Merry Christmas everyone

Merry Christmas to you all, I hope you have a good holiday, good company, time to put your feet up, and perhaps a few quilting pressies.
I promise I'll try to blog a bit more, life has been a little topsy turvy here, and I've mislaid my Camera so all in all, blogging has taken a back seat.
I have however been dipping into the blogs of those I follow so I'm keeping up to date with you all.

Love
Lynne x.

Camera recharged...

Nearly turned all the edges...

Marrakech holiday.

Wow... what a place.......

Some sewing whilst on the coach trips...

I have many many more photos but it's late and I'm not rotating the "portait" shots at this time of night..

New projects on the go.

Well I have finished stitching the Ikats ( Here's some of the Cats-eyes fabric Joseph said!) to the Indigo fabric, and cut the pieces to size. I've stiffened the pieces slightly by ironing on some medium weight Iron on Vilene. I have come to a bit of a grinding halt, fearfull of messing it up so have put it all to the side for now.

I have been looking at my "Material Obsession 2" book and have fallen in love with this project - Both of these 2 quilts use the same Star block. The first quilt is called Ericas Honesty, by Kathy Doughty, and the second is called Jazz Hands, by Sarah Fielke.

So, another hand piecing project. I was sorting though my fabric stash boxes - trying to find fabric for the Philippa Naylor workshop - more of that in a moment - and to try to repack them more sensibly. I found quite a few brights that aren't destined for any particular project. So I'll use them up doing this. I have a triangular ruler so I am cutting 4" wide strips of freezer paper, then cutting triangles, then folding the triangles in half along each side to make crease lines, and finally cutting the triangles into 3 to make the kite shapes.

I reckon this is a project that I am in no hurry to finish - I can just work my way through my fabrics doing 6's , 12's and some 24's of patches .

I did a workshop with Philippa Naylor, on curved piecing. Here are a few photos of the process.

We used Philippas workshop design, which we traced onto freezer paper, cut out, ironed onto fabric, then cut out the pieces including a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Oh that was good - we used a small rotary cutter and ruler and added the quarter inch as we cut.

Here are all my pieces laid back onto the pattern.

Then she explained how to sew the pieces together.
Voila!.

Here is my pieced design, I have yet to add the 2 borders. I wish I could say I'll do it soon but we have a family holiday coming up and I have a few things to get together!!!!!

And finally a few other photos.

I was nearly late for the workshop as I had to stop and take these pictures.

And here's a squirrel we saw today.

The Inbetweeners

The Inbetweeners is a programme that has just started its third series.
It is a Bafta award winning British Sitcom about a group of teenage boys struggling through sixth form at school. ( 17 and 18 year olds). It is set in an outer London suburb, and follows Will who left a private school to go to a Comprehensuive following his mums divorce. I guess I shouldn't watch it as I have 2 boys and they might well end up acting as these hormone driven boys, but it's funny so I do.
It was the first episode last week. One of the boys had to wear a skimpy thong in a school fashion show and in his haste he didn't check all was well before strutting his stuff , I howled with laughed and had to explain to explain to my boys what I was laughing at.
"He had his left testicle hanging out of his pants" I said.
To which my 7 year old said "Was he an Octopus?"

He's at that truly delightful age.
He was reading joke from a tube of yogurt.
Q. "Why did the Lion cross the road?
A. "To get to the other pride"
He howled with laughter, but when questioned didn't know what a pride was,
"So you don't get the joke then" I said.
"No" he said.
I love him so much.

Ikat scraps bag.

I have started sewing the Ikat pieces onto this Indigo fabric.

This is possibly the most expensive fabric I have ever bought.

When we were in Kyoto we went to visit an Indigo dyer -the Aizen Kobo Indigo workshop - that Andrew had heard about.

http://www.akasamedia.com/arts-culture/AizenKoboANA.htm

Kenichi does Indigo dyeing, as does my husband who is an artist.

So somehow Andrew had some sort of conversation, despite the language barrier.

I bought several pieces of fabric, this plain hand dyed Indigo, a piece of Shibori fabric, and some smaller pieces. It all came to about £90.
Anyway, here is how far I have got - about a third of the way. I stitch along one edge, then unpick my tackings and remove the papers from behind, and then stitch down the other side.

Here is a bag that I use on a daily basis. It's a good size and I want to make a bag like it.
Some thing like -

I have a pair of handles I took off another woven bag that finally fell to pieces. I loved that bag, it was red.

I am not in a hurry to finish the bag - I am going to Saturday Stitchers this coming Saturday so may get quite a bit done, but no promises.

Multi tasking!

Yes, typing this whilst trying to watch Dexter in another window, whilst trying to block out the noise from Josephs room - the boy is catapult mad. Just told him how annoying it is to hear his shots smacking against the wardrobe ? wall? so fingers crossed I can continue in peace.

It's the sewing group tomorrow night and I'm not actually sure if I have anything in a state to sew! I have pieced my Ikat strips, I do actually have a piece of authentic expensive Indigo fabric I bought whilst in Japan - hey I may as well use it instead of keeping it in the wardrobe, but I need to be sure I know what I'm doing when I cut into it!

I have had 2 very busy weeks at work, and I had a good time away at the weekend but I was very tired and had ended up having 14 hours sleep on Saturday night. I told the boys several times that they were not to wake me up in the morning, and bless them they didn't.

Liam is particularly bad at coming in and waking us up to ask if he can go on the computer or watch TV. He is guaranteed to get a "No" and it amazes me that he hasn't learnt that yet!

OK - I have enough of the expensive Indigo to use for the sides of the bag - I may have to use some other Ikat fabric I bought in Japan for the base so tomorrow I will start to stitch the Ikat strips to the Indigo.

Here are 2 of the wholecloth quilts in the exhibition in Llanidloes.

A Quilt Exhibition

Tomorrow is the last day of the Quilt Associations exhibition at the Minerva Arts Centre at Llanidloes.
My mum is picking my boys up from school and taking them back to hers so I can pick them up pronto after work tonight and zoom down the motorway. We are staying at a friends in Hereford tonight, then tomorrow we will do the last hour and a half drive into Wales.
http://www.quilt.org.uk/event-34-Minerva+Quilts+10.html
I love the big outdoors and I'm sure I'll wish I was away for longer, but at least I'll finally make it to the Minerva Arts Centre which I've been wanting to do for ages.

Joseph ( 12) asked me "Are we all going to the Quilt Exhibition" and "How long will we be there".
As long as it takes Joseph, take a book to read!

I have done quite a bit of the handsewing I started. All the strips are sewn together so now I need to buy some Indigo fabric for the main body of the bag.
I'll try to post a few photos on sunday when we are back.

Japanese Ikat scraps

OK, I have very little functioning brain at the moment - and what I do have is pretty much fully used up at work!

So I have packed away all of my sewing projects in the cupboard, I'm trying to have a bit of a tidy up to feel more on top of things. I can't seem to find enough space in my head to think about the projects I've got on the go.
So here's a little hand sewing to keep me ticking over.

When we went to Japan 6 years ago I bought a pack of scraps - and since then I have had a copy of Quilts Japan that has a few "scrap" projects in it.

I am cutting strips of freezer paper to best fit the scraps I have, I will sew them together in some sort of arrangement then applique to a background, to make a bag.
Here's what I've done so far, they are just pinned onto my board. I have a bit of Plain Indigo, but I will probably have to buy a piece - perhaps from Euro Japan Links-http://www.eurojapanlinks.com/Cottons_with_blue_green_terra_and_cream.html

But enough of planning for now. I'll just sew. Most unlike me.

ALQS4 and Holidays

Firstly here is a photo of the Quilt I received in the ALQS4.

I'm delighted, it's so free, colourful and just all over beautiful and it's doing a grand job of delighting me every day. It came from Vreni in Singapore - here is Vrenis's blog. www.oops-lah.blogspot.com/

I sent mine to New Zealand - Glenys says she likes it so thats good too.

It's a great way of doing a Quilt Swap, and I will be keeping my eye open for No.5.

The boys have just returned from a camping trip to Scotland. They arrived back late last night to I have yet to see all the photos, and hear all the stories.

Apparently the boys were rather cold at night so when we go to camping in Dorset we will need to take more layers/ bedding.

Fingers crossed for us!

I haven't really done any sewing, complete lethargy has overcome me recently and once I've been to work, I have very little energy left - mental or physical.

I did go out 2 nights this week - to a Morsbags sewing group - I made 3 bags, and to a sewing get-together at someones house. It was good to see everyone after the break.

I had a good book for my Birthday back in March - and as I'm not in the mood to carry on with my machine sewing I'm starting a project from the book. Well I'll probably adapt it as I'm not really one for copying - I like to design my own or at least alter things in some way. But we'll see.

I have got as far as rough cutting out the adhesive bond, I need to find some appropriate fabric in of my stash. Not got very far then!

As I am off next week it is unlikely I will get to the Festival of Quilts, as I will be with the family.

ALQS4 - Quilt sent.

My quilt is winging it's way off across the sea with DHL - I sent it yesterday so it should probably arrive Tuesday-ish.
I 'm waiting ..
I'm also waiting for a few cheques from my private health care people - how long do these people take?

Not done much sewing, or even thinking about sewing ( that's rare!)

Thankful for my friends and their friendship.

Chilling out and slowing down.

I haven't posted for a few weeks now.
I had a week off work so I could do the school run and have some me time whilst the boys were at school as my husband went off on his "road trip". I thoroughly enjoyed the time - there was only 1 morning when both the boys wound me up before school. I had a whole week of doing the minimum and thinking just about the minimum. And I realise that in the normal run of things I try to do too much, and it is a strain.
Plus the first week back at work is as usual a real pain and I definately had the back to work glums.

So, I had finished my ALQS4 Quilt - I took down the road to photograph it -

And I have been working on my postage stamp quilt. I will take some time this week to assess the true progress on this quilt - I may be at the 3/4 stage. and I promise I'll share the process with you.

Humm, It's summer here and I can hear scrurrying in the loft. That's bad news. The little blighters wake us up at night. The mouse killer on the right loves it in the loft - but it's difficult getting her down again so I'll rely on the tub on the left.!

I've joined a local Morsbags group which I will go to tomorrow night, and one night this week I will probably meet up with a friend to help her do her Quilt as you go quilt.

I need to finish picking the Black Currants in the garden. Yum yum. We'vealready harvested some and I need to make some jam with the next lot we pick.

Andrew is self employed and does his work around the kids, so now the school summer holidays have started he won't get much (!) work done. He is thinking about taking them camping with a friend later this week. I'll miss them but I'm sure I'll manage to keep entertained in the evenings.

Next Saturday I am meeting up with 2 friends from University who I haven't seen for, I should guess, 15 & 20 years.

Comments

Hmm, getting annoyed with stupid people ? leaving comments in Chinese.
So apologies to you if I have fiddled with my settings so you can't comment.

Any suggestions on how to stop these annoying spam comments would be much appreciated.