Sew Much To Do open morning

coffee morning at SMTD in Ely to promote the shop and workshops, lots of lovely fabric and cakes are compulsory! the morning was really busy and lots of interest which was great

sunday in southwold

 

we escaped yesterday's rain at home and enjoyed a lovely afternoon walking on southwold beach with the dogs followed by a roast dinner with friends - perfect day!

 

 

stash busting

you know i'm kind of embarrassed by the amount of fabric I've got squirreled away, I can't imagine why I even bought most of it! so I am on a bit of a mission to use it up and clear the decks. so I've managed to get this half square triangle quilt top finished using up loads of fabric but now i'm left with a stash of small pieces that I need to deal with!

I don't often do this type of patchwork but I have really enjoyed the challenge and love the mosaic effect of the finished piece, i don't think i'll get around to quilting it so will hand it over to a friend who has a long arm quilter.

alveva quilters coffee morning

our monthly Alveva meeting was a little different yesterday, instead of an evening meeting we had a coffee morning at my house and I am delighted to say that 20 members came to share some chat and stitching and cake!

a trip down under

I forgot to say - how on earth could I forget!!!..........the Australia trip is now booked - yeh!!

I fly out on 6th April to join up with the Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne courtesy of Cecile Whatman of Unique Stitching who has kindly invited me to demonstrate on her stand at the show and I will be teaching 2 classes, Medieval Magic and Marvellous Marble classes are filling up so if you want to join me sign up soon otherwise if you come to the show come by to say hello!

Marvellous Marble

 

Medieval Magic

a bit of embellishing

 well I borrowed an embellishing machine some time ago and have just got around to getting it out of the box to have a play. I've been using up my bags of scraps and threads and I've tried working on felt and hessian and while the results are interesting I can't get too excited about it. i'm sure there are loads of things to do with the machine but at the moment I don't think its for me - there are too many other things I want to do! like making the little cot quilt below all from fabric already in my stash, makes me wonder why I've been hoarding teddy bear fabric!............anyway here it is ready for quilting-blue and yellow- yes we are expecting a grandson.

what did you do at christmas

we spent Christmas at croft in Cheshire with our son and daughter-in-law, the 'bump', esme the cat and pippa twig and inca the family flatcoats.

Ashleigh with esme hiding the bump

 

Christmas morning walk with Christopher pippa twig and inca, and new wellies!

 

 

of course the bump is our first grandchild due in june (we now know its a boy) so I can start to make some stuff for the new arrival - watch this space.

Creative textile classes

Lucie Summers and I started a new project last year teaching creative textiles at the turkey shed the first group have had 3 classes and will be moving on with another group of 3 sessions now we are in 2014. We have a new group starting on Tuesday 28th January the first session is fabric dyeing with procion dyes and there are still some spaces so if you are interested come along! have a look at www.turkeyshed.blogspot.com

happy new year

well happy new year to everyone who visits my blog and I hope you all had a great Christmas time with friends and family. amazingly this year I got away with doing very little cooking but we spent quite a bit of time on the road visiting, so it was a very different kind of Christmas.


I was hoping to spend some time in the studio catching up on some vital textile work ( a piece of work that has to be completed and shipped ready for an exhibition) but I am far behind schedule and now in a panic (again!) about getting it finished in time. its always the same when you have a deadline evasion tactics come into force and when I have had time to sew all I've wanted to do is make baby things! Yes we are going to be grandparents this summer so I really want to make things for 'our baby'. the first thing I've done is this fabric ball, I can remember making them 30 years ago when the boys came along.

the ball is made from fabric from my stash - I really must get it used up - but why on earth did I ever buy this piggy fabric?!!!!!!!!!!!!! just goes to show that whatever you have hidden away will always come in useful eventually.

anyway back to the studio to get this piece of work finished, I can't show it to you as its going to St Anthony's at York to be part of the new exhibition by Anglia Textile Works.