Heres one I made earlier.

My little marmaris quilt is finished and I am really pleased with it.Now to tackle the big one!

lovely wool

I found a really beautifull length of wool in a drawer, its fat and thin,green and blue and brown and just right for my wave line. I didnt have the heart to cut it so I resolved to use it as it was, when I got to the edge I rolled the remaining wool into a spiral and stitched it down---like a rolling wave!

green cobweb

I have been working hard on my little marmaris quilt,the main fabric came from a pretty sparkly skirt that I bought from a charity shop ,it was exactly the colour of the sea around marmaris and just looking at it lifted my heart with happy memories, but the sequins were a little bit tatty I needed something to sort of obscure the view a little bit,and I found a marvellous sea green shawl that is like a beautifull green cobweb in a charity shop[where else?]for two pounds its lovely and just layering a little bit of it over the sequins just does the job. How lucky is that?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

Life is good,

Full of unexpected small joys,

Moments of sheer kismet

and unexpected friendships.

Peace and joy to you all.

Happy christmas to you all.

CHRISTMAS POST.

Its christmas eve! The short people are so excited , the presents have all been felt and squeezed and selotaped back together,the stockings have been found and secret wrapping goes on all over the house.Today we had a lovely surprise, A letter from America! Leilani, one of the fibre arts traders sent us a lovely handmade card with a small gift of a piece of lovely felted wool . A lovely christmas surprise.

FIRESIDE CAT

Well, christmas is nearly here and as you can see, Nobby the Cat has taken up his favourite position in front of the fire. I would like to think that he is showing approval of the dresden plate quilt I am working on but I think the top is just in his way!

YAY SNOW!

SNOW SNOW SNOW! Isnt it fantastic! Isnt it lovely! The short people are delighted ,sent home early on the last day of school to play in the snow , thats a dream come true, I have lots of loverly stitchery to do, so I am happy , himself has lots of chocolate and nowhere to be exept by the fire, only the chickens are grumpy - they hate it! I wanted to post a piccie of the chickens but they refuse to come out to play so here is a piccie of a robin in the hedge.

shackles

At last I am released from my shackles, I have sneezed,coughed and snivelled my way all week through 23 small fabric pots as gifts for friends and the staff at my school.They do a sterling job and I really appreciate them, but next year ---they get a big box of choccie biccies[the posh ones in a tin ] and I get my life back. I have a quilt to work on, three more in my head, that I need to draw and two ATCs to make for the fibre art traders,, its 11.45 and I have cut it really fine Tomorow I can even play with my sketch books[as if.] but life is good!

quilty feltie

I had to make a second one because the first one had NO sequins and we cant have that can we!

FELTIE QUILTIE

I have been dying all week with a terrible cold,mr shedman has been a shining star looking after the kids and me all week fetching me tea and chocolate at regular intervals. If it wasnt for a large bar of galaxy i probably wouldnt have survived.It was probably a severe lack of maltesers that laid me low in the first place!I could barely put needle to recycled felted woollen clothing to make sundays quick f.a.t.s. challenge--a 5 by 5 feltie quiltie to be made and posted on line by midnight or even make two![ i did ] well I was to ill to iron!

presents

wow! what a busy time.so much present buying to be done ,costumes for school plays to be made and school plays to be watched,and of course xmas food to be eaten at every opportunity. Actually I am lying about the costume -mr shedman had something suitably medieval looking lurking in his wardrobe pretending to be A tee shirt,! he is always wearing it so it must be worn out!One of the short people in our house had to wear it as a shopkeepers dress. Himself didnt recognise it so that was okay.Anyway,a big thankyou to all the very kind people who e mailed me with ideas for presents for teachers,the one I settled on was a lovely little criss cross bag ,a bit fiddley but nice All 18 need to be finished by thursday and i am off to a spa day tomorrow so midnight oil may have to be burned ,i would probably get more done if i stopped reading other peoples blogs hya angela, trudi , julie,and jude........

little bags

these will soon be little bags for teachers and a couple of special ones for friends

help

SO S SO S SOS HELP! I need help. I need to make 17 small gifts for the staff at my kids schools they need to be clever,fairly inexpensive(alright cheap)unusual, quickish to make and did I mention cheap? I was thinking of some sort of cute small box thing maybe..Any sugestions?Help please.....

stamping fish

Also this week i have been stamping fish on some of my blue dyed bits to add to my blue marmaris quilt[this is for when I am being Tina the ART quilter,a very serious person] i have actually had enough ideas to make 3 quilts... or I could squeeze it all into one quilt, whoever said, less is more?I really do want to make my quilts less busy sort of de -clutter them , but its sooo hard with so many scrumptoous sequins in the world!

dresden plate

Presents. I have also been making a really funky dresden plate quilt from a piece o cake design chosen by my 4 year old niece,16 blocks in gorgeous colours and patterns on pink backgrounds really great fun will it be done for christmas?....aahh hmm.

Finally put that waverunner together,,and added a string border I have added a few raw edges to do a bit of overstitching too. I will add a plain brown border to calm it down a bit and put it away till I get the juki out ........one day......

A busy week

Go away christmas I am not ready for you!

I have been getting up before dawn to get everthing done!actually the short people in my house have been helping me with this by asking me for spelling help with their christmas lists before they officially get up and ready for school, like the chickens I would prefer to sleep till daylight ! Anyway the sky was so red this morning i had to grab a camera!

OH ,THE SHAME.

Embarassingly, I have been trying---with the encouragement of my friends--to machine quilt,and its every bit as difficult as i suspected.Oh the pain ,in my neck and hands the results are painfully embarassingly too! I bought a cot panel for a friend w ho is actually due any moment,

, I thought -good opportunity to have a go at machine quilting how hard can it be?Very hard actually, time to unpack that brand new juki and frame and start practising I think. with the help of some kind friends I hope--hint hint.

Cheeky chickens

My cheeky chickens are moulting ,and still laying every day,must be the steady diet of slugs and snails and the occasional frog ! dont you love their beady eyes.

Windy days.

winter is well and truly here, especially out here on the fen,the blackbirds are franticlly trying to gobble up the last of the grapes,all the leaves are gone and the chickens are on a mission to eat every thing in my flower garden.

MARMARIS

Corner detail.

Marmaris

I folded the overlap forwards and dug out the valdani threadsand began to stitch YESS!

Marmaris

After rinsing ,washing, and drying, the results are lovely,some light some dark ,and some, like the silk and scrim , turned out quite greenish.I always make a small quilt first to get the idea clear in my head, and to iron out any problems ,before I embark on the biggie, also as a point of referance for later, so that I dont get distracted and go off on a tangent and do something strange half way through .SO I am going to start this little quilt in a very free manner . I am going to tear some pieces of my blue fabrics, and lay them out and start stitching, just let the quilt tell me what it wants to be.I am going to post each stage as it happens so follow me and see where we go!

bluedying

We used procian dyes and a really big cat tray and simply layered everything in it pouring the dye in at the ends to allow it to seep through and hopefully give me an uneven colouration , photos of this are on expeditionquiltart , our shared blog. I also dyed a bigish piece ofwadding

Blue dyeing

Rainy days and mondays. Well I have certainly got the Blues, but not because of the howling winds and pouring rains(normal for the fens) but because we have just had a dyeing day and I am so delighted with the results.I have had a notion to make a blue quilt, based on the beautifull blue sea at Marmaris. I found a charming little cotton skirt with sequins on it in a charity shop and it just transported me to the Aegean sea.I have an idea of a long thin wobbly sided silver sequined wall quilt, so I have collected various pieces of cotton and muslin and thread and scrim and stuff,and with a lot of help from Angela dyed them blue.

rememberance

In a peacefull corner of the village churchyard we remembered.

waverunner

HELLOH to you. this is my first post on my new blog .So here we goI.am going to show my collection of blocks for my waverunner quilt,which i am doing as a quiltalong with bumblebeans , not made all the blocks yet, a few to go It was really scary cutting into fabric without the aid of a ruler goes against every thing i`v learned but it was really exciting once i got going and i`m already thinking about the quilting design! I may get really brave and machine quilt it . never done that before.I always hand quilt but i`m beginning to feel that my life is slipping away whilst i slowly han.dstitch so i have bought a quilt machine frame thing all i need to do now is work up the courage to get it out of the box!