September already!

This year seems to be whizzing by. It has been an eventful one both personally and creatively. My sister A  had a significant birthday this year, so I made her a pair of cushions in a beautiful silver Oakshott fabric. I used a grey variegated thread Gutterman Sulky Cotton 30 for the quilting. They were well received and go very well with her decor.

I have made several other birthday presents this year. I did not take photos of them all.

This was made for HT
, who likes blue and white ceramics, the poppies match her curtains

Debbie Shaw bag, made for my Beekeeper friend HW

I have two more birthday presents in progress.

I made two more Linus quilts, both from 10 inch blocks, a dress quilt and a T-shirt quilt. They are backed with fleece and fun to make.

One of the Quilting groups I belong to, ran a Sudoku project, which I took part in. It is not finished yet but here is the progress so far.

A lady trying to reduce her craft materials donated some Shishs mirrors to the group. A group member said it would be nice to have a tutorial on sewing Shisha. I set about making some samples. It is surprising how many ways there are to stitch them, I came across seven methods, but only demonstrated two. Here are the results;

What I liked about this demo, was the opportunity to use up some of the embellishments I find it hard to resist buying. Needless to say, I have not made a dent in them.

One more project from the Quilting group was making Fiddle or Fidget quilt for people with dementia. We donated four to a local care home. These are the two I made.

I attended a couple of workshops. One was with Linda Seward, we used Paula Doyle's Easy Stack methods. Paula designed these for use with large prints, the more colourful the better. I have two in progress, and you get some very interesting designs coming out of the fabrics. I do not have any pictures yet.

The other one was with Gillian Travis at the Fluffatorium in Dorking. That was on making felt flowers from wet felt and needle felting the finer details. I really enjoyed this. Having tried wet felting at home, Gillian's method was much simpler than the one I had used. Great results.

On the subject of flowers, I was having a clear out and came across this crewel work kit I bought several years ago, and thought it about time I had a go. I am very pleased with the result for a first atempt at this technique.

Another project involving felt was these cute woodland creatures. A friend had been given it by another friend, but it did not appeal to her so she passed it on to me. I loved it, a nice project for sitting in front of the telly with.

Lastly, my other sister and her husband celebrated their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. Their daughters got lots of family members involved in making blocks to be made up into a quilt. It was a fabulous piece of work and a lovely memento of the occasion. Even family members who had not sewn before took part, you would be hard pressed to see that from the standard of work presented. Well done to everyone involved. This was my contribution.

Ruby Wedding Anniversary block for C & F