultanas with brown muscovado sugar. The house reeked of the spiced pickling vinegar for a few days but the results are worth it. Six huge jars to accompany cheese and meats. I'll leave it to mature for a few weeks before we sample it. I might give a couple of jars as presents at Christmas.

Lastly, I have made some progress with my Coastal ripple crochet blanket. It is becoming quite heavy to manoeuvre on my knee but is lovely and snuggly. 33 ripples done and only 51 to do.

I have been fairly busy this weekend visiting family and I am enjoying spending today pottering around the house and catching up.

Have a great week,

Catherine

I'm linking this week to

and 

Like swallows...

Like swallows, the last of my summer visitors have flown away and we are left with happy memories of meals shared, conversation and trips, not to mention a fridge full of left-overs and bits. We will not be going food shopping for a few days. The house is nearly back to normal and we have spent a few hours tidying the garden.
Not much accomplished this week on the crafting front. I've managed a few more rows of my Coast ripple blanket (now up to thirteen colours) but no quilting whatsoever. I've promised myself a full day of quilting tomorrow.

Firstly a ripple blanket progress photo. It will be a single bed size blanket when I finish.

Last week I went with my two friends, Gilly and Jan, to Lampeter which was looking glorious in the sunshine. We will all be doing a quilting class which starts next week to make a quilted bag to carry our cutting mats. I had a 2m. piece of Kaffe Fassett for the inside of the bag but needed more fabric for background and appliqué. I'm sure I might have had enough fabric if I had looked hard enough but I needed some inspiration and there is no better place than Calico Kates.

The very bright fabric in the background is my original choice for the lining of the bag from my stash. The lighter gold will be the background for the blocks. The design has 4 flower pots which will be made from the basket weave plus a.n.other and the flowery Kaffe print will be some of the flowers. There are also maple leaf blocks for which I will use the dark green and possibly some red and burnt orange fabric.

I also acquired these autumnal beauties. The fabric on the left is some vintage Liberty. The label on the back says it is Liberty Gloriosa, Cottage Garden in colour way A. I'm not sure how old this is, could it be 1950s?

While we were in Lampeter we visited the exhibition in the Jen Jones Quilt Centre. The current exhibition, Early to Bed,  has been running for some time. The displays are of 19th century quilts which celebrate the folk art and  make do and mend of that era.

A quilt made with tweed from a tailor's sample book

The original labels on the reverse of the tweed

And lastly some Victorian hall tiling inspiration.

I'm hoping to make 2 or 3 of my Summer Breeze blocks tomorrow before summer breezes become autumn gales!

I'm linking to Wool on Sundays.