We Have A winner

First things first here are the 9 names in the giveaway.

Dawn did the draw for me.

The winner is....... Gina.

I have done my Orange square and managed to get both squares mounted, the only productive thing I did last week.

We had a two day workshop Saturday and Sunday. The ladies were making Bargello quilt tops and they all did a fantastic job.

This is Jacqui with her top.

Anne, who used blues and creams.

Carole, you can't see from the picture but she used metallic fabric and her top looked very rich.

Gill who used Amy Butler fabric. This top looks very fresh and summery.

Margaret, holding a panel from her top. Margaret and Jean are ambitious ladies all the others used seven fabrics to make their tops but not these two they decided to use fourteen and this is why Margaret is holding up a panel. You can see enough to know how the pattern is going to look. Margaret used batik fabrics.

This is Polly's.

I'm two pictures missing - Jean who didn't want to stop sewing and I don't blame her using fourteen fabrics and Vanessa who will be in today so I'll be able to get a picture and show you later in the week.

150th

On Thursday Neil and I went to the Mall Galleries London to see the Prism exhibition. As usual there was some stunning work. I did take some photos, but no paper and pen to make notes and record who had done which piece of work. Very remiss of me. I did try to buy a pen but they didn't sell them and didn't offer to lend me one. Anyway I will share a few of the pictures with you.

Just look at these seagulls. I was worried that this picture wasn't going to come out very well but it's OK you can  see them very clearly.This is a lovely pieceof felted work by Ali Brown.

One day I'm going to have a go at making felted pebbles. These ones are very textural which doesn't come across in the picture but I thought they would act as my inspiration for when I have the time. The pebbles are the work of Davida Macdonald  and the picture in the programme is far better than mine.

The next two pictures really don't do this piece of work justice. The colours were much brighter and the work is very detailed. The other thing you don't get is an idea of the size of this piece. It's  by Heather Hunter
and my guess is that she had a sore neck and shoulders whilst working on it.

This work is by Julieanne Long and I really liked the way she has used the cable clips.

Of course I'm sure you all know whos work this is..... Gina Ferrari. A lovely piece of work made using lace  and snippets of printed text.

This is my 150th post, so carrying on with blogger tradition it's time for a giveaway. So I made a small bag/large pencil case, we call them a carry-it-all. When we go some where and can take hand sewing with us it usually all fits in one of these.

Of course no giveaway would be complete without chocolate. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is leave me a message by Tuesday morning and your name will go into a draw. Good luck.

Remember my red square from Gina's challenge? Next week we've got our monthly meeting of Spectrum and this square is supposed to be mounted but it's not. To make things worse I should also have an orange square to take to next weeks meeting mmm.........

I'm now going to start mounting the square and hopefully this will be finished today.

Finished and On-Going

The crib bumper is now finished. I hand-sewed the binding whilst watching the Formula 1 on Sunday and when it finished I made the ties and attached them. This is such a cute and cheerful set, now all we need is the baby.

A few weeks ago Anne Stacey did a workshop called Cut and Come Again and I took part in the workshop. It was thoroughly enjoyable, all the other ladies made their fabric into wall hangings, but not me!

I used  Amy Butler fabric from the Love range and made four pieces which I'm going to use in a few months to make a bag. I can't wait.

Just in case you haven't seen enough of the beautiful fabric here's a close up.

I think I may have another go at this today, it was so nice and easy to do and I can't be doing with anything complicated. So far it's been a bad week and this may just be enough to cheer me up.

This is my 149th post meaning that the next one will be a giveaway so I think I had better go and make something.

Baby Stuff And More

This is the little quilt that I've made for the babys crib.

A close up of the cornerstone and you can see just how cute the little birds are.

As for the bumper, all I need to do is hand stitch the binding and make some ties for it. They know it's a girl but wanted something neutral for the crib. Baby is due 22nd September and so far has had two names, the first one been Hope and the current one Ellie. Both nice names but we'll wait and see.
 

On Tuesday I took part in Adult Education Awareness Week at the town hall and whilst I was there this is what I achieved. Not much I know but I was talking to people for some of the time. It's not finished, I don't know what I'm going to do with it but I am going to keep working on it.

But now I am going to make a start on quilting my Wonky Log Cabin.

Green Is For Go

I have got all the blocks done now for my hanging and I just need to quilt them. I've been giving this a lot of thought and I'm going to try invisible thread because I don't want to detract from the visual impact of the fabric and colours.

I really like the way these two colours work together.

The next thing I need to think about is how to hang them all.

Sketchbook Work

I have done a little more work in my sketchbook this weekend. I would have liked to get more done but there hasn't been a lot of time. Saturday I was at work and Sunday I helped Pam and Anne. Pam is area rep for region 9 of the Quilters Guild and the guild had a stand at a local craft show so I went along for the day to help out. Pam had worked very hard and organised a tombola to raise money for the guild. She made a lot of the prizes herself, we bought a few things and some very kind people donated items that they had made. The tombola was a huge sucess and raised £155 and the nicest thing of all was the handmade gifts which were recieved with great enthusiasm.

Anyway back to the sketchbook. This is a page from an old copy of Country Living, note the owl.

Continuing on from the work we were doing with Gina I have come up with my own interpretation of the owl.
I think he is a little scary though.

My necklace and bracelet are finished and I'm very happy with them. I covered an old box to keep them in as they really do need to be stored flat.

I particularly like the beaded fastening I made for the bracelet. The beads dangle very nicely when you are wearing it. You can just see them going of the edge of the picture.

Now I must go and do some work on my Log Cabin hanging.

At Last

It has been a while since I last blogged, I did try last week but had so many problems just trying to load the pictures that I gave up. Anyway with Pam's help I've had better luck today. A lot has happened in the last few weeks mainly Easter and a Royal Wedding, didn't she look lovely?

I have been busy making and doing - I've got so much to do. This is some hand stitching that took a while, I'm going to free machine into it next. The plan is for it to be another piece of poppy related work.

This is my red square, as Gina pointed out I don't need to paint the fabric just use red fabric! I think I was having an off day when I painted the fabric, I was so tired and obviously not thinking straight. This wasn't the first square I made; that went in the bin because it was rubbish. I like this one though so I took it with me yesterday to the meeting of Spectrum. All the other ladies took theirs and they looked lovely all together and all different. This month Gina wants us to make an orange square...... she's so demanding :-)

Yesterday we worked on our sketchbooks. Gina showed us a technique of getting colour and shape into our books without the need to dtraw, so it was great for me. It was a nice day and I enjoyed the technique I'm hoping to do some more this evening.

As you can see I put more poppies in my book. I think I need to choose something else to work on and I could be developing a hankering for dasies.

I've got to go and work now it's getting busy.