Royal Wedding

I must admit I've been glued to the television watching the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton! I was also watching for my brother who was in the Abbey as well. I got a glimpse of him in his morning suit (well his head and shoulders anyway) and very handsome he looked to!

Happy Easter

The weather has just been amazing (the only downfall is having to water the garden every evening) which means that little has been happening in the sewing room. I did however sit and make a Dorset Button (once I'd cut the grass, raked the leaves, pulled the weeds......well you get the idea). I only have the pattern for a Crosswheel button, but they could become quite addictive - I'll try and google some more patterns!

Number One daughter has started her own blog which means I won't be able to fall back on her creations when mine dry out! But take a look at what she is up to at: http://creative-faye.blogspot.com

Reverse Applique

There were some very talented artists at the Brockenhurst Needlework Fiesta. One of them was Marion Browning who does beautiful machine embroidery and reverse applique - see her work at www.marionbrowning.co.uk . Marion has done some work inspired by Paul Klee, an artist I really like. So I came home and looked through a catalogue from an exhibition I went to of his in London back in 2002. I layered up 4 different fabrics (5 would have been better) and this is what I ended up with - Paul Klee's 'Fig Tree'. Next time I will plan my fabric colours and textures better, but this is a technique I really enjoyed!

Needlework Fiesta

Today I went to the Brockenhurst Needlework Fiesta. I hadn't planned on going because I didn't particularly need any supplies - silly me who needs an excuse to buy crafting goodies!!

Another House Quilt

I'm determined not to start another project until I have completed some of my UFOs. However I didn't say I wouldn't help number one daughter start a new project!! So I've been cutting fabric, ironing and pinning, unfortunately a couple of the block sizes were wrong, which is very annoying, so I've been calculating block sizes as well. This is going to be a little house quilt (I love this subject for a quilt) so I'm looking forward to how she develops it.

X stitch and UFOs

I was reading a quilting magazine this weekend that suggested sorting UFOs into categories, such as items to finish that you know what you want to do with, but just need to finish and those that you know you will never finish and can therefore be given to charity...... Well I got as far as sorting all of them out - fairly easy because I keep all UFOs in one place. Just not sure which ones yet to give away. However what I didn't realise was how many UFOs I have - 22 in total!! What it did spur me on to do was to frame my 'S' and 'L' initials and they are now hanging in my hall - only 21 UFOs to go - result!

Brown tote bag

The penny finally dropped as I was assembling my tote bag. I thought the pocket was going inside the bag! but it forms the back of the bag - if I had realised I would have done things slightly different and used matching binding etc, but still I'm really pleased with it and have used it for work this week and got several very nice compliments (always appreciated!)