Marg Sampson George

Day 1

Marg Sampson George is amazing. We had a full on four days of stitching with this lovely, fun lady at  Cowslip Workshops and watching her in action taming the stash was so enlightening.

 

My focus fabric to choose my palette was the scrap of pretty Liberty print on the left. It had all the colours that I love and adore. The next task was to simply cut out a few shapes from the chosen palette and audition backgrounds. Decision making is not my forte and I dithered quite a bit.

 

I finally chose this beautifully soft Lecien fabric as my background and for anyone saying "pink again" let me impart a few words of wisdom from the teacher. Your colour is your colour. Make no apologies. It is a personal thing and you have to go with it. It felt like a lightbulb moment. For me pink is such an uplifting colour and is a perfect background choice for so many fabrics and I am not afraid to use it. 

 

 Sue had a special birthday and we sang happy birthday in our best voices and yes that cake was delicious.

 

Colour inspiration on the table.

 

Day one done, well not quite because 8 of us decamped to a pub to celebrate Sue's special birthday.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.

A little adventure

I have long been an admirer of Marg Sampson George from Australia and this week I am going to meet this talented lady who is teaching all week at Cowslip Workshops in Cornwall. It is a wonderful opportunity.

This book is a great read and another hit from the Quiltmania team. It is full of hints and tips to help you organise your stash and how to use it and it is full of wonderful quilts to make.

 

My stash has been plundered, arranged, rearranged, added to and bits taken out and packed into a box big enough to make 10 quilts. Still I keep asking myself if I have enough. There is certainly colour but this is also about pattern and scale. Hopefully there will be something in there that will interest Marg to have a play. I am told she likes to play with other people's stashes.

 

Stay tuned for progress reports. There is still time to come and join in the fun.

Cowslip Workshops

Happy Stitching

Shirley.

Stina's Hearts

A few years ago my lovely friend Stina made me this surprise gift of a mug rug for Valentine's Day. It is far too pretty to use so sits very nicely on my dresser along with my other treasures.

Stina has generously shared the instructions for making  these gorgeous hearts and so I thought I would give it a go. 

First there was one....

Now there are two.....

 

They sit nicely together......

 

If you fancy making one or two yourself then click on Stina and head over to Sweden. The instructions are well written and with good photographic content so you know exactly what it all should look like at each stage.

 

Thank you Stina. I treasure my gift and I think there may be a few more of these little blocks to be made.

 

Happy Stitching.

 

Shirley.x

Anticipation

This little quilt named Anticipation has been on my wish list for some time now. It is from a Quiltmania Summer Special magazine. Designed by Kay Harmon and quilted by Darlene Szabo.

One of my promises to myself was to join in a wool applique group at Cowslip Workshops in Cornwall run by Sue Maddox. It seemed the ideal opportunity to give this little quilt a try out.

 

Having tried out several fabrics I decided on a scrappy background in my favourite pinks. There is a lot more cutting out to do yet and things are only placed but it is forming. The light in my sewing room is appalling and I need to do something about it. It also looks like a dirty mark on the fabric but is just a shadow from below.

 

This could be the start of a whole new addiction just in fabric buying, let alone threads and any stitching.

In class all I managed to do was to cut out the flowers but I learned a whole lot from seeing what everyone else was making and they were patient with my questions. Hoping I can manage the next months meeting and with something to show.

Happy Stitching.

Shirley.x

Promises

In the New Year I promised to set some goals. In previous years I have used words and sayings to help keep me on track but failed miserably. Like most Resolutions. This year I just plan to be more determined.

Last years blogging efforts were really dire so hopefully there is still someone out there interested and not given up on me.

Here goes....

 

A few months ago at my Wednesday Sewing Group I rescued a small pack of roughly cut hexagons from a bin liner full of scraps and challenged myself to do something with them. Not my usual colours but they looked so inviting.

 

They were trimmed to size and I just so happened to have a pack of 7/8" paper pieces from Lina Patchwork.

I played around with quite a few settings and came up with this.

 

Once all the hexagons were stitched it was time to audition background fabrics and it seemed right to only use what I could find in the stash.

 

I eventually settled on the dark blue as it made all the colours appear brighter.

 

Also in my stash was a bundle of Worn and Washed plaids and it fitted in with the recycling ethos that this top was becoming. Strips were added around the borders and it is now a nice size for a small person to snuggle under.

 

Now all I need to do is quilt as desired.

Happy new year if you have got this far. It would be lovely to hear from you.

Shirley.

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.