Suffering the end of course blues

One of the joys of taking up this new hobby has been meeting so many lovely people. A group of us started last year on a course at Busy Bees in Newport to learn to hand piece. Then a number of us went on to a machine piecing course to make a medallion quilt. The course finished on Thursday and most had managed to finish our quilt tops.

I have pieced the back and cut the binding so mine is all ready to be taken to be quilted.


Yesterday I attended a workshop called "Glorious Welsh Quilts". The teacher was the inspirational Sandie Lush who has been making Welsh whole cloth quilts for many years. Many of her quilts are worked on charmeuse satin which shows her exquisite hand stitching to perfection. Sandie has exhibited both in the UK and the US.

The project for the day was to make a cushion top with a Welsh quilt design on a plain fabric. I chose to use a blue cotton sateen with Quilters Dream Orient for the wadding. The wadding contains silk and has a lovely fine and soft feel.

Our chosen patterns were traced on to the top. I taped my pattern and material to a window as it was fairly opaque and this worked quite well. Only problem was that I could not see that I was pressing quite heavily. I just hope the lines come out when it is washed!

Sandie with her wonderful quilt

The examples above are of Welsh quilting while the example below is of Durham quilting. Durham quilts feature a central medallion with larger infills to the corners.

Hand stitching gave us time to chat and have a laugh.

The second part of the class was devoted to learning the principles of drafting a Welsh Quilt. Concentration needed here!

 Sandie has been working on what she calls "sweater quilts" and these are now on exhibition at The Welsh Quilt Centre at Lampeter in Ceredigion. Images of these are on her website and also the Quilt Centre's website. They will be on exhibition until November 1st. Please take a look; they are so different.

I'm writing this in bed on Sunday morning and I can hear Mike putting the kettle on in the kitchen so I had better get up. It's a bit grey outside and not too promising but I think I'll go down to the Farmers Market for a stroll. I spent too much time sitting yesterday.

Whatever you are doing, enjoy your Sunday!


Catherine

I'm back!

I've just checked and it is 3 weeks since I last posted. Manic time with childcare and putting the house on the market added to the mix. Now I've had a few days to recover and feeling myself again.

I decided to really push and try to finish the two quilt tops I was working on so……

Firstly, it's the Hummingbird quilt for my grand-daughter's bed.

This was a free pattern from Rita of Red Pepper Quilts and I am super pleased with how it has turned out. Lexie likes pink but I decided against a pale baby pink and used a tone which is nearer to the Pantone Radiant Orchid so very on trend but there is also lilac, green, orange, beige and red. A real riot of colour. The backing will be one of the prints from the fat quarter bundle of fabrics I bought; Nel Whatmore's Secret Garden, Hedgerow in Linen. It's super bright!

I am having the quilt professionally quilted so I will take some better photos when it is finally finished.
I'm linking this to Quiet Play's Paper Piecing Party

I've also been working very hard on my Medallion Sampler quilt and all I need now is to add the border. I added the sashing today but started to make a few mistakes so I have left the border for class next week. I have also redone a couple of blocks to make the colour balance better.

Finally, I have finished and wet blocked the waistcoat I am making for my Mum for Mothering Sunday (March 30th). I'm linking up with Wool on Sundays with this. 

There was a bit of sunshine this afternoon when I took this so I apologise for the shadows. The waistcoat is an edge to edge design from Sirdar and knitted in Sirdar Softspun. This yarn is now discontinued and to be honest I did not enjoy knitting with it, However, the finished garment feels soft and looks good after blocking. I hope she will be pleased.

My new crochet project is another  shawl for summer evenings. This time it's the Ricicles shawl I found on Cherry Heart

I'm using the Rico baby cotton soft yarn which is a 50/50 cotton/acrylic mix. Lovely soft colours too!

I think that's about it! Supper is cooking and delicious smells of a lamb tagine wafting through the house. Time to go….. have a good weekend,

Catherine

Peely-wally and great service

I really did not sleep too well last night and feeling a bit under the weather this morning. My ex mother-in-law who lived in Northern Ireland used to refer to it as "feeling peely-wally". Wiktionary defines this as 'pasty, pale, ill looking' and it is a Scottish phrase that fits how I feel very well.

I decided to take it easy and do a bit of gentle cooking up of whatever was in the fridge. My SiL Tom grows vegetables on the family farm in Wiltshire and had given me a stack of beetroot, both red and golden varieties. After a quick google for recipes I decided to cook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's version of beetroot soup with feta. Its all blitzed and in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

That left a cauliflower and various oddments in the veggie drawer. I had picked up a leaflet in the supermarket when I was shopping last week for a Pea and cauliflower frittata so that was lunch for today decided.

I am not a natural vegetarian and I like my meat too much but every now and then I just want something simple and soothing but with good flavour. This was delicious! The recipe calls for eggs, cooked cauliflower and peas, spring onions or scallions (depending on where you live), feta and ground toasted cumin seeds. The warmth of the cumin was off set by the tang of the feta and I shall definitely be cooking this again. We ate half today hot and I think it would be equally good cold with a side salad or coleslaw. So thats tomorrow sorted.

When I laid out my blocks yesterday for the Medallion quilt I did a quick calculation to make sure I had enough material to finish. Instant panic set in as I did not have enough of the dark plum colour in the centre star. I looked through my scraps and could not even find a selvedge with the name. However I had jotted down a few of the fabrics when planning the quilt and found the name of the designer but not where I had purchased it in the UK. The fabric was Plum twigs by Renee Nanneman of Need'l Love for Andover fabrics and I found the fabric on her website. She is based in the US. I googled to see if there was a supplier in the UK and no-one had the fabric so yesterday I emailed Renee's company to see if they would ship a small amount over. Within a short time Renee herself emailed back with full details. That was a Sunday afternoon too! Hopefully I should get the fabric to finish the quilt. Panic over and thank you to Renee.

And the moral is……. calculate before you start!

I'm off for a nap,

Catherine

Catching up at last

Thank goodness that's February done and dusted. It must be the most miserable, if shortest, month.
Hopefully now that half term holidays and chickenpox are behind us I can get back to my hobbies at last.

I have a couple of knitting finishes to show and a few blocks of my Medallion quilt so without further ado……Meet Peppa Pig!

Peppa was finished the evening before Isobel's first birthday. I bought her a scooter for later on in the summer so I wanted to give her something else to open on the day.
Peppa cost nothing but a bit of time and effort but she turned out to be a favourite present.

The birthday girl looking a bit bemused.

and the final ta dah is Isobel's Playful Stripes cardigan which she wore for her birthday lunch. Looking quite solemn in this photo.

Since I've returned from Birmingham I have started a waistcoat for my Mum with wool I bought at a show. The yarn is Sirdar Softspun and I'm not sure if I like it at all. I love yarns at the more expensive end of the spectrum and usually choose 100% wool. They tend to be softer and cuddly. This is a mix of 51% nylon, 25% wool and 24% acrylic. The colour is lovely- a silvery grey. It's a DK but knits up less chunky. I'll have to see how it goes.

I'm linking up with Wool on Sundays with these.

Yesterday I had to catch up my Medallion quilt blocks. I had neglected my homework from class last week because of my childcare duties and we were given the pattern for our corner blocks and the central medallion on Thursday. I had a wonderful quiet day cutting and sewing in the conservatory. I am lucky to have a Victorian boardroom table in there and it's a great height for cutting.

Each block set by our lovely teacher Sue has a new technique to master. The corner blocks featured lots of HST practice.

These were the fabric choices for the central medallion. The paler plain fabric in the middle is an Oakshott cotton from the Italy range called Perugia. I love the slight sheen of this fabric and it makes my star look slightly twinkly!

The main background to the quilt blocks is a plain grey but the central medallion and corner blocks have the Lynette Anderson pale grey print. I laid the blocks I have completed so far out on the table in the conservatory to see how it was coming together. There will be two blocks between each corner block. I have decided to re-do the Lily block with a grey background to balance the quilt. There is quite a bit more to do on the central medallion. I have shown Sue's quilt with the middle detail below my layout.
Please excuse the photo. I should have removed the table cover first.

Sue's quilt

Right, I'm off to do some more FPP for Lexies Hummingbird quilt. Sunday lunch is in the oven. It's Jamie Oliver's 6 hour roast pork and smells delicious in the kitchen. The photo is Jamies, not mine!
 Only another 3 hours to go so I should get a few blocks done.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Catherine

Knitting WIPS

Hi everyone,

I'm dashing around instead of having a restful Sunday morning. I got back yesterday from my Cascading Logs class and was too tired after a full days sewing to put everything away. This afternoon I'm driving up to my daughter's house in Birmingham to look after my grandchildren one of whom has chickenpox so there's no nursery for them and Grandma to the rescue. I remember having calamine lotion put on my itchy spots as a child but I think treatments have now improved since those days.

This is just a quick post to link up with Wool on Sundays and an almost finish for me, at last!

I have had Isobel's cardigan on the needles for ages and all I had to do was graft the underarms with Kitchener stitch. The problem is that I hate grafting and kept putting it off. I found a video on Youtube showing how to do Kitchener stitch by knitting and not sewing. It's the same technique but with a third knitting needle and not a tapestry needle. The end result is an (almost) invisible graft between the two pieces. I think I'll need to practice again but I was satisfied with the result and finally sewed on some lovely pottery buttons that were made in South Africa. The cardi is now washed and blocked and drying in the airing cupboard to speed up the process. All ready for Isobel's first birthday on Wednesday. I must just remember to take it with me.

Ta Da!!!!

(Please excuse the photo, the light was quite poor)

I have not had much time for Peppa Pig so I am going to hunt out the toy stuffing and some black and white wool to finish off the project before Wednesday. I bought Isobel a scooter for her birthday so she can start to use it in the summer but I want to finish Peppa for Wednesday too so I'll try to finish her in the evenings when the children are in bed. The red is a bit bright but I am hoping that will add to her appeal!

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's projects on Wool on Sundays. Enjoy what is left of your Sunday.

Oh, nearly forgot. I thought I'd post some photos of our trip last week with my oldest grandson and his sister to Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum in Wiltshire. If you have children to amuse during the holidays its a great way to pass a few hours. My grandson really enjoyed clambering into the cockpits to 'fly' the planes. I loved seeing the biplane as my dear Grandfather George had joined the Royal Flying Corps (the predecessor of the RAF) in 1917 at the age of 18 and worked a mechanic on these very planes.

Preparation for the Cascading Logs class with Jan Hassard at Busy Bees

As promised I said I would reveal my fabric choices for this class tomorrow.  Jan specified 4 feature fabrics in 4 colours (suggesting green, mauve, pink and yellow) and 3 light and 3 dark fabrics in each colour too.

Cottonpatch in Birmingham has a wonderful selection of fabrics and I was drawn to these Philip Jacobs for Rowan chrysanthemum prints. Each of the prints included a small amount of colour from the other prints and I hope this will tie the whole quilt together.

From the left the feature fabrics are:

1. Japanese Chrysanthemum in Green
2. Japanese Chrysanthemum in Purple
3. Floating Mums in Taupe
4. Floating Mums in Magenta

The staff in the shop were very helpful and relaxed about the vast number of fabrics I pulled from the shelves until I made my final selection. The instructions were to purchase enough fabric for at least 3 full width strips of 1½" plus a bit extra so I bought ¼ metre of each and ½ a metre of the feature fabric. Not a cheap class!

I have spent the afternoon cutting the strips and cannot wait to see how they will be used tomorrow. 

I am off to Birmingham again on Sunday as my grandson has chickenpox, poor thing! I suppose that means his baby sister will catch it too. 

Jan Hassard makes the most wonderful and colourful quilts herself, Check out her website for some great photos and amazing quilts. Keep your fingers crossed I can cope with this class. I'll take lots of photos! 

Manic week

Talk about slow blogging! It's been no blogging for the last couple of weeks. I seem to have been so busy with crochet and patchwork classes, weekend visitors and family commitments. Time to catch my breath, sit down and write a few words down. I'm linking up with "Proud to be a Slow Blogger" over at kettleboiler.

Last weekend by sister-in-law and her husband came to stay. Lovely to catch up, eat some good food and drink some wine.

Yesterday I drove up to Birmingham to buy some fabric for a class next Saturday and to visit my daughter Jenny and her family. I stayed over so that they could go out for a Valentine's day meal and I stayed in to babysit my two lovely grandchildren.

The fabric is for a class next Saturday with Jan Hassard. It promises to be a challenge for me! The title of the class is Cascading Logs. Jan's quilts are full of colour and I had to buy a total of 28 fabrics in 4 colour ways; 3 light greens, 3 dark greens and a feature fabric. This is repeated in pink, mauve and cream/brown colours. I also purchased the fabric for the back and binding of my Hummingbird quilt.
I'll blog about the class and keep the fabrics to show then.

My Medallion quilt is coming on too. I managed to finish these three this afternoon when I got home.

Last Tuesday was my final crochet class and I am really missing it. I started the Nordic Shawl and enjoyed it so much I just kept going. I am so pleased with it.

My very dear friend Sue is having a significant birthday at the beginning of April and I have decided to make her a Blooming flower cushion as part of her present. I found the pattern on Attic24.  Lucy's website is an amazing crochet resource and I hope to go up to Skipton sometime to do a course with her. I've chosen pastel tones in sugared almond colours so fingers crossed it turns out well.

I've also started a fun quick knitting project for Isobel who is one in a couple of weeks. My friend Liz sent me a link for a Peppa Pig knitted toy. I'm not sure if Peppa Pig is on TV in the US/Canada. She is a slightly bossy little cartoon pig on children's TV. The pattern was in Womans Weekly and is also available as a free download from their website. You have to sign in to the shop website but the pattern is free.

I'm linking up to Wool on Sundays to show off my shawl!

My husband is cooking a Valentines Day + 1 special dinner so I'm off to enjoy!!!

Amethyst block

Well, it's February and the second block in the Classic Meets Modern QAL was announced by Erin on Saturday. She chose the Amethyst block.

It looked easy enough I thought.

….So why have I struggled all day???  Those Y seams, thats why. I have done Y seams by hand on my sampler quilt but never on a machine. Erin suggested two tutorials to help.

• Elizabeths Easy Y Seams
• Faith's Easy Y-Seams

I followed Elizabeth's method and really struggled. I sewed, snagged, unpicked and almost threw them in the bin. I tried with a second block but I'm not totally happy. The Y's are really lumpy and I would be ashamed to show the backs of the blocks.

first attempt

I've run out of steam this afternoon so I'm going to leave it until next week when I will have more time to try again. I'll try Faith's method then.


If you have any thoughts or tips they would be appreciated. I'm off to crochet!



Catherine

My first crochet project- the Nordic Shawl

the start of the shawl

I'm linking up with Janine's Wool on Sundays party this morning at Rainbow Hare Quilts.

My beginner's crochet class is finishing next Tuesday evening and I've chosen the pattern and wool for my first project. It is the Nordic Shawl by Annette Ciccarelli at My Rose Valley  I'm making it in Bergere Ideal as you can see above but adding in one or two balls of DK from my stash. Until I started quilting and crochet I had not realised that purple tones were my favourites.

Initially I had thought to make a blanket but the prospect of such a lot of work before I had something to show you was too much to contemplate. Annette's blog is so pretty and full of gorgeous photos. I am so envious! 

The finished shawl looks amazing on Annette. I only hope I don't look too grannyish in mine when it is done. (so, what's wrong with that, I am a granny!)

Nordic shawl

I have finished the blue card I had blocked and I am pleased with the result. The bluebell colour really suits Isobel so I'm sure Jenny will love it. It is knitted in Sirdar Snuggly.

My yarn arrived and I made a start on the Spate fingerless mitts during the week but need to go on Youtube this weekend to master the Magic loop method of knitting in the round. 

So, that's all my yarn doings for now.

Catherine

Focus; or not!

There is only one thing wrong with being a Newbie and that is I feel pulled in all directions to try new ideas and techniques. I need to find my quilting niche. Will I be a traditionalist, a hand quilter, a modern quilt fan? EPP or FPP?  I would love to say I have a quilting finish but I don't and it may be some time before I do.

Here's what I have on the go at the moment:

• Hand quilting my first patchwork sampler. Ongoing-  I've finished 8 blocks, 4 to go and the borders. I really enjoy the quiet time but I am very slow

• Machine patched sampler for my beginners class. Ongoing for the next 2 months or so. I have completed 2 blocks and need to cut the next this weekend

• Hummingbird quilt: Ongoing and need to crack on with this before Lexie's new bed is delivered! LOVE FPP!!

• Classic Meets Modern QAL  Just got the second block instructions for February from Erin. This months block is called the Amethyst block. It looks very simple apart from the "Y" seams but I'm hoping to do a few variations with the middle square. I might attempt a wonky cross or porthole - watch this space. 

I've also got numerous knitting and a crochet project on the go but I'm saving them for another post tomorrow to link up with Wool on Sundays at Rainbow Hare Quilts

It is raining yet again in South Wales and it looks as if February is going the same way as January. Spare a thought for all those who are living in the areas of the South-west, especially Somerset, that have been devastated by the flooding.

Off to quilt my sampler,


Catherine