Back from Dorset

I have spent last week in Dorset with the boys. Now of course I need a holiday to recover from the holiday. They were OK some of the time, but the rest.......................

I know it sounds mean but I've been looking forward to this holiday since February and constant moaning and whining didn't feature in any of my daydreams. The 8 year old lost the toss of the coin for the bedroom with the bunk beds, that was worth at least 15 minutes of crying. Then we couldn't get all of the TV channels listed - more crying!!. And so on.

Now I have 5 days on my own, apart from work colleages, to enjoy the peace and quiet and try to get back up to speed.

Whilst we were on the beach in Charmouth I ordered more fabric from Doughtys to enable me to make a quilt for my bed. It arrived whilst I was away -

This photo doesn't really show the colours well. There is a lot of Limes and Olive in them. Now I am thinking about what to do. They are a rather zingy combination of prints / colours which is out of character with the bedroom as it currently is - the blue is rather soothing. I plan to do large pieces - I have 2 metres of the Paisley print and the Chrysanthemum, 1 1/2 of the Laurel dots and 1/2 of the lashes. Doughtys only had the Lashes print in another colourway, which I am unlikley to use. I have some plain blue and brown.

I may do something based on a stripe arrangement I saw in "Color Harmony for Quilts" by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. It's called "Passage to India" and just uses 2 fabrics in reducing and increasing widths.

Or I may use a simple block with large pieces.

Or I may use the Paisley as a wide border and use the other fabrics in a large block in the centre.

But I have lots of time to think on, I have too much on my unfinished list. No 1 to do is the Postage stamp quilt.

I have done a bit of sewing.

I finished the sewing part of one of the 2 Roman Blinds that I'm making, unfortunately I'm not entirely happy with it. So I may have to order 2 Roller Blinds for my Bedroom and use the fabric in my Quilt. The failure of the blind adds to the feeling I have of discontent. But I need to chill and remember that it's only been 4 months since Andrew moved out and it's to be expected that I still have masses of stuff to sort out. Really, masses.

School starts on Thursday. Needless to say neither Andrew, Liam or myself can remember where Liams PE kit ended up. Oh joy.

Here are a few more photos from the holiday.

- Watching Punch and Judy show on Swanage Beach. Joseph has the Lime T Shirt and Liam is to the left.
Liam at Corfe Castle-


East cliff at Bridport -
Liam as an angel -
With all his cuddly toys on the chair. Whilst driving down to Dorset he said "Can I use a wipe to clean my hands?" This is a boy we're talking about - cleaning hands isn't really the priority. Making super hero costumes for the toys is!.

On my pinboard

20 of the 32 half blocks that I've done. Just pinned.
Started thinking about Quilting. I know I signed up to the process pledge so I'll try to blog later.

Postage Stamp Quilt again.

It was a grey and at times drizzly day today, but for most of it I was inside sewing, so all was well!

It was a "Saturday stitchers" meeting where people work on their own projects. For the past 3 meetings I've been working on the hand piecing. But my eyes have been a little tired recently and I thought I'd give them a rest. Last night I looked inside the wardrobe where all my sewing lives and was a bit overwhelmed by the number of projects on the go, but as I am now looking forward I decided to take one and work out what stage I had reached.

Here are the contents of the 2 boxes - strips and sets in various stages

Take the strip sets - cut into 3 inch strips.
Match two strips together - one ending in prints, one in plains, sew down both sides , then cut down the middle.

Iron open.
Match together 2 pairs, then match together 2 sets of four strips.

So at the moment I have 32 blocks of 8 x 17 squares.

So apart from joining two of these together and the attaching the 17th strip I have almost done 16 of the 25 blocks I think need.

I need to work out what size quilt I want to make - the original intention was to do 25 blocks 17" sq - to make the quilt 85" x 85". But I need to just mull that over a for a while.

In the meantime I will continue to sort through any remaining strips sets and strips that I have already cut, and assemble more sets.

I don't have a permanent sewing area set up at the moment - so it may be a while before I can carry on, but I have been spurred on by todays efforts.

Postage Stamp Quilt

This is one of the single track roads I go along every day to work. Sometimes I need to parp the horn if the cows won't move, but I don't like to parp the little calves because they jump vertically upwards in fright!

Oh I have been busy - I have stitched together half of the Strip sets so I guess you could say I have done a quarter of the blocks.

Things have improved a little since this picture -

My husband and the boys have been away for a few days so I have been sewing, I have had another stupid cold so have not been able to sit up as late as I would like.

Some of the sewing is going to be fiddly - I didn't just use FQs so I have some strips less than 21" long, and I have to sew together similar length pieces and trim to size after - and then utilise any small pieces cut off. It just takes longer than production line sewing.

The trips to the chiropractor are definately working - but I do have to watch how much time I sit for - sitting at work, sitting in the car, and then sitting all evening sewing isn't really very good. I went on Thursday (having had two nights of lots of sewing).

"oh your shoulders are so tight and knotted - what have you been doing?".

- how can she tell I thought, I'd better not say I'm planning on hours more sewing tonight!

Last Saturday was our big boys 12th Birthday. We went to Waterworld in Stoke on Trent. Then we went to the Indonesian Restaurant that we like to go to. Liam was rather tired by the end of the meal.

On Saturday one of the Cats bought home a dead rabbit. We told the boys that we hoped it wan't the Easter Bunny that they'd killed. Fortunately it wasn't and the EB left a fair number of eggs spread around the garden for them to find. They still have some left, and have generously shared some with us.

This is Itchy on Sunday letting his stomach digest rabbit.

I have decided not to bore you with anymore Japanese holiday reminisces, but will just post a few photos when I have scanned them. I've been too busy sewing to scan! They are just photos, the best pictures are the ones still inside my head.

Today I am meeting up with Maria before she goes back to Spain. Before I meet her I need to nip round to my mums house. Yesterday a car reversed into their house demolishing the front, the car is still in the hallway and the house boarded up as it is un-inhabitable. They are fortunate to be OK - Mum had been sitting in the living room and my step dad was in the back garden, but had they been in the hallway it would have been a different story.

Progress

Here is my Winter Mini-Quilt , almost finished.

I need to stitch the birds feet, and I'm going to do a bit of "feathering" on their bodies.

I love the lettering, the font is Viner Hand ITC, though I did not enjoy doing the blanket stitch around them.

I also need to do a label for the back, and hope to attach a hanging sleeve.

I am taking it to a meeting on Wednesday evening for "Show and Tell" so will send to my swap partner via DHL on Thursday.

I have decided to join in with Heidis Postage stamp Quilt along. I have dug out all those fabrics that I like but haven't a project lined up for them, some of which I have had for ages. I have started cutting the strips. I've cut about 180 so far as per her instructions. I also have quite a few fabrics that are not 21" wide, and have cut some strips of those as well. May as well use them up. I need to decide if I am going to use white or cream, or another colour for inbetween the prints. We have 2 cats who spend lots of time snoozing on the beds with dirty feet, so I don't think I want to use white, even though that would be my first choice.