Well She Liked It

I gave Barbara her other quilt top back yesterday and she loved it.  It was only a practise piece, yet another one of her 'been in the loft for 10 years' ones but she was over the moon.

It may be a repeating design but I did learn a lot from it especially about travelling from an end to the next start.  Also, not to screw my head up too much when every one is not perfect and as I wanted it!  The over all effect is what counts.

I must also add that I try and follow quite a few longarmers, American usually as it's still too few and far between over here, but one has really inspired me over the past few months, especially with this quilt, and you can go and see Karen Marchetti's work, as well as on Facebook (you really should look through the albums on there!) if you too like being wowed by stunning quilting as well as quite a few wonderful quilts.

Thanks Karen for pulling me out of the feathers!!!! (I'll keep tapping the microphone if you keep recording the videos!)

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Slow Going

And now it’s raining!  We have a frame up but no glass in so it’s rather damp in my workroom to be.

Not a lot of action in the making department, I’m still feeling very unsettled.  I did need to cover an A4 ring binder though so I had a little practise on Ari and was quite pleased with how tight I could go.

This book arrived in the post so of course I want to go and play!  NO room!! Patience patience.  (The title is a bit gangsterish don't you think! )

Barbara, I am hoarding the MM4 instructions and will catch up as soon as!  Still not decided on those fabrics yet though.

Yesterday I had a morning with my ladies.  We haven’t been together since the beginning of December because Heather, who usually holds the groups, is still very poorly.  It was strange having quite a few of all four groups together but it made the hired hall quite lively!  I had to do a show and tell with the tops I had been doing on Ari. 

For anyone doing the Friday Night Sew In the next virtual gathering is the 18^th of this month.  See the button on the right.

We’re still excited about the family news, No Elsa I don’t make dresses, No Maggi and Benta I don’t wear hats! Lol!  Here’s a quick glimpse of the ring and doesn’t she look literally on top of the world!

Lastly, I know we are in aviation but do you think I should be worried that there is a Harrier Jump Jet in our eBay watch list?

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Calm

We've had a wonderful week with Elsa and Mike here.  Quite surreal that the past 5 months has just gone and now the next phase of their lives begins as they start looking for a home down here.  First though, they have both gone off for a well deserved holiday skiing and the house has resumed it's calm with the dogs wondering where everyone has gone.

For said trip we had to have a couple of days shopping of course.  There is nothing worse for a young lady's demeanour than being confined to a gritty, mass laundered uniform 24/7 for weeks on end!  Girly stuff was the order of the day and a nice cooling down session for the wallet afterwards!  On one of the trips John did buy me this mug so I had a look in too.

Friday and Saturday I finally put the Waves quilt on Ari and had a go with a pantograph and I finished the binding this morning.

Again it was more of a learning curve with seeing how doing a panto needs thought.  The rule of  'if the piecing or fabric is too busy, don't knock yourself out with the quilting' went out of the window though.  You can't really see the pattern of shells in the photo but I'm quite pleased with it.  I used YLI invisible.  I haven't used invisible on such a large scale before and had no idea what colour to use on this multi coloured top so it seemed a good opportunity to see how Ari would take it!  Like a dream of course, loving that HQ machine!

I'm having a quick scoot around the blogs and then catching up on two weeks of Lisa's beading.  Have a good Sunday.


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Better Late Than Never

Our current family situation does not react well to rather loud knocks on the door at past 19.30 but that is what happened on both Wednesday and Thursday nights!  After the initial shock it turned out to be delivery men catching up with very late parcels!

Wednesday night's parcel was from Maison Sajou, France, with the embroidery thread selection box I had ordered.  I had first been pointed in the direction of all these lovely things by Jacky and now I have them in my possession, they're mine, mine I tell you!!

The embroidered tin, cards, thread winders, stitch pattern (so you can have a reference of all the colours of the threads) and catalogue all came as a bonus.  The catalogue is beautifully presented in both French and English with plenty of things you just don't find over here.

Thursday night had the delivery of these books which I had ordered about three weeks before Christmas.  Lots of design ideas, all from Dover Publications.

I have finished quilting the JB Baby Blocks using the Suzanne Early method for the long arm.  

Basically you stitch a very large meander right across the quilt top with no space smaller than a clenched fist.  You carry on down the entire quilt to secure all layers and then re load the quilt as a single layer.  It is then just a matter of going back along the meander filling in the spaces either side with your chosen motifs.  I chose a ribbon scroll, a scroll with a feather back and some leaves.  Just three things but they could all be sized to fill in the spaces easily along the meander.  It was great to do, I hope you can see some of the stitching in the photo.  This was taken after washing when the 80/20 wadding had scooched in a little, I just love that effect!

I also chose to do another all over pattern on White Nights only with loops and stars this time and not the double load method.  One of the rules Suzanne Michelle Hyland quilts by when choosing designs is that if the piecing is dark or dominant, don't knock yourself out with the quilting!  The all over designs for these two quilts works well and I'm pleased. 

And a lovely gift I received for Christmas from Chris was two balls of Rico's Can Can yarn.  It's like netting when you open it out and makes frilly scarves.  I've made these two already but I keep thinking of other ways to use the yarn so will be working on that at a later date.

My back is mending well, thank you to those who commented.  Too little exercise can be more detrimental than too much sometimes!  The boys are playing in the garage so I'm going to see what I can play with now.

A happy and healthy New Year to you all.


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It Was Worth It!

In the major turn around that we have been doing here I've found all sorts of things.  But I've also gone into memory brain overload and can't remember where I've put anything!  I have labelled boxes but it's not the same as knowing where something is because it's the thing you use a lot and put it down in the same place all the time.  My work space may look like chaos to the untrained eye but it is an actually logical space to work.  I am working on it though!

I found a bag of cut diamonds from Jinny Beyer border prints, yes another one of her patterns, and Monday and Tuesday I put them together and I now have this lap top to quilt.

I have also chosen my fabrics for the quick Christmas Mystery Mondays 3.  You can't see in the photo but the white has really sparkly gold all over it and is lovely and I just couldn't resist the red stars! 

I also had my first skein of wool from Debbie.  Quite an exciting colour and very subtle changes and oh so beautifully soft.  I will hunt out the swift later and wind it up.

And the reason why we needed the room and the change around arrived on Wednesday.  It was like waiting for a baby to arrive!  I've spent quite a bit of time practising, it feels very different from the Nolting, much heavier for a start, and now I've jumped in.  Here it is loaded with MM 2 as my first piece.  Well I have to start somewhere!  Just waiting for it to tell me it's name.

I have all this going on and we have Chris and Mike are here over the weekend, fishing tomorrow weather permitting, and a whopping urge to have a scribble in my C&G sketchbook.  Anyone any idea where I put that????

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