From all to nothing - so to speak

Well the roll had to stop yesterday - just no time at all to even look at a needle never mind pick one up. The creative juices are still flowing though so I might get back to something later today

Tanya showed a picture of her daughter going out to her prom the other day, so I'm in proud mum mode now - if you don't want to look at pictures of teenage girls dressed up to the nines click away now :o)

Last night was Sarah's rugby presentation dinner and as a lot of the girls are around school prom age they opted for a formal dress code. Sarah's prom isn't until next year so we had to go out and buy a dress for this but it was worth it, thank goodness for good old TKMaxx.

So lots of tarting up and getting ready before having to be out of the house for 6.45pm

Here are the proud parents and daughter leaving the house (thank you Wendy next door for kindly pressing the button on the camera) Ignore that rather large bump on the mother's derriere it's an optical illusion - I'm actually a tall slim sylph like size 10 really (I wish - in my head I guess) Why do cameras never lie. And please do ignore the very elegant wellington boot rack by the open door too :o)

This is Sarah and her boyfriend Dan as we arrived at the rugby club - sweet!

The ageing parents (and boy I did feel old looking at my grown up daughter) sitting at the table - Dad has already had a couple of pints so is looking a little daft! Oh no sorry that's normal.

A close up of Sarah as we had some photos done out on the pitch

And this is of the whole group on that pitch - they just about managed to resist dragging each other to the ground on the way to a try. I guess the groundsman got a good deal getting his grass spiked with all those stilletto heels for nothing

And this is one of the other larger than life characters in the team with her rugby shorts on under her dress ?!?!?!?!? Sarah said she'd intended to do the same but her shorts would've spoiled the silhouette of her dress.

And finally a bevy of beauties back in the clubhouse. Incidentally the arm cast and the crutch are a result of rugby injuries on both parts. However they do all scrub up pretty well don't they?

And another checked shirting binding

Well I must be on a roll.

Another finish tonight.

My tulip table runner, the concept for which I copied from May Britt, is complete (Sorry you'll have to scroll down to early April 07 to see her version - I can't seem to get a direct link to her posting.

Nigel was away in Kendal overnight and Monday night is nice and quiet regarding kids' committments, so I settled down to sandwich and quilt this without the usual interruptions. It did help that it's not that big a piece of work - about 16" x 32"

Then I picked a particularly bright charity shop shirt fabric for yet another bias checked binding - I had used it for a couple of the tulips.

As you can see if you look closely I added a little caterpillar to my collection of bugs

And here it is in all its completed glory.

Now - whatever next? ...............................

New treasure today!

I've had a bit of a day for uncovering treasure. When in town this morning I called in at a couple of charity shops and made some lovely discoveries

Some lovely florals - the dark blue background is a ladies dress and has copious amounts of fabric in a full skirt

Some very feminine stripes and checks

And another batch of checks - the lilac in the front right hand corner is a pair of ladies pyjamas so again quite a bit of fabric in those legs - there'd be even more if they were my size, but hey you can't be greedy :o)

Then when I got back home a parcel on my doorstep contained these three complimentary books for making feathered stars - I'd bought them second hand from a lady on one of the online quilting yahoo groups I belong to. I've long been in awe of the feathered stars that Dawn makes (along with others of you that I can't remember at present) and these books might just spur me on to have a go at one.

On a slightly different note you might remember the stitching day we held on World Quilting Day to make children's quilts for our local Women's Refuge.

Prior to that I showed you a blue stripey quilt top which I'd stitched lots of bright stars onto.

It was taken by another Anne in the group to be completed at home and here it is

I think she's made a lovely job of it and it goes to join the other 35 we've made as a group so far, with more in the pipeline. It should really help to brighten up some small person's life a little I hope.

The sun's shining beautifully here in Taunton this morning, hope it is with you too!

And finally....

With various kids sporting fixtures and Sarah working on Saturday afternoons the opportunities for all five of us to have a day out together are becoming less and less feasible.

However we decided that, as the sun was shining and we were all free, yesterday would be one of those opportunities

Nigel knew that a local preserved railway society were having an open day so we headed off to Yeovil junction about 35 minutes from home.

Here he is standing by a little engine that used to regularly travel past his office when he worked in Hereford around 15 years ago. That was his fix for a while

Then as a token gesture to me we stopped off at a craft place on the way to the coast - sadly the quilt shop there doesn't open Sundays - but the thought was there :o)

And finally heading for the beach... West Bay near Bridport in Dorset. Even after living in Taunton for almost two years I still can't get over the novelty of being able to get to several lovely beaches within an hour. I've never before lived this close to the coast and it was always a major day out taking military precision planning when I was a child living in the Yorkshire Dales. We played cricket on the beach and hunted for interesting stones.

Here are the three monkeys just after an ice cream.

However as is often the case with kids they had to go and spoil it by squabbling in the back of the car on the way home.

So it was straight to bed when we got in with no tea. I made an evening meal for Nigel and I which we sat and enjoyed in blissful quarrel-free peace and quiet.

Then I relented and allowed them down for breakfast cereals and toast before shooing them back upstairs to bed. Little horrors!!!

The rest of the evening Nigel and I spent in kid-free peaceful companionship on the sofa in the lounge in front of the tv while I hand stitched the border down on my log cabin piece.

My only disappointment with it is the border quilting has crept under the binding in places - mental note to allow for the outer seam allowance in future but I am pleased with it. I reckon the only thing nicer that wonky homespun fabrics is bias homespun binding giving this criss-cross effect.

Now what next? ..................

Just the binding to do then

Isn't it wonderful when something captures your quilting imagination and keeps hold of it until the end of the job.

Thats how I feel about this little log cabin piece.

Friday night I sandwiched and quilted it continuing the leaves theme.

I'm pretty confident with free-motion quilting - it's just like drawing with the needle as the pencil and moving the 'paper/fabric' instead of the 'pencil/needle'.

However following lines is a whole different ball game to me - one I certainly need lots of practice at.

I was always under the impression it was best to do 'in the ditch' straight lines with a walking foot and had never had particularly satisfactory results. However last summer I had a conversation with a very accomplished machine quilter who told me she does all her quilting whether free-form or in-the-ditch with a darning foot and using her hands to guide everything as you would with any normal free-form work.

I tried this around the stars on Spencer's Stars with mixed results - most of it was okish but I did wander off my lines now and then.

However on this log cabin I could tangibly feel the improvement on each of the four log corners and by the end wasn't wandering too badly at all.

Now I just have to bind it, adding in a hanging sleeve, and I think this one might come to work with me for my notice board above my brand new desk to remind me now and then why exactly I do actually go to work.

The old adage rings true again - 'Practice makes perfect!' - mine may not be perfect but we're getting there slowly!

And the applique finishes the top

What an exciting day Friday turned out to be at work...

Our new desks arrived - Yippee!!!

Yes I know this may sound very sad to you but when I tell you that since September I've been managing on a flat topped table measuring less than 5ft wide by 2'6" deep with no drawers and having to share that space with my monitor, keyboard, mouse, pen tidy, stack of trays and several of those plastic stand up magazine racks to contain all my ongoing paperwork and belongings you can see why a new desk is such a delight. To have drawers to put away my pens and stop any itinerant teachers picking them up and walking off with them will be joy enough!

By moving the photocopier and relocating my colleague to the other side of a short supporting wall I've managed to fit in a corner desk and adjoining set of drawers that's big enough to hold a party on!

Learning a new job is always difficult but this particular one has been made doubly so by a rubbish work station and the constant fear of having so little surface to work on that the risk of losing a vital bit of paper due to it becoming accidentally clipped to the back of something else has been very real indeed.

Hopefully my new area will mean I can do the job much more efficiently and finally get a bit of a grip on things :o)

So having spent the morning helping our handyman remove the old furniture and install the new I came home fired up full of enthusiasm to get straight on with the applique on my log cabin piece.

The top is now ready for sandwiching.

Also in the post yesterday was my final Autumn block - I hope she won't mind me saying it but the lady who made this one was very reluctant to join the swap as she felt she was too much of a beginner.

Well I reckon for a beginner or any other level of quilting she's made a pretty good job of these flying geese and I'm delighted to have them in my quilt

So that's the Autumn quadrant done

Now to wait for everyone's winter blocks - so long as they're not accompanied by wintry weather :o)

PS - I did promise to hold the draw for the purple bag I made to celebrate my first blogiversary. When I was stitching the pink buttons in the middle of the yoyos never did I dream how far it would have to travel.

It's been won by Lori aka Elkhoundmom who is currently in Macao so if she'd care to email me with her snail mail address I'll pop it into the post to her at the beginning of next week.

I only wish I'd had 32 bags to give away - I'd have liked to send one to each of you but even at the speed I sometimes work that would have been a bit of a tall order :o)

Something a little more traditional

I am such a butterfly flitting from one thing to another - only occasionally finishing anything!

First of all let me apologise for using this picture and not crediting the source. If it's yours I'm sorry for not giving named credit where it's due - please accept imitation as the sincerest form of flattery.


On both of our computers I have a file of pictures that I've collected from all different sources to use as personal inspiration for my stitching. I'll often save an image from someone's blog or something I see on a website purely for personal use but don't give it a meaningful label.

This is one of those photos and judging by the fact it's on the older of the two computers I might have saved it well over a year ago.


Nigel was away in Spain again on Wednesday night and, as Sarah's rugby training has broken for the summer, once I'd got the three children in from school and fed them the night was free from taxi duties.


Just the opportunity to play.


The plaids I'd bought in the form of all those charity shop men's shirts were calling my name so I set to and tried to make something similar to the above.

Here is my effort. Some of the plaids are from the shirts, some are from yardage in my stash and yes, for those of you sensitive to wobbly checks, all of them could be offensively crooked so if that applies to you don't look too closely I wouldn't want to be accused of causing undue suffering :o)


However I've really enjoyed playing with something a little more traditional and will probably applique/embroider some leaves in the centre along the lines of the inspirational quilt I saved the picture of up above. Overall my own effort measures about 17.5" square - the logs are 3/4" wide.


Oddly enough in all the years I've been stitching this is the very first time I've made log cabin blocks - can you believe that?

7 Things about me

As I've been tagged by at least two people I thought I ought to enlighten you about 7 things you might not know about me - none of them are that quirky - although you might think some are when you read them - I'll leave that to you to decide......

1. Third time lucky - Nigel is my third partner (married twice and lived together once). I married when I was a young and impressionable 19, first husband was 25, intellectually and emotionally we were probably similar at that time. I guess over the five years we were married I grew up and he stayed the same. Despite various attempts on my part to make the best of things I realised that we had to part, no children involved to complicate matters and he's since found another partner and has two almost grown up daughters.

Soon after this split I met my second partner and we lived together for almost five years. My philosophy at the time was that if you cared enough about each other you didn't need a piece of paper to prove it. Whilst going through a particularly rocky patch when we were contemplating separation he sadly died following a road traffic accident. The ensuing financial mess because we weren't married and he hadn't made a will made me decide that if I was lucky enough to find another mate he must be prepared to make a real committment and marry me.

Nigel came into my life around a year later and we were married two weeks short of a year after that. He is my best friend and was worth every minute of the waiting. As I said, third time lucky.

2. I almost never had these three. Being totally convinced that I never ever wanted a family, whilst living with my second partner, I was sterilised at 28. I was totally happy with this decision until he died in the accident. Those sort of life-changing events certainly make you look at life a little differently and when I met Nigel I realised that having a good job and plenty of money weren't the be all and end all of life. I was extremely fortunate to be able to have an operation to have the sterilisation reversed and Sarah, Nick and Lou were the wonderful result.

3. In another life, pre-kids, I held down a pretty responsible job with a company that manufactured supermarket chillers and freezers. A boring product maybe but it certainly gave me a very good living for a few years as one of very few females in a very male orientated business. I looked after the company's second and third largest accounts with my order book equating to £4.5 million each year. I had a company car and wore a suit to work, spent time at hospitality functions like golf days and travelled the length and breadth of the UK. This all makes me all the more puzzled why a school office job still has me part beaten even after 8 months in post - maybe I lost my marbles when I was pregnant!

4. I detest the edges of harbours and waterfronts. Not only can I not bring myself to stand near any that are unfenced but I almost have a blue fit if Nigel or the children go near the edge. Even looking a pictures like this makes me shudder. I can swim so shouldn't fear drowning, but it's as if there's a magnetic force pulling me over the edge if I go anywhere near. I'm not even comfortable walking on the opposite edge, say up against a wall - but if there's a fence at the edge it's not a problem at all.

5. I used to bite my fingernails right up to my elbows up until I was about 19. Even now if I'm not busy with my hands, say if I'm reading a book I have my fingers in my mouth and often nibble away. Every so often I do bite them all down until they're sore and then really regret it until they grow back. Yet when I was working before I had the kids they were always so beautifully long and manicured that people would ask if they were false nails - they were always my own and I was immensely proud of them. Sadly now with arthritis in my fingers if I did grow them very long they'd resemble witches talons too much to look glamorous :o(

6. I never ventured out of the UK until the summer after my second partner died. I was 30 before I took this first trip abroad and then took 5 trips in the next 18 months to Gibraltar, Lanzarote, Germany, the USA and finally Bermuda on honeymoon with Nigel. I love to travel abroad given any opportunity and wish we could afford to do more.

7. This one applies to both Nigel and I. We both have (and did have independently even before we met) the ambition to live in a home that wasn't originally built as a house. It doesn't matter what the building was originally - a lighthouse, a barn or even Nigel's favourite a train station. However unless we find something unusual to retire into I can't see it happening for some time as I think we're probably committed to our current abode for the foreseeable future

Gosh haven't I gone on at length? I'm not going to tag anyone else in particular as I think this has probably already caught everyone who wants it to, but if not and you want to enlighten us about your undiscovered depths then consider yourself tagged.

The Four Seasons and not a sign of Vivaldi or Frankie Valli!

Just to say before I start today's random waffling that I will not be doing the draw for the purple bag until Friday night so if anyone still wants to put their comment in you can do so until then.

I will then enlist the help of the three 'musketeers/wise monkeys/ little pigs/ errant children' (you take your pick and delete the least applicable - no only kidding!) to carry out the draw so I can try and get it arranged to take to the Post Office on my day off next Monday

After showing you my 'four seasons' blocks so far and then completing my winter block I decided it was time to take up that gauntlet (or should that read Sword of Damacles) - the Sashing Challenge!!!


Right from the start, as there were to be four seasons meaning four sets of four blocks, I had the germ of an idea about arranging the quilt in quadrants - one for each season.


So I then decided I wanted each quarter of the quilt to have its own identity - hence four different sets of sashings and corner stones

But to try and give it a little bit of uniformity I decided that I'd like all the corner stones to be green, but a different shade of green in each quadrant - each being most suitable to its own season.


Winter was the trickiest - my initial thought was a dark christmas/fir tree green but it just didn't work with the other three paler ones - so in the end looking at the reverse side of the greens in my stash I came across a green that reminded me of a pale dusting of snow or ice on grass and so went with the one in the picture

Then having so many different fabrics in each quarter I decided on the unifying theme of checks for each set of sashings


Once I have all the blocks in I'll put it all together and then put a 2" border round in 4 seasonal colours - one to each corner, but repeating the same green corner stones


Finally I think a 4" border with four separate darker/stronger fabrics again with matching green corner stones and I intend to applique the four corresponding words 'Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter' on the relevant border sections using each of the central sashing check fabric possibly along with relevant motifs ie flowers, autumn leaves, snowflakes etc

Does that all sound as clear as mud! Yeah thought so - sorry! Read it again once you've had a cup of coffee :o)


Then binding....... mmmmmm........ Anybody's guess really!

One year old!!!

During the Spring of last year I gradually built up a collection of blogs saved in my favourites that I read most days. Loads of quilting and craft inspiration plus an insight into the lives of allsorts of different people from all over the world.

It all started with Bonnie at Quiltville - I'd been drooling over her patterns for some time and then she started to add the instructions from Tonya for her free-pieced letters. On from that there were lots of others I loved to read, Jeanne, Dawn, Mel, Fiona to name but a few.

So I decided the time had come to start my own blog primarily to be able to leave comments on other peoples blogs but once hooked I realise what a proper old windbag I really am and here we are one whole year down the track and almost 250 posts later

What a lot of lovely people I catch up with now most days. It is generally human nature to want to communicate and what other way would we get to 'speak' to people from all over the globe.

So I decided to do a giveaway for my first bloggiversary

I knew somewhere I had the pattern for a reasonably quick and easy bag saved onto the hard drive of one of the computers. I found it and here it isa little purple number!

All you need to do is put a comment at the end of this post and I'll draw someone's name from the hat and post it off to the lucky recipient later in the week.

As I said yesterday I've completed Spencer's Stars

Lily commented that I've not really taken this quilt to my heart as I've been working on it despite the fact that quite a few of you have liked it

However today, when we had a hiatus in the very heavy rain we've been having of late, I took the opportunity to hang it out on the washing line for its final photocall.

And now I can see it in all its glory you know I really think it's grown on me

I hope he gets to enjoy lots of lovely naps beneath it

You can see from the quantity of leftover fabric in this picture just how close I was on the 'hessian' colour for the binding

And now it's finished I can go back to playing with things of my colour choice - much more fun!

PS - a very happy belated Mother's Day to all those of you around the world who celebrated it this last weekend - of course here in the UK ours is long gone, back during Lent, and most of us would probably say that we're privileged to be mums, surrogate mums, aunties, grannies and daughters everyday - even when our offspring and/or parents are at their most trying :o)

Quite a quilty day

Is it just me?

Or does anyone else think it quite magical how much binding you can get from what seems to be a relatively small piece of fabric?

Yesterday morning I decided the great hunt was on....

Yes in Captain Oates fashion - 'I'm just going outside, I may be some time' - I decided that now I was on a roll with 'Spencer's Stars' I ought to brave the interior of the big triple wardrobe in the 'playroom' (you know the room I call my sewing room much to the disgust of the rest of the household') to try and locate the matching fabric to bind this baby quilt.

Well I came across it after some time, but was a bit dismayed to find a piece measuring about 12 - 14" x the width of the fabric.

My heart sank - surely that wouldn't be sufficient to bind a quilt 38" x 52"

However after further searching I realised that the cupboard was metaphorically bare - this was the only piece I'd have to play with.

Out with the trusty calculator - how big a square would I need to make bias double binding for the quilt.

I generally use the calculation of : distance round the edge of the quilt + 18" spare x 2.5" and then all square rooted to get the square size.

Darn it - not quite enough - so redoing the calculation with only 12" spare gave me the magic number (about quarter of an inch less that my available pieced square of fabric)

In the end with all the binding machined on it left me with a measly 7" of bias binding left - how close to the wire can you get.

Still I should be thankful - better that way than 7" too short!

I sat up last night until around 11.30pm handstitching the binding down so all I have to do now is stitch a little label on the back and it's ready to send up to him. I'll put a photo of it on here tomorrow in it's fully completed glory!

In between all this I did other bits of stitching - never one to concentrate on one thing at once.

I decided that as I was on a bit of a roll with my Four Seasons swap that I'd make my winter blocks ready for posting. As this is the last block of the swap I thought 'Friendship star' would be a nice one to do.

Like all my other blocks I picked out an accent fabric for the centre square and I had some lovely wintery countryside fabric in my stash just waiting for this opportunity

I think I shall keep the one with the church on as I had to piece one of the corner squares on it (top LH corner) as yet again I was right up to the wire on the fabric.

I also had a go at making a bag which turned out nicely but again you'll have to wait until tomorrow for a look at that one too

Ok gotta dash work calls - in today as we're taking DD1 to see the specialist tomorrow about her stomach problems - so I've swapped my day off this week.

Woo-hoo - the quilting is finished on Spencer's Stars

Ok so there's still the small matter of a binding... but the bulk of the work is completed.

This morning I woke feeling not that much different to yesterday. Thank you to those of you who sent me cyber hugs they were very much appreciated.

However I took a firm hold of myself, shook myself (metaphorically, you understand) and decided that I was going to achieve something today

And here we are - Spencer's Stars has been sitting on my sewing table whispering reproachfully at me for weeks... "You know you've still got me to finish... never mind playing with all those bright coloured hand dyes.... this baby will be starting school before you get off your behind to get me finished at this rate....." and so on and so forth

So I did it! I cleared enough junk on the top of the table to avoid quilting a stray bit of something inadvertently into the back of the quilt - yes I've done that before! - and cracked on with it.

Mind you a solid afternoon sitting machine quilting had to be broken up now and again or my back would've objected a bit too much. I was either popping across the room to the computer to look at the BBC website see how Gloucester were doing against Leicester in the Guinness Championship final (we lost - boo hoo!) or I was nipping into the conservatory and ironing a couple of items from the ironing pile to stand up and stretch my back out - multi-tasking or what?

Anyway the main thing is it's one major UFO out of the quilting pile and into the binding pile (and some of the ironing done too)

Now.... if only I could remember where I've put that putty coloured leftover fabric for the binding!

Blues and bears - a big thank you to Nancy

I've had a really, really flat and dismal day today - no idea why.......

Made some progress at work, both with pushing the usual paper across the desk and also with the office reorganisation

The kids and Nigel were all fine

I just felt really hacked off with the world - so low I just couldn't lift my chin up off the floor - couldn't even be bothered to pick up a needle and thread - not at all like me

Until I showed Nigel and Sarah this lovely photo of a bear in Nancy's backgarden

A few seconds later as Sarah had settled back into the seat on the computer next to me Nigel crept up behind her and did a BIG BEAR GROWL!!!

She shot ten foot up into the air in fright and boy did I laugh!!!

Thank you Nancy, inadvertently with Nigel you've brightened up a very sombre day :o)

Little bits of this and that

Lots of bits and bobs done today on the sewing front.

Machine piecing

My autumn block for the Four Seasons swap

These are the four Spring blocks

And the four Summer blocks

And finally three of the four Autumn blocks - now I need to figure out what to do for my final Winter block.

It's fun working on something with such an eclectic mix of colours and styles - deciding what to do for the sashings and borders will be a challenge in itself

Then this evening I decided to do some 'crazy' patchwork style embroidery in random colours on the seams of my 365day challenge quilt - I'm bang up to date again having caught up with the backlog on this from my visitors over the weekend

I'm enjoying doing this - more writing and drawing than stitching but it's a challenge deciding what to write and draw about each day

Not much stitching going on around here today

Early start this morning - I was in work for 8.15 instead of 9.30 as my lovely lovely husband came with me to erect my new set of shelves that we'd bought from Ikea.

Yesterday the IT techie guys were in moving network points so my colleague could physically relocate to the other end of the office to make better use of the full space available. Her relocation left me with a big space near my desk to put up the shelves and DH went into work late so he could do that for me.

At present we're managing temporarily on our original small desks but in about two weeks we should take delivery of our two new corner desks so we can get properly settled.

It's taken since last September but now at last we're starting to get organised and maybe I might even get to not begrudge going to work quite so much!

Just so you don't think I'v forgotten that this is ostensibly a quilting blog here's a bit of eye candy for you........

Some more of the quilts from our suitcase exhibition on Monday