Wedding

Our daughter Rachel married her long time beau Justin on November 5th, 2016 in a Civil Ceremony at St.Audries Park on the beautiful Somerset coast. It was a lovely, crisp and sunny day filled with much laughter and happiness.

Here are myself and Nanna Lin with our pretty bridesmaid Maisie who thought she was a princess for the day. I made Maisie's dress but I think she was more excited about her beautiful shoes. Despite a 24 hour sickness bug she did very well to stay awake the whole day.

 

Proud dad walking his daughter up the aisle in the Orangerie.

Deed done. 

Bridesmaids, best man Ross and Justin's sons Ben and Daniel. My other daughter Sarah on the end /left and Naomi Justin's daughter on the end/right. Best friends Hannah, Gemma and Terri.

I am hoping now to catch up with some sewing and to try and post a few more stitching related things. It has taken me more than two hours to persevere with a naughty blog that just will not co-operate this morning.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.

Plus Feathers

Remember last year when this...

Became this.....

Pink border added. I had it in my stash so it was perfect. Size is now 32" square.

Deciding on the quilting is always the hardest part for me and usually where I abandon a project but determination was needed. Cross hatching of the squares, easy enough. Hand quilting using Hobbs Polydown as the wadding and only because I had a piece the right size and the backing was a stashed remnant of cotton dress fabric from Laura Ashley in the 1990's. The colour was perfect. I chose to do an elaborate feather border which I adapted to fit from one of Barbara Chainey's pattern books. After stitching the first corner bit I almost gave up as I thought it would take forever and did not like my stitching.

I persevered and carried on with a bit more until the end was in sight which spurred me on......

Yay! A finish. 

Plus Feathers. 

A bit of an adventure but I love it.

One out of six completed. More to come.

Happy Stitching.

Sutton Grange - A finish

Just where has the time disappeared to?

In the missing time I have been busy and have chalked up a momentous finish.

Two years in the making. On/off, but every little bit helps. I saw a saying the other day that said the quilt never worked on never gets finished. So true. 

So, here it is.

Sutton Grange by the fabulous Di Ford Hall.

It looks a little washed out on the above photo. Excuse the yellow pins holding it up on a makeshift design wall. It is quite a size to get into one shot.

It needed something in the centre to bring it all together and the other day inspiration finally hit. I had a bag of pentagons made up from another Di project and so tried one in the centre. Thought it would work but they were not quite the right shades. Scrabbling through the fabrics I found a scrap with just enough to fussy cut out another set of small pentagons ( 5/8" ) and a scrap of the outer fabric for the centre. It worked well and I am pleased. I drew in the tendrils with a pigma pen.

I just hope the quilting does not take two years.

On a different subject. As my role of ribbon cutter extraordinaire I performed my duty at our new sewing venue. My friend Kate moved house and has had a lovely large shed built in the garden as her sewing studio. It is spacious and in a lovely position overlooking the pretty garden and I know we are going to have many happy hours of sewing fun there. Well done Kate on all your hard work getting it ready. We celebrated with buck's fizz and lunch.

Happy stitching.

Shirley.

Distraction

I was not going to join in with any more Blocks of the Month or Mystery Quilts but this one from Quiltmania had me hooked the second I saw it. A quick phone call to Cowslip Workshops and I was signed up.

It is by Petra Prins and uses the new Dutch Chintzes by Petra Prins and Nel Kooiman.

They are beautiful to use. The centre mariner's compass is hand pieced and everything is ready to be tacked down.

Think I may actually finish this one. It is called Discovery.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.

It's been so long....

Where have the months gone to? Here we are now into February and all the promises made in the early hours of the new year are flying out of the window. Better late than never so, here is my first post of the year.

A lot of stitching has been going on in my virtual absence and progress made on my version of Di Ford Hall's Sutton Grange quilt. 

Lots of little drunkard's path blocks or do you call them jockey caps? They are small. Each individual square measures 1.75 inches.

All the curves were appliquéd by hand  rather than pieced and I have to say they were a pleasure to stitch. Might be a few more of those being made in the future.

Next up were the melon blocks. They went together quite quickly too once I got into a rhythm. Makes me wonder sometimes why I have such a low attention threshold but there are so many beautiful quilts being made out there that I want to try them all.

Now to add a small circle in the centre of each block. They are all needle turned and nearly done. Only forty needed. 

The last round is the twisted rope that surrounds the centre medallion. Better get on with it.

Would love to hear from you if you are still following.

Happy Stitching

Shirley.