The Three F's and a T.

A hodge-podge sort of fortnight, full of threads, fabrics, flour and family. 

• A random little patchwork project for no other reason than I fancied doing it. Started as a doodle, and then ended up as a near 12" square. Rather pleased with it too. If your wondering it's a quote from the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland. A quote I can get behind "It's Always Time for Tea". Here, here!

• More thrifty finds - Went in search of shelving units for the bathroom and instead came back with some cheap reels of Sylko thread for my aunt, a rather lovely plain white linen table cloth for £9 and a thimble rack; no I haven't started collecting I have other plans for it.

• I love, love, love Nigel's Lazy Loaf - Lives up to it's name. Second week I've made it now. I have found I had to play about with the amount of flour as Sainsbury's only sell Buttermilk in 300ml not the required 350ml. And I don't like to buy more than I need. So chopped down the flour to 175g and I think it's worked even better this week. Either way, it's super yummy....and toasts nicely too.

• More adventures into Wonderland - The quote that I featured on the little patchwork piece is back again, and this time I've decided to embroider it. Currently work in progress. 

 

Can never find my white tissue paper, so pale pink was used. I tend to find it easier stitching a rough outline on linen that can't be drawn onto, rather than using the prick, pounce and paint method. It's quicker, well for me, and less messy. If your interested in the other method, my good friend, Jen Goodwin, has an excellent tutorial. 

Of, course my favourite stitch is back, trailing for the win! And there is going to be quite a bit of it. Can't help it.

See, I told you there was going to be more! You can just make out the start of a clock, with multiple hands. 

• Giving child marriage the finger! And you can too. Let children, be children. I have recently supported this campaign, and you can too. If you can't donate, but have a social media account, a blog even. Post a link to it. Spread the word. 

Patchwork WIP and 2015 Projects

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you all made it in one piece. 

I thought I would skip over a review of 2014 and just crack straight into what I've been stitching, cause frankly getting back to stitching and mucking about with fabric has really gone me into a happy place and got me in the zone for looking forward to 2015.

It feels so good to get back to stitching and working on projects that have had to put aside for months in order to concentrate on deadlines and so forth. The quilt I started last Christmas was brought out once more and I cracked on with putting together the last four blocks, tidied up the size so they were all an even 12" square, and then..finally started to add sashing! It really is satisfying that before I return to work next week that the major part of the quilt is finally, finally complete!

Working out the placement of the blocks...but changed it again before I machined the sashing on.

And as you can see the border is now on! Love, love it! It's not an overly complicated design but it's tested me for the first proper patchwork quilt I've put together. Really looking forward to sorting out the backing fabric, as I have so much of Petite Street Fabric and white left over there might be another larger patchworking on the back. Then I can get the wadding and then...then I can do some quilting. So excited. Okay, I know I wanted to get it done before this Christmas just gone, but still I feel fairly accomplished that I've got at least this far and from here on it's at least likely to get done by winter 2015 now.

It's not the only patchwork piece I've been turning my hand to, because I have a stupidly large stash of scrap fabric from the embroidery work last year, the quilt and so forth I like to every now and then just do a little hand sewn scrap quilt. No plan to it just going with the flow. In fact what started as a small square is now looking likely to be a long panel which I think might go in the bedroom to compliment the quilt. You can follow the progress of this here and over on instagram. 

I've also decided as this is the year to being creative as possible. Being creative makes me happy, and keeps me focused on that. So one thing I signed myself up for as a bit of a mini year long challenge is a project my friend Nini of Made By Nini has set up 12 page in 2015. I didn't stop and think as to whether or not to do it I just signed myself up and so not to backtrack on it I set about making my little 12 page journal. Rather cute if I do say my self and made completely from one box. The first prompt has been announced, 'New Beginnings, Friends and with a bonus of Washi Tape. I look forward to spending an afternoon working on my page. Again keep an eye on instagram. Oh, and if you are interested in participating, not to late to join, lots of folks from around the world are taken part.

Got a project your working on or planning to start?

I have some doodles in mind for future embroidery projects, as I am nearly ready to get back to doing some more intricate stitching.

Oh, and one final thing I have the sale still going on!

Quilting & Moving

Things are coming on at quite a pace for both my little quilting project and moving. The two now almost merging. 

This weekend I am doing yet more packing, and this means all my materials, equipment and stock are getting packed up and sent to my parents. This subsequently means that my shop will be going on vacation mode as of tomorrow night. I wasn't planning on closing it so soon but there is a lot happening and I don't need the stress at the moment. 

At present I am not entirely sure when I will be back up and running I'm thinking in a fortnight. This blog, Twitter etc will be the best way of keeping up with when I am open again. Of course, you can also sign up for my handy, dandy mailing list. I will be using the reopening of the shop for a good reason to test out my newsletter template. Click here to join.

I also hope by that point I will know when I will be completing on my flat purchase, but I am not really holding my breath at this point. AH, the joys of purchasing.

And what about my little project, well see for yourself, its coming across rather nicely. The loving the look of it and the speed in which it is coming together. I do bits and pieces on the train and a little in the evenings. Just enough to keep my hand in sewing. 

Before I toddle off to add more to the quilting piece, I'll leave you with the following:

• Have you done my Eyelet tutorial? If so, do show it off!
• Awesome TEDTalk by Beatrice Coron a paper cutting artist
• I think I have an idea for a craft book...filed for a way for another day
• Finally, I'll be working on my next tutorial in the Hive series, hope your looking forward to it.