What a Week!

 This week I have celebrated my birthday, my wedding anniversary and, more unusually the day when I tipped from spending more of my life single into spending more of my life married.  Just think, more than half my life as a married woman!  Not sure whether it's me or DH who need the congratulations, to be honest!

It's the first week that I've felt that we are back into the rhythm of school, and I've made more sewing and C&G progress than for some weeks, which is always something to make me smile!

This 'lasagne quilt' was a team effort.  Benta (go over and wish her 'Happy Birthday' too - we share a celebration day!) made the top, and I backed it with fleece, bound and quilted it.  Another finished top for the charity pile from our quilting group.

I've also been 'back basting' in order to make some forward progress with my Love Entwined.

 

 I use freezer paper templates ironed onto the back of the fabric, a square of fabric on the front, and off I go with the sewing machine, sewing around the shape.

Then all I need to do is to cut around the stitching lines to leave the seam allowance before I'm ready to sew.

Nice and straightforward even if my applique skills haven't quite mastered getting some of the curves as smooth as I'd like them to be.

I'm not quite keeping up with the rate at which the BOM is being issued, but I'm still enjoying it!

My other crafting time has been spent making braids.  I can't quite get this text lined up with the photo, but there are five different types of braid in the snap, all part of my Module 9 'trimmings' samples.  I've got some more samples to sew for my next design, more hatbands to finish and a bit of paperwork to do, then I'll be able to submit it.  Probably two or three weeks until that point, though!

Pointing out a Finish!

 Inspired by the lovely work of Anne Bebbington, and in particular by a triangle in a square quilt seen here, I decided to make my own version in grey, blue and pink for DD1's 'Brown Owl' who has been very patient and understanding over the years.  Anne was kind enough not only to say that I could copy her idea (thanks Anne!) but also to give me tips on construction  which made this a nice fast construction job.

It was a 'deadline quilt' as DD1 will move up from Brownies to Guides by leaping over the toadstool on Thursday night.

'Brown Owl' in our pack isn't actually called 'Brown Owl' by the girls.  She is called 'Dodo' - so this is my best attempt at a dodo on the run, which is how she must live her life in order to fit everything in!

I love the 'compass pointing' that the triangles do if you rotate the blocks.  I'm less certain about the placement of my silhouettes on the quilt, but wanted to put each of them on a dark space so that they showed up.  If I was making this again I'd have fused a dark fabric under the silhouette so that I could put them over block joins..... another learning experience!

I also added a Guiding trefoil.  On reflection, probably enough to get me thrown out of the Brownies for copyright infringement or some such.  I'll just have to hope that its taken in the right spirit as a one-off non-commercial item.

I hope that Dodo likes the quilt.  I'm pleased to say that the 'commissioning mother' was very pleased with last week's camera cushion cover.

Just a couple more sewing items to do (replacing elastic in slippers in time for DD2 to take them on a school residential trip tomorrow is top of the list - and I can hardly think of anything more tedious, to be honest!  At least that should be a relatively quick job!) and then I'll get back to my neglected college work (and perhaps a bit on Love Entwined, which made a tiny bit of progress this week, unphotographed though.

Lights, Camera, Action!

 The girls have been back at school almost a week now - and I have my first finish to show for the term!

If I conveniently overlook the bit where I scorched the only piece of white fabric that I had available for the cushion centre, necessitating an unforeseen trip to my LQS at the weekend (the girls loved it, really, no, I hardly had to bribe them with bags of scraps at all, honestly......!) it all went well!

I'd been asked to make a cushion cover incorporating film / camera / theatre motifs, ready for an 18th birthday later this year. 

I needed to have it made in time for next Monday, as I only see the person who'd asked me to make it three times a year.  I'm really pleased that I have made the deadline with time to spare!

I hope that she likes the design that I've come up with.  I have realised that because she's only ever seen what I stitch during ballet lesson waiting, she might be expecting something hand stitched.  This is not hand stitched - all lovely, lovely machine stitching! (and 18" square, if you are interested in the scale).

I'm keeping quiet about my lack of hand stitch progress on Love Entwined.  Just four days to go until part 4 is published and even if I stitched full time from now until then I wouldn't have finished part 3!  Not to worry, it will wait for me!

Just as well, as I'm about to start cutting fabric for another quilt with a deadline!

Hope you are finding time for some happy stitching.

Coot Club Forever (and Ever)!

 Are you a fan of Arthur Ransome books too?

I loved them and seem to have passed this on to my DDs, I'm pleased to say!

A few days staying in Norfolk with my sister allowed us to pay homage to Coot Club and The Big Six last week.

With the organisational skills of my sister, boat driving skills of my BiL and eldest nephew, and some lovely weather we spent a wonderful day on the Norfolk Broads

 When not engaged in helping to steer, the girls loved watching for Great Crested Grebe, Coots (of course!), swans, and anything else that they could see.

Of course, any wooden motor cruisers were marked down as the Margoletta, and their crew as Hullabaloos.  Any vessel under sail examined to see if it could be The Teasel or Titmouse.  We managed to trip into Roys of Wroxham  (the shop that sells nearly everything!) too.  Lots of ticks on the mental list of 'things to do related to Coot Club without actually teaching the girls to sail'!

 

I'm pleased to say that a stop off at the end of the day to look at the Staithe at Horning lead to the discovery of a little yarn bombing - DD2 was quite taken by the idea of an arm cover for the bench!  This is just about the only textile related item for the entire week - my sewing plans haven't really come to anything.


Finally, tea at The Swan Inn at Horning.

I'm sure that none of The Death and Glories, Port, Starboard or Tom Dudgeon would have gone there for a meal, but the lack of authenticity was made up for by the meal being delicious and their big cousin kind with his largesse of piggy back rides!

A lovely 'last hurrah' for the hols.  We are now back to the usual school routine, this year simplified slightly by my DDs being on the same school site.

Happy autumn (or with weather this warm, Sortumn) thoughts to you all!  I'm off to plan a trip to the Lake District to examine Swallows and Amazons territory.