Tapestry

What can I say - I'm loving the whole tapestry thing. It was meant as a project to do in front of the TV in the evening, but I'm a bit obsessed with it and have consequently spent time watching TV in the afternoon!!!! (not just the evening).

Beaulieu

The day started off really misty, but turned into a beautiful mild autumn day (hard to believe that in 5 weeks time it will be Christmas Day!!)

We walked along the river from Beaulieu to Bucklers Hard - a nice easy 4 mile walk.



We always stop off and have coffee and cake before returning to Beaulieu. Such a nice way to spend a Sunday.
















These toad stools were about the size of dinner plates!

Tapestry

I wanted to try something creative that I could do in front of the television in the evening. I was inspired by Plum's blog to have a go at making buttons. She has done some beautiful embroidery buttons and you can see them on her blog at http://www.plumquilts.blogspot.com/. So I borrowed a book from my step mother on stump work, to give me some ideas on where to start. Anyway more of that when I have something to show!!! In the meantime I've found an embroidery shop reasonably near to me in Christchurch and thought I would buy some tapestry wool and canvas to make a cushion! I know there is no connection to buttons but I can do it in front of the TV! In my craft room I also have an enormous bag of tapestry wool (It would have been sensible to look at that before going out and buying more of course!) In the bag was an old tapestry pattern for a foot stool - you can't see the price very clearly, but it cost 1 shilling and 7 pennies. I don't remember when England went decimal but it has to be over 35 years ago. Not entirely sure where the wool or the pattern came from either!!

And this is the pattern I've drawn onto the canvas - inspired by Kaffe Fasset. Shouldn't be too difficult to do either.

Isabella's Garden

Not a lot of activity on Isabella's quilt this weekend. We've had visitors all weekend, which has been lovely. It's amazing how long it took to make sure I had all the right bits in the right place - I might actually have spent too long thinking about it and not enough time just doing it! Anyway today I've been able to sit down and actually start sewing. When Ive done a bit more I will post a photograph!

Isabella's Garden

I finally got hold of a 1/4" bias maker to make the stems for Isabella's Garden quilt.

Certainly not quite as easy as the back of the package lead you to believe! It took me a few goes before I got it right. The instructions tell you to cut 1/2" strips, but every one I did frayed and looked horrible. However, once I cut the fabric 1/2" plus a cats whisker it started to go right! As you can see from the photo below they don't look bad.

It was also tricky putting a nice curve on the stems, but I'm pleased with the results!