Hexagons And Prairie Points

Remember the hexagons and prairie points? Last time you saw them they were in bits and now they have all been put together to make this.


An oversized pincushion. It stands 10cm in height and 19.5cm across. It's larger than I imagined it would be but that might have some thing to do with the fact that I didn't read all the instructions. (Well who does?) I should have cut the middle band down to 3½" in width before joining together but never mind it still works the same. I've stuffed it with sawdust after some advice from a friend (thank you Barbara). As I was putting it together I didn't like it and wished I'd never started but now it's finished and I've had time to look at it I am pleased with it. I think it's going to be very useful and I've never had a pincushion before - can you believe that!


I added some embellishments of my own and I think more will follow. The hexagon and square button are handmade and I've had them for ages, I always knew I'd find a use for them.

This oval pendant used to be a necklace until this afternoon, I had it as a child (see you should never throw anything away) and it has got my name on it as well as some flowers (bad photo) so that just had to go on there.

There are enough squares in the box to make another two pincushions so you may see some more.

I'm Back

I've been away, we spent last week in Wales, here to be exact. We had a lovely time and I didn't want to come home. We went from Monday to Friday and it just wasn't long enough. I came back to work on the Saturday and I just haven't been able to get back into the swing of things. I'm sure you know that feeling.

One thing I have managed to do is work on my Shape sketchbook for my course. It's going in the right direction but it's not finished.

Here I have been looking at circles, how they are used in design and advertising and I have started to play around with them. Looking at this page now I could have made a face with measles using the coloured dots- Can you see it? Although I'm not sure that's what teacher had in mind :-)

This is some of my work on squares. I particularly like the pattern I made at the bottom left of the right hand page. I'm sure that would make a nice quilt. And I'm sure that's what the teacher had in mind more than a face of measles.

This is just a couple of pages where I was playing around with shapes and making patterns.

Hopefully I will get my creative mojo back soon and more interesting things will be produced.

I hope you have a good weekend whatever the weather.

Goings On

This is my Friendship Braid quilt. If you look close enough you can see the basting stitches - I had just finished layering it up when I took this picture. I am now going to quilt it which won't be an easy task because it's so large. We had to put three tables together to layer it up. I've used Bamboo Wadding for the first time, it feels like silk so I just had to try it.

On Saturday Gina was at the shop giving a workshop on Machine Embroidered Textures. It was a very quiet class, all the ladies were so absorbed in their work. The pictures below are of their work. I love all the colours it was so nice to see all the schemes coming together.

The next picture is of Gina's work. She has put a temporary frame around her work and you can see what a lovely picture it will make.

It was a lovely workshop all the ladies enjoyed themselves and Gina was as wonderful as ever.

Nearly Finished Table Mats

I have now made table mats 5 and 6. Now all I have to do is layer them up, quilt them and bind them. I am really pleased with these and I will do Square Dance again.

I took Sparky back to the vets yesterday for a check up. He has now got another tablet to add to his cocktail of drugs. It takes ages to get his food ready now. It used to be so quick just giving him dog food and biscuits. Now I have to warm up the chicken and rice, crush tablets, split capsules (and remember which ones I've done) and make chicken gravy. Thank god for gravy granules. Then I have to do it all again at tea time. The new tablet is for his thyroid. The vets still don't know if it's his thyroid causing a neurological problem or the other way round. So we have to try these tablets and see what happens. We have got to take him back to the Dick White Centre next week.

A Finished Quilt

This is christmas table mat number 4, numbers 5 and 6 are waiting to be made.

We've got a social stitching day at the shop today so Steph said she would like to make a cake for every one and she did. Last night she made these lovely Pumpkin Muffins. They smelt so good when they came out of the oven, temptation was hard to resist . Not too much longer now to wait for coffee break.

I thought you might like to see this. Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? So does this fella. He got up came downstairs jumped onto the sofa laid the cushion down and curled up on it. Neil came down felt sorry for him and covered him up. The dog stayed there for half an hour!

This is my crazy quilt as you go quilt finished and hanging up on the wall. It's so large that I had to take two pictures. I'm not totally happy with the borders, they didn't go on very well but they're on and staying. Overall I am happy with it, I just love all the colours.

Last night I spent some time on my hexagons. I now have two strips sewn together and 27 prairie points (only need 26) so now all I need to do is put it all together.

Thoughts Of Christmas

The hexagons are progressing slowly but surely. They are very pretty and I have enjoyed the little bit of handsewing. I did have some help, I must confess, and say thank you to Barbara who tacked the fabric to the paper hexagons which saved me a lot of time.






At the same time I have started work on some table mats for christmas (that dreaded word).
The pattern is square dance and I am really enjoying putting it together.

The black one is my favourite although it looks brown in the picture.

Just another three to go. I wanted to make each one different but now I'm worried that once it gets to christmas day lunch there are going to be arguments, every one has been picking their favourites.

We have had a poignant weekend. Steph's fiance has gone to Afghanistan. There has been lots of tears and even though it's only been a few days since he went we miss him lots. He is due back just before Christmas. Nick is in the RAF (a communications officer) and is confident that all will be well. We think of him every day so far away from home as well as all the other servicemen and their families.

Who's Blackmailing Who

It's meant to be me blackmailing him but I think it may well be the other way round. The only way I could get him to take his medicine was to put it in chicken and rice, which I had to cook for him. As he was clearly feeling better I thought he could go back onto proper dog food. How wrong could I be! Yesterday morning I put his medicine in his dog food and with true Sparky attitude he didn't eat it. He didn't eat all day. So at 7:30 last night I cooked some more chicken and rice put it in his bowl with the medicine and he ate it!

When he had finished this is the look I got. What do you think he is trying to say?



This is as far as I have got with the wall hanging. I have decided to leave it alone for a while have a think and see what happens.



I have been working on this quilt for a few months now and it's very nearly finished. All I've got to do is two bindings. It's such a pretty quilt.

We had a delivery at the shop on Monday and inside one of the big boxes was some of these little boxes.

Inside the little box is 320 two and a half inch squares. They are so cute you can't help but pick them up and feel them, flick through them and stroke them. If you love fabric you will understand.

Anyway, feelings put to one side I set about using them.

I cut 38 one inch hexagons out of freezer paper.


Decided which squares I was going to use and that wasn't an easy decision.

Then I ironed the freezer paper hexagons onto my chosen squares ready for the next step.

A few words from Neil on a special day

It is 13 years today since Angela & I found each other. There have been ups and downs of course, but she has always supported me in everything I do (especially the businesses) and I am very proud of what she has achieved with Art and Stitch.

She is untidy, impatient, forgetful, aggressive and forthright but I love her more and more every day and cannot imagine being without her.

Happy Anniversary!

Slow Work and A Welcome Home

The wall hanging has not progressed very far, certainly not as quick as I would have liked. I had no idea that using the embellisher could be soo tedious. But I'm going to stick with it and keep my fingers crossed that it does turn into a beautiful piece of fabric which I can then turn into a field full of poppies. You have to use your imagination.

Last night we fetched Sparky back from doggy hospital accompanied by this not so small bag! It's a nightmare trying to get all of these into him. One of the capsules he has to take three times a day.

We still don't know exactly what is wrong with him. He has had an MRI Scan a Spinal Tap more X Rays and lots of blood tests. One of the blood tests has shown that there is a problem with his Thyroid. He hasn't got any medication for that yet because the vet is waiting for the results of some of the tests. Some samples of blood and spinal fluid have been sent to a lab some where in Europe and may take another week before we get the results. So fingers crossed we will get him better soon.

More Homework

This was the give away prize won by Louise. She has now received it and I hope she likes it.



I have made a start on another piece of my homework. I am making a wall hanging inspired by a picture I have of a field full of poppies.

I started with a piece of green felt and laid wool rovings, threads of various kinds and cut up ribbons on top.

The next three pictures are close ups of the various stages.

The next picture shows all the mess covered up with dyed cotton scrim. This was then tacked down and I attacked the piece of fabric with my embellisher.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo but as I haven't finished with the embellisher I will do that tomorrow.
We still don't know what is wrong with Sparky. We took him back to the vets on Friday. The blood tests they had carried out were inconclusive. He had a pain killing injection and they referred him to a specialist. Neil took him yesterday afternoon and he was very impressed the set up and the vet. He said it looks just like an NHS hospital. Tomorrow Sparky is going to have an MRI Scan. The vet thinks it could be a slipped disc in his spine or a tumour. We just want him to get better and come home the house is so quiet without him.

On Friday we took part in the biggest coffee morning to raise money for Macmillan. We had a great time and chatted to a lot of nice people and mananaged to raise £304. We really enjoyed the morning and would like to say a big thank you to all those who attended and helped us to raise so much money.