More inspiration – now just need more time!

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello again

Since I started following the Splendid Sampler Facebook page I have been notified of other things of a similar type and one of the new things that I have been loving and finding amazingly inspiring is the Millefori/La Passcaglia quilt group.

It is similar to other Millefiori quilts but is based on a book by Willyne Hammerstein which has now gone on my wish list, along with the wish for more days in the week, just an extra weekend each week would be brilliant, one for handwork and for machine work and then I would be quite happy to work five days inbetween them!

They are amazing quilts – these are some of my favourite colour combinations, all pictures from the Facebook page.

Millefiori quilt complete blue

Millefiori quilt purple and green

Millefiori quilt rainbow

Millefiori quilt rainbow 2-small

I have bought a sample pack of papers for one rosette from Honey Be Quilting on Ebay, they are double sized so make a big rosette which should be doable in not too much time. Most of these projects above took about a year so that project is going on my retirement list!

Have also been reading some new inspiring blogs, more about those in a later post but one of them had this saying as part of the header and I found a great picture to go with it.

Love the life you live quote-small

Have not heard this quote for a while and it was a great reminder of how lucky I am to have a lovely life with so much inspiration and love and fun things in it.

Hope you are having a good week, it is always very inspiring for me this time of year when my students come back from their placements.

They haven’t been together as a group since end of February and they are always so happy to be back together .This is a really inspiring time for them as well when they realise how far they have come since September. I am very lucky to love my job, even without the four day weekend!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

 

Compensations

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Well unfortunately I didn’t make it to our event this weekend as have been struck down by a horrible flu bug but I have been feeling well enough to sew and have finished off one little fabric basket and made two others.

I may be slightly addicted, but they are so cute! And so useful. These ones will be for Sarah’s stall in September at Yarndale as she is producing another book of patterns and has asked me to make some more things to sell alongside that again.

The first one was to go with some of the things I made for the stall last year that I had left over, I thought this would make a good threads or scraps basket along with the matching pincushion and needlebook.

Baskets April 2016 5

Baskets April 2016 6

I adapted the pattern from the original one from Kelbysews at Hearts and Bees on Craftsy   in order to make this smaller one but have since bought the Friends of the One Hour Basket Pattern by the same designer on Craftsy which gives you the sizes to make all these lovely ones. Picture from Craftsy.

Friends of the Hour Basket

I used this new pattern to make two of the Melanie Baskets which are the second from smallest of the sizes. The pattern contains sizes for 8 baskets including a tote bag and is great value at about £3.50.

Do you remember this lovely fabric that I bought at Harrogate last year, (proof that I do use my stash!).

Baskets April 2016 7

Baskets April 2016 8

This is the fabric I purchased recently, just couldn’t resist more sewing notions patterned fabric.

I made the little detachable matching pincushion for this one out of the scraps from when you cut out the corner squares to make the box shape, waste not want not. It has a press stud on the strap for removal.

I am going to make a matching pincushion for the French sewing themed bag as well, the motifs on the scrap corners were too small but I have plenty of this lovely fabric left.

They look so cute in my craft room 🙂

Baskets April 2016 9

Baskets April 2016 10

I may just have ordered a few bits of sheep themed fabric to make some for knitters as well, could not find much in the way of nice wool or knitting motifs but found plenty of cute sheep and as Yarndale is held in a cattle market and is full of sheep stuff thought those might sell well.

Hope you have a lovely week ahead, my students are back this week which will be very lovely and then we have a Bank Holiday weekend to look forward to – yippee three days of making bags!

Thanks as always for visiting.

 

Sewing in PJs

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello again

There is nothing nicer on a Sunday morning than waking up to find it is lovely and sunny and feeling inspired to spend a few hours in the craft room sewing in your PJs.

I have had a lovely time making another basket and this time I decided to experiment with sizes so I have made a tiny basket!

Tiny basket 1

This one is a quarter of the size of the one I made yesterday, all I did was divide the first 10.5 inch by 16.5 inch piece from the pattern into 4 pieces giving me a lining as well from that same fabric.

The finished basket is 5 inches in length and 3 inches deep and is probably one of the cutest things I have ever made, I love it 🙂

It took about 2 1/2 hours as I did do a lot of hand sewing as well, the handles would not work well on the machine as they are only 2 inches wide to start with so hand sewed them and also stitched down all of the seam allowance on the exterior as with the foam lining in they are quite bulky.

Also had to hand stitch with Perle thread as it was too small to topstich by machine and wanted to add some buttons as well. I am also proud of the way that the seams match, was not trying to pattern match honest!

This will stay in my craft room and will be used for collecting scraps when cutting. Will absolutely have to make more of these, we have a Bank Holiday weekend coming up so I know where I will be.

I am counting this as number 15, something doll sized,  from my Sewing Bucket List which I have extended into 2016.

See you soon, thanks for visiting and have a nice week ahead.

A tisket, a tasket, a fabric basket!

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Hello everyone, hope you are all well and happy. I am fine, had a very busy week with virtually no crafting at all so am making up for it this weekend.

Bizarrely enough it is snowing while I type this – I am just glad that I got home from my Simply Solids  class before it started so now I am snuggled up under my fleece on the sofa with my lovely new fabric basket.

The title of my post comes from a nursery rhyme  that I used to sing and play the accompanying game to when I was younger, no idea what a tisket or a tasket is but it makes a nice rhyme for basket.

The class was based around pattern for the one – hour basket which is a free pattern on Craftsy that you can find here .

The creator is KelbySews and she has another pattern  for sale on her blog for different sized baskets.

There were just 3 of us in the class today and we had a lovely time, although it is called a one-hour basket it took nearly 3 hours for this first attempt.

The fabric is an ombre from V and Co for the outside and last of my Moda sewing notions fabric from a couple of years ago for the lining.

I have previously made some sewing gifts  for my sister -in -law from this fabric so have decided that I will give this one to her for an Xmas gift as  basket for all her sewing, am planning to add an embroidered label to the outside.

I am hopefully going to make another one tomorrow as I have bought more supplies of the foam used for the lining so will see if I can make the next one a bit faster.

There are loads of versions of it for inspiration, I found these pretty ones on Craftsy and here and would like to do some patchwork or embroidered ones.

The other thing that is keeping me busy is sewing new braid on one of my daughter’s medieval dresses, that is lovely soothing stitching for evenings when I am too tired to concentrate.

Hope that you have a very nice week ahead, I am really looking forward to our first re-enactment event of the year next week, back to fun in fields 🙂

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

 

 

 

Keeping it in the family

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On my recent visit to Spain my lovely Mum was very pleased to be able to show me her first completed quilt.

She has always knitted but had not done any quilting until I showed her what to do last year. She is now enjoying a variety of styles including English Paper Piecing.

This first quilt is made from label fabric that I bought a few years ago from one of the many quilt shows I visited plus some of my Simply Solids stash. These photos are taken in her lovely sunny spare room which she is converting into a craft room.

We made up the layout together and she has spent a lot of time piecing, backing and hand quilting it.

Doesn’t it look brilliant? It has been donated to a local charity and she is going to get to work on the next one for them using some pirate label fabric that I also have in my stash that I have not used up.

It is great to be able to donate my unused stash to her and she has also been buying fabric of her own as well for projects like this table mat which was her first go at machine piecing and quilting. There are not many quilt shops in Spain but we did find a lovely one about half and hour’s drive away so she goes there when she can.

Mum - dino quilt 4

Meanwhile I keep her supplied with fabric, I have just bought her a charm square pack of the Moda Picnic fabric that I showed you a couple of posts ago as part of her Mother’s Day present and she was the recipient of the Patchsmith mug rugs books that I shared with you in the earlier post as well.

I have been buying a little more fabric and ribbon as well, was searching for something else when I came across this lovely stuff on Ebay from Elliequilts.She has a great range, especially of batiks, and the service was really speedy.

‘Don’t you already have a little bit of sewing themed fabric Alison?’, I can hear you saying which is very true but Sarah, she of the wonderful knitting genius, is doing another stall at Yarndale and has asked me to make some more things so over the summer I will be working  on some sewing and knitting project bags that she can sell there.

Besides look at the cuteness here, the pieced hexis and the sampler, just couldn’t resist 😉

Had a very productive weekend, garden all tidy just waiting for me to get some new plants for the pots and did lots of stitching.

It was a very bizarre day weather wise, lovely and sunny in the morning, even a bit hot so the washing dried very quickly then by six o’clock the rain that came turned to snow! Yorkshire is renowned for having four seasons in one day and that was proof of it.

Am off to Simply Solids this Saturday for another one of their great courses, this time to make a fabric basket so will let you know the results of my endeavours.

Take care, have a lovely rest of the week and thanks for visiting.

Art in the Prado

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello everyone, hope that you have been having a lovely week. I have which was very nice, it is always sad having to go back to work after a great holiday but I have had a really good few days.

I have had fun times with the trainees that came to our Spring Conference, presented at our own Research Conference and then went to see a brilliant Bluegrass band last night.

The sun is shining and washing is on the line! What could be better? Oh and I have the weekend free to craft. An excellent life indeed.

I wanted to share with you some of my favourite paintings from the Prado, photos were not allowed so all of these have come from web sources, one of my favourite sources is the Web Gallery of Art which I use a lot for costume research.

While we were in Florence a couple of years ago we saw some of the work of one of my favourite artists Fra Angelico and there were two more of his works in the Prado.

The Annunciation is stunning, there are many similar paintings which are equally lovely but the detail on this one is so wonderful, the millefiori (million flowers) on the grass outside, the starry ceiling and the gold of the halos and beam just amaze me.

Prado - Annunciation 1

There is a close up here which shows the detail of the beam of light and halos.

Prado - Annunciation 2 detail

The Prado Museum had recently acquired another of his works, ‘The Virgin and the Pomegranate’. This had only arrived in January and you can read the history of the painting at this link here , so we were very lucky in the timing of our visit.

Prado - Virgin 1

I love the look on Jesus’s face reaching for the pomegranate seeds as if he a little unsure what they will be like.

Prado - Virgin detail

One of our favourite pieces was this enormous painting by Bartholomeus Strobel. He was a German painter who was painting in the early 1600s and this is entitled, ‘The Beheading of John the Baptist’.

˜d

Again the detail in this is fantastic, the painting is about 10 metres long and every person is painted with such care, the amount of work that has gone into this is staggering and the costumes are wonderful to look at.

Strobel painting detail 1

˜d

˜d ˜

There were also these pieces by Reubens and Brueghel  – The Five Senses

These were painted between 1617 and 1618 and not only are the stunning in the wealth of detail in them but the backgrounds are so beautiful.

‘Sight’, shows an archway to a town, wouldn’t you just love to step into the painting and out that arch and explore?

Prado - Five senses - Touch

This is part of the detail from ,’Hearing’, the same castle appears in the background of a couple of the paintings and it looks very similar to the ones we visited in Denmark last year as they had green roofs.

Prado - Five senses - Hearing - detail

Prado - Five senses - sight

This one above, ‘Sight and Smell’,  was also by Brueghel and is a copy of the original done shortly after as the original was destroyed in a fire in the 1700s.

I just love that little glimpse through the doorway and all the landscapes propped up on the floor.

My research paper was on masters and their apprentices and I mentioned the role of the ,’masterpiece’, in that process.

These truly are masterpieces and I am so lucky to have seen them. I would love to go back to the Prado on my next visit to Madrid, so much more to see and wonders to see again.

I hope you have enjoyed your little virtual tour, I am off for a bit of a garden tidy up now since it is still sunny and then an afternoon and knitting and embroidery 🙂

Have fun whatever you are doing and thanks for visiting.

 

 

Madrid – doors galore!

stitchesoftime3 Comments

 

Hello, hope that you have all been having fun in the last couple of weeks. I have had a wonderful time in Spain, including my first visit to Madrid which was splendid, even by the very high standards of all the other beautiful cities I have visited.

I will have to go back, there was so much to see and I think I could spend at least a week visiting churches.

We did get to see the exterior of a few like these three above and the stunning cathedral, started in the late 1800s it was not completed until 1983 so has a mix of gothic architecture with more modern ceiling painting which was wonderful, such bright colours and patterns.

The exterior was also beautiful.

The visit included lots of time spent just staring up at all the buildings, much of Madrid was built between 1900 and 1930 so there are some wonderful examples of Art Deco and Modernist style architecture as well as the older building like the Palace and the Plaza Mayor at the bottom of these pictures.

I love the detail on these buildings, the plasterwork, turrets and balconies make them all look so special.

We also visited the Palace and the Prado Museum, another fix of medieval art plus some stunning pieces by artists I had not really looked at before, will put those in another post.

The bars were decorated as well as well, with lots of tiling and woodwork, would love to go back and spend more time exploring these and eating some of the food on offer.

Very tempted by all of these different types of gambas, (prawns), on offer here.

Madrid bars - gambas

While exploring and taking pictures of these lovely places we came across a flamenco bar so went back for the show later that evening, what amazing footwork and singing, I would love to go again someday.

The place was just stunning in the detail so I took lots of pictures of my favourite thing – doors. Lots more content for the book I keep joking to the kids that I am going to publish one day, ‘Doors I have Known’, featuring all my favourite old doors.

And there were beautiful lamps everywhere, outside the Palace and on all of the streets, just lovely!

We stayed at the Hostal Bergantin, a great central location about 10 mins walk from all the main sights like the Prado and Palace and with lots of bars and cafes all around. A very comfy room, helpful staff and a great view from the 4th floor of city life! Another good find from Expedia.

Have been busy since I got back as the lovely kids have been here celebrating Ellie’s 25th birthday. Cannot believe she is so grown up, am going to have to start lying about her age soon lol.

Ellie 25th birthday 1

Here they are while we were out for a meal last night, the ‘crown’ is the band from her Frozen birthday cake as however old she gets she will always be a Disney princess!

So am back to work tomorrow for the start of the summer term, looking forward to lighter nights and lovely times as re-enactment begins in a few weeks and there is definitely Spring in the air.

Hope that you all have a lovely week ahead, take care and thanks for visiting.

Serendipity and other happy things

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Serendipity is one of my favourite words. It means, ‘the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way’, and I particularly love it when I get crafting serendipity.

This happens a lot as I am always finding great things on blogs or fabric that goes really well with intended projects which was what happened at Simply Solids on Saturday.

Last month’s Stichery Club by Jenny of Elefantz included this cute design, picture from Jenny’s website. I have already used the little birds on my Happy Happy block but want to make the whole thing as well at some point.ELEFANTZ the topiary tree

So I was very pleased to see this fabric on the shelves at Simply Solids.

Machine quilting course 13

They had lots of different colours but I thought this was very pretty. I can use the centre of the flower for the main design and the rest for the surrounding fabric. I think it will make a cute bag.

There was also a great machine quilting resource mentioned at the course, Leah Day and when I got home and found her website I realised that I had come across her before.

Her Free Motion Quilting Project  has shared 365 designs for quilting and they are all in the gallery here. Each design also has a video showing you how to do it, an incredibly generous resource.

I have added her book to my Amazon wish list as think that would be a very useful addition to my quilting library.

Leah Day 365 quilting designs book

She also has two other books that just have the beginner and intermediate designs in them so think I might start with those. You never know though after my recent success I could become a machine quilting genius after all!

I have also just ordered this PDF pattern from Acorn Quilt and Gift Company  , it  is one I found from a link from Jenny’s website I think and I have wanted it for ages but was not sure what I would do with it.

Betsys Closet In Stitches

A friend from knitting group has just had a baby girl and I think that one of these designs would make a gorgeous baby card so am planning to stitch that in Spain as well.

It is so cute and  I love the quilted border as well. There is also a fully appliqued version as well which is just as lovely.

Betsys Closet applique

Look at this little dress, and the quilting around it. One day maybe!

Betsy Closet Sunday Dress

Am fast approaching project wish overload as there are so many things that I want to do. I take comfort from the fact that the end of the teaching year is only a couple of months away and that means getting home at a reasonable time and in the light so my productivity always increases then.

And the fact that I am using this blog partly as a retirement resource for me as well for the time when I can devote all day everyday to crafting!!

Meanwhile hope that you all have a lovely next couple of weeks, I am very lucky and will be doing lots of resting and crafting so I hope that you have fun and will see you all soon.

Thanks for visiting.

Kaizen and the art of machine quilting

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Hello everyone, hope that you are all well and happy.

I have just finished reading the book Ellie bought me last week and at the end Cassandra talks about, ‘kaizen’, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement while being happy with what you are doing now and that just about sums up my machine quilting course at Simply Solids yesterday.

In fact I would go further and say that I am very happy with what I achieved. Last summer I did a course with Gillian Travis and though it was mainly about applique she was encouraging us to use machine quilting and embroidery to finish our work and she talked about ‘drawing with the machine’ but I was too scared to try.

This was partly why I booked onto this course taught by Charlotte Jeffrey who blogs under the name Quiltification. She also has a Pinterest board here.

She started by showing us some of her work and it is gorgeous. I love the contrast of the simplicity of this piecing on the quilt made with ombre squares in contrast with the amazing quilting including her, ‘mandala’, design.

Machine quilting course 5

 

She also brought this beautiful one that I didn’t get chance to get a picture of at the course so this is from her website. I love these heart shaped leaves.

Quiltification quilt 1

She was very encouraging and in no time at all I had moved from wonky lines and writing my name to curves and then freestyle daisies. It was really brilliant and has given me so much confidence.

We started practising on calico and then I decided to do a little test on some silk and I love it so much I brought it home, bound it and will be using it as a coaster, I have created a little piece of art and I am very pleased 🙂

Quilted coaster 1

Helen from knitting group was there as well, she is very good with a machine and created these beautiful samples, love her writing practise!

I also bought a little bit more stash, it would have been very rude not to and almost impossible to resist the temptation when you are sitting surrounded by gorgeous fabric all day.

This is the latest Bonnie and Camille design from Moda, ‘Vintage Picnic’, there are some beautiful prints here in five different colourways.

Moda Vintage Picnic all colours

 

Can’t decide which is my favourite print but I do love this cross stitch inspired one.

Vintage picnic cross stitch fabric

 

I bought a charm pack as I like having all of the colours in a range to choose from.

Machine quilting course 14

Machine quilting course 12

There are some gorgeous quilt patterns for the design, these are two of my favourites, Nantucket and Summertime.

Vintage picnic quilt pattern 1

 

 

Vintage picnic quilt pattern 2 Summerville

Had a fab day and am looking forward to doing some more quilting courses with Simply Solids in the summer. I always really enjoy going on courses and it is such a beautiful shop. I also always come away with something lovely 🙂

Their new schedule will be posted on Monday so I will be booking myself a little something, maybe as a birthday treat!

Have a very packed week ahead, sadly not  practising machine quilting  😦 but then am off to Spain for two weeks so shall be doing lots of hand stitching, reading and knitting in the sun.

I am also going to celebrate a late Mother’s Day and an early birthday with my wonderful Mum so am very much looking forward to that.

We are having a little trip to Madrid as well so will be no doubt posting some pictures of beautiful buildings when I get back.

Until then take care and thanks for visiting.

 

A lovely crafting weekend!

stitchesoftime2 Comments

 

Hello everyone

Hope that you have had a great weekend, here in the UK it has been Mother’s Day and I had planned a Crafternoon so I have had a thoroughly splendid time and got flowers as well!

Mothers Day Flowers

Ellie came up for both days, we had the usual cake and pink fizz in the company of Sarah, Helen and Sharon from knitting group and then on Sunday had a little trip out.

Can’t show you much from the Crafternoon as everyone but me was working on secret projects, Sarah for her new knitting book due out later this year and Ellie and Helen on gifts.

March crafternoon 1

March crafternoon 2

I thought I would start on a bit of paper piecing for Christmas – never too early!

Our planned visits further afield on Sunday were curtailed by heavy snow on Friday but we still had a lovely time and I have some new things to show you.

Firstly a couple of lovely quilt books, one bought by me last week and the other from my children, credit due to Ellie for spotting this in the National Trust gift shop! Apparently when she told him what she was planning Jake said he didn’t think I needed another quilt book, how wrong 😉

Quilt books - Mothers day 1

As you know I love textile history and this gorgeous book, ‘A World of Quilts’, by Cassandra Ellis is all about making historic quilts, the author has used mainly recycled material and this gives the quilts a wonderful vintage look.

Each of the quilt patterns has a little bit of history with it and the finished quilts are beautifully photographed. A really excellent present!

Quilt books - Mothers day 2

Quilt books - Mothers day 3

Quilt books - Mothers day 4

I bought this one, ‘Tile Quilt Revival’,   from Amazon recently as I came across a reference to the tile quilts on a blog. Again they are based on historic quilts and have some really unusual designs.

Quilt books - tile book 1

The quilts are made from applique which is done onto a plain background with spaces between the pieces giving the appearance of grout. Here is a better picture of the cover quilt.

Quilt books - tile book 3

There are some wonderful patterns in here and as I have established I am much better at applique than piecing so am very drawn to this quilt style.

I have also been doing some applique myself, this is one of the Splendid Sampler blocks I mentioned previously, Happy Happy by Jen Kingwell .

Splendid Sampler Block 4 Happy-Happy-Block-picture

I really liked the pattern and all of the examples that I was seeing so have been spending most of the last week working on this.

SS Happy Happy Block 1

The fabric is a Liberty print for the vase and the flowers are all made from part of a Moda Best Wishes charm pack. I am improving my skills at chain stitch as well and am very pleased how this has come out.

SS Happy Happy Block 3

Am adding a couple of Jenny’s cute birds to the piece to finish it off.

I love the way that everyone has interpreted this design differently, there are buttons, fussy cut flowers and so many beautiful fabrics.

On this mosaic are designs from Lori, Nantje, Dianna, Kandy, Heather, Coralie, Jill, Beth, Christine and Alicia, all pictures from the Splendid Sampler blog and Facebook page. Wonderful work ladies!

Have an exciting weekend ahead as well as am off to another quilting course at Simply Solids on Saturday learning how to improve my freestyle machine quilting. Will share progress with that on Sunday.

Have a lovely rest of the week, take care and thanks for visiting.