Monday 29 March 2010

Patience!

Patience is something that I don't really have much of & considering how little I have I am surprised that I get any stitching completed at all. As you know every Monday evening I've been off to an evening quilt class where I've working on Roberts sampler quilt. Every day I go i've been admiring a quilt they had hanging up advertising a Saturday workshop. Well at the last minute I booked myself up for the days course & took myself off last Saturday to spend the day sewing.
Our tutor for the day was the much published & author of her own book Quilting-on-the-go, Carolyn Forster. The quilt for the day is called Patience Corner Quilt.

There were six of us taking the class, a real mix of experienced quilters to the complete beginner. Carolyn was excellent & took the time to explain even the most basic parts of getting started. I was impressed with how the quilt top came together so quickly. The 9 patch start seems to give so many alternative patterns, I can't wait to get going on some more variations. As you can see from the pictures I chose a mixture of pinks & lilacs as this one is to be a quilt for Hannah.
The first quilt here top left is Carolyns quilt, the one that I admired every week for 9 weeks :-) Carolyn asked us to lay out what we'd completed during the day so that we could all see what everyone else has done, she is here at the head of the table. Some lovely coloured quilt tops, it's always really nice to see how everyones quilts turn out, especially as we've all done the same pattern but they took totally different.

Here are my completed blocks.

A very successful day, it was over far too quickly. A huge thank you to Carolyn Forster. So many little details that she mentioned throughout the day really made me think about the projects I'm doing & intend to do, so much so that some of them I have already changed thread colours & fabric placement etc.

This evening I have the last of my evening classes over at Thread Bear & will hopefully have a picture to show you later this week of Roberts Sampler Quilt. I know that I will stand & admire the next quilt Carolyn is to teach on a one day class, it's called Star & Lattice. They've hung it in exactly the same place that the Patience quilt was. I shall just avoid looking.

I may even get to post some cross stitch updates later this week. I have totally lost my Monday stitching day for 3 weeks now as the twins nursery is closed for 2 weeks over Easter & then another Monday for staff training... oh how I wish they'd do the training on a Friday!!!

Thats it for now... I'm off to play with new obsession of Selvage Edge Quilts. Thank you again Mrs Forster!!

Happy Stitching :-)

Thursday 11 March 2010

Woohooo..... A Finish :-)

Here it is... my first finish of 2010 & it just happen to also be my January 1st Challenge piece for the stitching group I follow.
Sweet Dreams by
Cinnamon Cat
January 1st Challenge Piece
Completed March 10th

Happy Stitching :-)

Wednesday 10 March 2010

More Wonky-ness & Christmas Design Update!

Looks like I've now finished all of the centre parts of Roberts quilt & this week I have to start sewing them all together. I finally got around to taking pictures of the past two weeks work. The first is rather like a wonky chess board.


The second is Wonky Logs & this was completed Monday & I've already trimmed these ones ready to be stitched.


My other update is on the Christmas Design SAL. I still really love stitching this on the first week of the month & again this month I've managed to complete my goal that I set. Roll on next month :-)
This weeks stitching is on the little Sweet Dreams mini sampler for Robert & with not much left to complete I am hoping to share a picture with you before the week is out. Then I just have to choose which project to start next..... so much choice!!!!

Happy stitching :-)

Monday 1 March 2010

Riding along

Last week I was stitching on two different designs. One of them I can't share with you as it's a gift for someone that visits my blog on occasion. The other is my HAED Dragon Riders. I haven't made great progress & I haven't even finished one page yet but I am really pleased with what was about 2 evenings stitching. I took the fabric off of my large frame & started using my 8in Q-snap which is what I use for most of my stitching & suddenly my stitching on it became a whole lot quicker :-)
Apologies for the slightly blurry photo.

My other picture this wonderfully sunny Monday is the latest panel in my Sampler quilt. I have to say it was the most fiddly thing I've done to date. It does look really lovely but when I come to make another one for Hannah there is no way I'm going to be making the bias stems, she can have just flowers. The stems were a nightmare, I certainly didn't enjoy making them but I am pleased with the result.



Being the first week of the month means that this week I am joining my friends over at Dragon My Needle for our Christmas Design SAL. I lovveee this SAL so I've got my drink, my snacks, my Waltons on the DVD player & my fabric in hand.

Happy stitching everyone :-)