Hexagon Bag





It has been a productive week stitching wise. Last night I finally finished the Brigitte Giblin hexagon bag. Sewing the frame to the bag was fiddly and there were several failed attempts and some serious unpicking as I realised that the shape of the bag no way matched the shape of the frame. My faulty sewing, not Brigitte's pattern and definitely not the frame. Once I had the shape right it went into the frame easily and I am now contemplating making the new i-pad bag which is bigger and made of diamond shapes. Again, all the fabrics were leftovers from other things. It is being guarded by a tiny chicken pincushion bought many years ago from a sales table at a quilt show.

 

 

 

Quilting has commenced on the Mountain Trail Quilt. I am quilting it in the centres of each strip and down each trail. I hadn't intended such dense quilting but as I have used some leftover polydown just quilting the pale panels left the rest of the strips looking very puffy so, it has to be done. It feels divine. Nothing beats the feel of hand quilting and it may not be perfect but, it will be done sometime this year. You may quote me here.

 

 

 

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? In an effort to use up what I have I found a piece of fabric suitable for the backing but it was a little bit short. What to do? Deep in the depths of a dark box there lurked a very small orphan block, paper pieced many moons ago. It must have been done for a reason, I know not what, but it's time came to be used and by adding corner triangles and strips to either side and by cutting the backing in two pieces and adding the new pieced strip, Voila! Backing now big enough.

 

 

 

Apologies for the blurred image, I know I am rubbish at this but you get the idea. It is another level on the app game and just look at the possibilities for the rose star shape. Is it time wasted playing a game and exercising the old grey cells or is it being creative by sparking off lots of ideas in my head?

Here in old Blighty it is wet and damp and cold and the heating is on. Hope you are staying warm or cool where you are and doing some sewing.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.



Mountain Trail

 

When Lori from Humble Quilts decided to hold a quiltalong for the gorgeous Mountain Trail quilt I thought I would join in. Lori took the pattern from an antique quilt and did it in a miniature form. There is a lot of cutting out and it was done in stages with gaps for the preparation, this week I finally got around to doing all the assembling of the blocks. What was even more of a challenge was the fact that every single piece came from the scrap boxes. Yes, I am still in that mode and surprising what you can get out of those pieces. All the red pieces are leftovers from the hexagon quilt top. Some of the scraps were again salvaged shamelessly from the bags given to me for the doggy pillows. See what you are throwing away my friends and no, you cannot have them back and no, it hasn't even made a dent in the pile. The plain cream border was cut from yardage in my stash and I cannot for the life of me remember what I bought it for. This quilt top measures roughly 23" x 26" with the borders. If you want to make your own version then head over to Lori's blog and you will find the instructions there. Thank you Lori for a fabulous little project.

 

 

 

 

I am indulging in a little knitting, making a small blanket from a kit I bought at Creative Crafts at Westpoint a few weeks ago. The blocks are roughly 7" square and I need to make 12 in total. So far  I have two. The kit came from www.lakesidecrafts.co.uk although it isn't on the web site but you can email them if it is something you would like.



 

I even made a bit of progress on this wavy blanket this week but before you get too excited it was only 2 rows and It took me ages to remember how I did it and had to do a bit of unpicking at first. This week it has been quite chilly and so I think it may be a good project to keep me warm as I crochet.

A few weeks ago we stayed at a lovely B&B in Eccleshall, Staffordshire and opposite was a lovely little flower shop all decorated with pumpkins.

This week has also seen me start with a new addiction but one that is also going to get me into serious sewing trouble. I found this app on my iphone which is a game but as I was searching for patchwork things I thought I was downloading something totally different.  The creative juices were starting to flow and  it has sparked off some ideas. The game is called Through The Glass and you have to put tiny, different shaped pieces of the puzzle into place and you are pitched against an opponent who you can see at the side doing the same. I am extremely slow but have got to level 2, yay! It gets harder. The exciting thing is that the shapes are exactly the same as for the Rose Star block as in the previous post. Look what possibilities it opens up. I am itching to make this into a quilt. How about a challenge Barbara?!! You already have the template and a few pieces started.!! Anyone else up for it?

 

 

A funny thing happened to me at Westpoint the other week. I was at a stand and paying for some fabric when this lady standing near to me suddenly asked " Are you Stitcherydo?" Phew ! Fame and recognition. Will I need to go out in disguise? It was a lovely lady who said that she followed my blog via Dotty Dolly. I think she said that she was named Linda, so Hello Linda. Hope I have that right. Please let me know.

 

Happy Stitching.

 

Shirley.

Dear Jane

 

Dear Jane,

 

You will be so proud of me. After all this time of watching and learning and taking notes you will see that I have been a diligent pupil. Some will even say that I am a little crazy, well, we shall see. I have been busy working on the hexagon bag pattern by Brigitte Giblin and I am just waiting for the frame to arrive so that I can finish it.

 



After all the cutting out I was left with a box full of snippings, such tiny pieces that were destined for the doggy cushions. This dear Jane is where you will be so proud of me. I know that you would not throw those scraps out, oh no! You, dear Jane, would make something out of those little crumbs.

I challenged myself to emulate you in the best possible way. Those teeny, tiny pieces were stitched in a crazy log cabin fashion until they were big enough to be recut into 2.5" blocks. I know, small.

Well, slowly  but surely those snippets became 16 little blocks and with a bit more cutting from the scrap box.......

 This little panel may become a cushion, it may be a little quilt, yet to be decided. Those red squares are way too dark and I shall change them for something more in tone. A girl has to be allowed to change her mind. There are still a few more bits left but I think they can go in the doggy pillows without too much guilt. I hope you will agree.

 

Your Faithful student.

 



Whilst searching for something in my messy chaos I came upon the pieces for the Rose Star block that was started some while ago.  A little bit of sewing here and there gets the job done and the finished block now looks like this. Will I stitch more? We shall see. This is a large block and a one piece shape repeated and fussy cut in places. There are some fabulous examples being stitched out there, Barbara Chainey, Nicky Eglington and heaps more on Flikr.

I recently made the acquaintance of Donna and she very generously sent me this huge bundle of fabrics which she thought may be of use to me in my latest project.  Well, I can tell you that there are some great fabrics in there and I certainly will use them wisely. Thank you Donna, you are a star.

 

 

Happy Stitching.

 

Shirley.