sewing caddy

This is a sewing caddy i made last week,  I got the pattern through the Yorkshire Modern Quilters Group I go to,   and have just put in "sewing caddy tutorial" into the search engine    guess what the tutorial appeared so if any one wants to have a go they can find the pattern.  I found it quite easy to do but for some reason the lining bottom seems a bit big,   the group made these at a meeting I could not attend and have since heard one or two others had the same problem. For my first go I was quite pleased and Helen has decided she should have it, unfortunately one of her friends is also after one along with Catherine and no doubt Sal my granddaughter too,  I think they want to use them for their hair dryers, straighteners etc.

The original pattern puts the pockets on the inside of the bag but I have mine on the outside, front and back and one on the inside.  Will use a plain colour for the lining the next one I do.



I found this in my kitchen cupboard the other day.

It is a sweet potato!!!  Unlike an ordinary potato it did not go slimy or smelly, I was amazed when I cut it open feel it should inspire me to be creative,   any ideas?  The photo is in a folder called inspiration  along with a few other things that have caught my eye.  Wish I had found the tomatoes I bought over 2 weeks ago! they are on the receipt but not in the house, I must have left them on the checkout

Lots of people I follow have asked me to join google+ but I do not know anything about it, what I have read says it means everyone can see what I write, is that just on the blogs or on flickr and in my emails and everywhere else?  any advice would be good as I am a bit wary of it, so if you wonder why I have not responded that is why, I need to know more about it.  Many thanks

finished project

Well the sassy triangle quilt is finished!!!    Sunday I thought this machine quilting I will master,    well I tried it on a small piece and yes it fed through beautifully and even managed to use a fancy stitch so     loaded up the quilt and disaster, the weight of the quilt was too much and it would not feed so gave up! Decided I would draw circles and hexagons all over it and hand quilt. Spent the day doing this but only got about a quarter of the way and did not like what I had done so monday came and decided I would not be beaten so out came the machine again,  decided I needed to lift the weight off the machine so put 2 coffee tables on top of each other next to my left hand side which took the weight and used a longer stitch   guess  what    IT WORKED.  Have to own up to the lines not been  very straight but when I get better will unpick and re do them.  I am feeling so pleased with myself.  The binding I made from various lengths of the left over fabric which has worked quilt well.  Yesterday the quilt went into the wash,    confound it the washable pen I used to draw the circles and hexies has not washed out properly, not sure why as it washed out on a previous piece, fortunately I had only done them on the first 4 rows.It was a bit of a bore unpicking the hand quilting and after washing found one circle I had missed so must do that now the quilt is dry

 As you can see some of the fabric is a bit distorted, there was one cotton that was a bit thinner than the others and that has caused a bit of a problem, never mind I am not showing it to the quilting police and I can learn form my errors.

I wonder why there is so little about the quilting of quilts,   I have lots of books but only one seems to give much information and the magazines seem to be great at the piecing process but say quilt as desired!  I am sure someone could bring out a book to help us beginners.

sassy triangles, CQJP april, assorted blocks

May I wish you a joyous Easter celebrating the resurection of our Lord Jesus Christ.     Do not eat too many eggs!

I have now joined the rows on the triangle project with the Sassy quilter.  More than that I have the quilt tacked to the wadding and backing.   I have used cotton bump, not tried it for a quilt before, it is rather thick and as this is going to be for keeping me warm in the kitchen it might be too heavy,   time will tell.

The star on the collage is the left over from when I trimmed the sides.  The white brushed cotton cord is the backing fabric,  thought it would work well, it has little coloured hearts all over it. Sorry about the wind, it was persistent in blowing when I tried to take the photo.

I have also finished off the CQJP block for april 

I plan to put a spider in the web when completing the hanging,  not sure whether it will be beaded or tatted yet

I have also been following the quillow on create and craft that Jennie Rayment is doing,   we should have done 9 blocks by now but I have only done 8, the one missing is a celtic design,  I have not mastered the bias strips that have to be very narrow so I will substitute another block,  we have one more to do that goes on the back of the quillow,  I will use this on the front and do my own thing on the back!  The five pointed star should also have had binding on but I backed mine with interfacing instead.

 sorry about the sizes of them  they are all the same size in real life,  must have stood nearer to some that others when photoing,   thought a collage was the best way to show them or you would have been here all day looking at photos when you should all be stitching!!  The hexagons were done on the sewing machine    managed the Y seams better than I thought I would, we also had to use them on the goose tracks block.  So what we have here are   petal pattern,  kaleidescope,  dresden plate,  hexagons,  goose tracks,  pineapple,  5 pointed star and bears paw. 

Sassy triangles, bee blessed blocks, hexie block

I cannot believe I had not written on my blog since march      well I will make up for it now.

I was thrilled when my crazy wall hanging from 2013 was shown in the crazy quilt gatherings spring magazine   fame at last!    Maybe I will put it into the Harrogate quilt show in the autumn. Here is a photo for those of you who might not have seen it.

The block for bee blessed for april was the asterisk block which we were asked to do 2 ways,  well of curse I always do as I am told so here is the pair I did. I always look forward to seeing what the next block will be,   so gald I stumbled onto this charity BOM

I also made a mini block to add to my collection of trial blocks.

I am now doing the triangle challenge with the Sassy quilter.  We had to cut out 204  60 degree triangles and last week sew them into 12 rows with 17 in each row.   Today    or maybe tomorrow I have to join all the rows together, hopefully getting most of them matching.  here are the 12 rows prior to joining.

Next week week will complete the quilt,  finished size should be 49.5" x 65"   I will be straightening the sides, having read how to bind them unstraightened realise that is just too complicated and fiddly for me.

The batting /wadding should arrive early this week for the aiming for accuracy quilt so then I will think about how to quilt it,  whether by hand or machine.

I attended the second meeting of the Leeds Modern quilters group yesterday, there were about 20 of us there,  I am sure it is going to be a great group to belong to and not far from home either. I took the aiming for accuracy quilt and they suggested I just quilted in in diagonal lines by machine,   will ponder on this as not sure if I will manage it on the machine    how I would love one with a bigger arm space. I will still go to the Yorkshire Modern quilters, it is further away but do so enjoy meeting up with the ladies.I missed it last month as I was down at the Sewing for Pleasure show and will miss May as I am going to the Malvern quilt show,  I go via London and stay with Cheryl and we then go to the  show together, returning home sunday evening,    real quality time with my great friend who is a wonderful quilter,    along with many other stitching talents.

Also finished the hexie block for april,  it is a basket, not mounted onto fabric yet, will wait till the end of the year before I decide what fabric to use.

well that will do for now,  have one or to other things to share but I do not want to send you all to sleep.

Many thanks for your encouragement and comments etc I feel I know so many of you and count you as real friends.

CQJP march, aiming for accuracy quilt, sewing for pleasure Birmingham

I suddenly remembered I had not shown my crazy quilting block for march so here it is

I am struggling with these blocks,  I expect partly as I do not like the colours chosen by Helen.  We decided it needs more colour so she said to put a bit of yellow and orange in too hence the yellow tatted butterfly, have also put some yellow french knots in the centre of the pale pink crocheted flower in the bottom right hand corner.  Oh well only 9 more to go!!

One of my goals for 2014 was to attempt the aiming for accuracy quilt of Michele Foster`s, this was done as a BOM last year but I bought the pattern this year and on friday plucked up courage to start it,  I had picked lots of fabrics from my collection,  of course some greens and tans/orange shades then threw in a few pinky ones and a bit of red.    Well I have been very busy and have now got the main part assembled,  it needs a one and a half inch sashing around it then I will add some colour in the next sashing followed by a wider border in the brown. Not sure about the coloured sashing, on the pattern it is little squares but think I might use longer pieces of fabric that have been used in the quilt.  It is now on hold for a week or two.  It was not such a problem as I thought it would be, needed a bit of tugging in places. What appealed to me about this quilt was the blocks being different sizes etc.  No clue what sort of quilting I will do on it yet or whether it ill be hand or machine quilting.

Sorry the photo is sideways,  do not know how to flip it.   I planned to photo it on the washing line but it is so very windy today so had to put it on the bed instead, you can see how big it is.

On thursday I am off to the Sewing for pleasure show in Birmingham at the NEC.   I will be staying with friends who I used to work for at the shows in Buckingham which will be great fun and come home saturday evening. Also will be seeing Cheryl my good friend from London who is coming up for the day on friday, so looking forward to seeing her.
Not sure what I will be tempted to buy but I am sure some fabric will find its way home with me and I would also like to find Anni Downs angels quilt pattern if possible.  Jennie Rayment will be there doing a workshop and that is also on my list to do     I am getting so excited thinking about it.

bee blessed, shamrock hexie, the hairbrush saga, 150 blogs

I is now march so Sara over at sew me released the latest block for bee blessed    Pippa longstocking.   I struggled with this one, chopped off the feet on one so started again,  the one with the continuous fabric border is the one I am keeping as it is not correct and it will go into my box of assorted trial blocks,   but the second one I am pleased with so will post it off to Sara today and it will go into a charity quilt during the year,   I believe they are using the hearts from the february block in the same quilt.

The child like fabrics I used here I could not resist the other day, maybe it was 6th sense that I would need them for these blocks.

I also did the hexie challenge for march,   a shamrock,  the 4 leaves have not been attached yet as I am waiting till all blocks are done to decide what background fabric to use,  the 4 leaves are not attached to each other either.They will be sewn as you see it now     more or less.

My girls say I am quite tight with my pennies,  well yesterday I spent £1 on a new hair brush,   I have been pondering when I bought my old one, I am sure it was before my divorce in 1986  so it  has done well.   It was from Avon but when I looked the other day they are no longer available!!   I am sure this new one will not last as long.   Had a comb too that I bought in 1996 whilst in Australia for my niece`s wedding and unfortunately I lost it last year so that was another  £1,   how I love the pound shops.

    No doubt you can spot which is which,    the old one has now been put in the rubbish bin.


Just noticed that this is my 150th blog  had no idea I had done so many,  it is about 2 years since I started blogging,   pat myself on the back,  good girl Margaret!

small square cloth, daffodils, Alfie and Sophie,

I have now quilted and bound the small patchwork I did last week.   I am calling it a small square table cloth, it sits quite well in the centre of the kitchen table,  will just have to watch it does not disappear when Helen calls as she seems to think Alfie would like it to sleep on,    will see when he comes to stay if he is attracted to it!    I machine quilted this with diagonal lines through the centre of the blocks,  I drew lines with a washable pen so they kept reasonably straight and even did some in the ditch on the long rectangle pieces.  Think my choice of green for the quilting  was not the right choice but I live and learn,  maybe a lighter colour would have been better.  This is the most machine quilting I have done,  not bad really.  I backed it with some grey cotton,   to hard to resist £1 a yard and extra wide so I think I will be used as backing again.   I rather like the red I used to bind it,   maybe I could have used red for the quilting too.

back of work

spring is on the way!   here are the first daffodils that have appeared in my garden  taken on 26 feb.

They are the mini ones, very pretty,  this morning when I got up at 5.30 there was a thick frost and all the cars were iced up,  I think this is the first heavy frost of the winter and spring starts tomorrow,   we have been very lucky this year.

Now for photo of Alfie   the poser who does he think he is!

Have you ever seen anything as adorable as this? no adorable is not the right word but cannot come up with one that suits him.  

This is a photo of Sophie, Alfie`s Mum who belongs to Catherine my elder daughter.

She is quite an old lady now, about 13  so we have two beauties just wish I had one too but circumstances do not allow.

february heart, scrappy mini quilt, charity blocks

I have just finished the february BOM for the hexie challenge,  this time it was a heart so I have been busy cutting out card for the hexies.   I used the sizzix machine and 1" hexie die and have cut out about 400 pieces,  using old Xmas cards and cereal packets which are much easier to work with than papers.  I take the easy route and cut the fabric in a rectangles,  2. 5" by 2. 75" using the rotary cutter,  I know this way I waste a little fabric but it is so much quicker.   When I tack the fabric to the card I do not stitch through the card, this means it can re reused time and again,    why on earth have I cut so much card out you might ask,   well I am not really sure but I will make lots and lots of hexies ready for the next challenge and quite like the idea of doing  a bigger project too so if they are tacked together it will save time when the next challenge is posted at the beginning of march.    what a woffle that was.

I am not sure what to use as a background so have decided not to stitch them to the backing till all 12 are stitched then I will decide what to use and if sashing is required etc.

Last week I saw a blog about  a fab 4 link up party on quilting lines blog.  I should know to read all the info but no saw the design and rushed in with my scraps.

Having re read the blog today I think I am meant to use 4 fat quarters but reading again I think that might be incorrect as it is all to do with the Beatles. They are the fab 4. Patricia asks us to either applique the names of the Beatles or stitch or applique your favourite verse from one of their songs or add a silhouette of a favourite photo of the boys,  Well I misunderstood all that so will not link up with mine.  When Helen saw it she thought it would make a nice blanket for her cat Alfie  I don`t think so!

Lesson to learn from all this is to read all the details first!   not rush in like a bull in a china shop.   Must own up to being guilty of this in the past and should have learnt my lesson then 

Have now to decide how to quilt this piece. 

Last week I did have a go at machine quilting the sashing on my batik Tula quilt,  just straight lines either side of the ditch and now wondering about quilting the blocks, would like to do them in different colours and different patterns but not sure how that would work . The backing is blue so have blue thread in the bobbin.   Will ponder some more.

Prior to doing the batik quilting I made 2 blocks for little island quilting, she wants 12.5" blocks as quilt as you go so these are my first attempts with the machine quilting.  

Alison is sending the quilts when she has completed them to Mexico for the poor children,   well no not sending as they are unlikely to arrive, not sure who will be taking them but it is a worth while cause.

February block

This weekend I have been working on the crazy block for february.  Not sure if it is completely complete or not but I can always add some more embellishments later   I really like the beaded chain stitch which has been one of the recent stitches from Sharon B on pintangle.  I have not been keeping up with them for a while now but have used  the beaded chain, chain cross and up and down feathered buttonhole stitch here none of which I have used before.  I do so like Sharon`s stencils which I bought last year and they have appeared on this block as well   The grey lace is a piece of white I dropped silk paints onto , think it needs a bit of something on it but so far cannot decide so have left it plain.

The bit of pink tatting I am going to add a little ladybird button to when I make the 12 blocks into the wall hanging.

crocus, finished quilt, blocks

Here is my stack and slash quilt all finished,  I added the binding and feel job well done.

I do think the red is a bit loud and unfortunately the hand quilting does not show too well in the photo, I used hand quilting cotton,  next time   if there is a next time I will use a thicker thread, maybe a perle 12 or 16,   it is good to be learning as I go down this path of quilting.
I am not sure what I will do with it, at the moment it is on the back of my cream couch which adds a bit of colour.

I have also done the first 3 blocks for the quilt on the create and craft channel with Jennie Rayment These blocks are 14" finished.

Pineapple block,   this one was tricky for me,  there was a template for it but I just used an ordinary square,no point is spending over £20 for something I will only use once.  It was not done the paper foundation way.  This is one block I will not be making many of.

Petal block,    I have not attached it yet to the backing fabric,  they suggest to use interfacing on the petal  to back it with so you get a good shape prior to attaching it to the white fabric by hand.   Was pleased with the points meeting in the centre, quite an achievement for me.

Dresden plate,   this uses 20 pieces and we were told to make it as 4 quarters with 5 in each and mount them individually on 7. 5" pieces of fabric then join them together as the quantity of fabric were told to buy would not stretch to a 14. 5 piece,  I think I will have enough fabric however so I will redo it as a whole plate instead, if you know what I mean,  not sure I do.
The next class is later this month and when complete this will make up as a quag, nine blocks on the front and one on the inside for when it is being used as a bag.

Yesterday I did a block for Sara of Sew me and her charity blocks for  bee blessed,  a heart which I will pop into the post,     Sara has one a month so I will try  and stick to doing at least one a month as they are made up into charity quilts.  Being february I expect you can guess it would be a heart.

Now for as photo of the first crocus that appeared in the garden a couple of days ago,   still a very mild winter, we have had the temperature drop below freezing just a couple of times and today the sun is pouring in on me as I am doing this blog.

crazy quilting, fabrics for projects,butterfly

I finished my CQJP january block yesterday,    well I say finished but I am not too happy with it,  mind you it is for Helen my daughter and she has chosen the fabrics threads etc,   grey is not a colour I like and there is very little about,  I did use silk paints on some to add a but of grey in the fabrics,   Helen and I both thought it needed another colour to lift it a bit and she chose the turquoise and dark blue, will see how it all goes together and I can always unpick or add more when it comes to putting them all together.

I also had a trip to York for fabric for projects for this year.  Did not have to buy them all fortunately,  here are photos of what I think I will use.

These are for the aiming for accuracy quilt that was a BOM last year it says 24 fat quarters and 3. 75 yards of contrast.   Well I  am not using 24 fabrics as the most any block uses is 12 fabrics and I plan to use 8 on that block,   I have dark brown as my contrast, wanted it darker but made do with what they had, not sure all these will be used, the second green from the top and third one from the next pile I also bought but the rest I already had.  Have thrown in some pink as I have 2 fabrics here that have the oranges and pinks in and they work well,  not so sure about the blue one but that has the other colours in it in the little motives,  also a little yellow has been added to the mix.  Will see how it goes when I start it.

These are for the Jennie Rayment quilt she is doing on the create and craft channel, it takes 4 colours and a contrast. I have got white with a leaf pattern on for the contrast and will abandon one of these other colours think it will be the floral one on the left. This quilt has 9 blocks in it.   The red and yellow ones I had to purchase along with the white contrast one,   sorry do not seem to have got that in the photo

I disturbed this poor butterfly the other day,  it must have had such a shock, I did not know it was hibernating in my spare bedroom and I had the heating on for a treat and to dry the washing,  had to turn the radiator up in this room and the heat must have woken him up.   Now he is asleep again in a corner of the window,    how good was it for him to pose on my little pot teddy`s head.

hexie block, tula,quilting

Today I am posting a photo of the BOM for january in the hexie challenge.   I am not sure what I am going to have as a background for these blocks,  they need squares 15.5" so are quite large,  think I might go for cream/white as I will be doing the blocks in different colours using up what I have,  I have no idea what all the blocks will be like. I think this is the one problem about BOM`s when you  do not know what the block is like until it is released.

I rather like my multi coloured snowflake

Here I have taken a photo of it on top of a largish hexie flower block

The lounge floor is today covered with the remaining 76 blocks from the Tula sampler,   have not arranged them in any order, I have 10 rows with 7 blocks on each and 6 extra blocks so think I might make one more so it will be 11 by 7,   or maybe I might remake the 16 blocks which I have put together in the batik quilt    well maybe not! This way I would have a quilt using all 100 blocks,   the more I think about it the more I think I might do it, must check I have enough black fabric first.

quite pleased with this 

Now for the slash and stack piece,  yesterday I hand quilted it,   I drew circles randomly over it and around the edge a few half circles.  I used gutermans hand quilting cotton in yellow.   Now I have 2 fingers on each hand the worse for wear from being pricked with the needle,  I do try and wear a thimble on my right hand but it is not very successful,  I feel they need to be longer as they do not stay on too well and I always feel I need to push them further onto my finger but there is not the room to do it.   Will need to wash the work when I have added the binding to remove all traces of blood and also the pencil lines.  I am planning to use some dark turquoise to bind it with.

Yesterday we had our first snow of the winter,  it only lasted for abut 5 minutes but the flakes were pretty big,  I thought looking at the sky in the morning that we might get snow but it had not been forcasted.