Serendipity

Back again! Its been a long week,still trying to make the house look attractive for the estate agents and clearing out all the junk. In order to hide all the junk we wish to keep, I first had to clear out the old junk from the loft---and guess what I found? All my old city and guilds folders and files and SAMPLES..... hurrah ,I have been panicking as I have to have my first 4 journal quilts completed by the end of the month and I had run out of hand dyed green assorted cottons to finish them, when ,bobs your uncle, I found a whole bag of assorted fabrics silks ,cottons.muslin's all dyed green, -- shades of....dark, light, yellowy, bluey, perfick! enough for the whole year , I think that's called serendipity.

JOURNAL QUILTS

I based this on a stunning photo of a fritillaria someone showed me, I dont have any as the extreme snow we had this winter combined with mr shedmans greedy chickens have wiped out more than half of my bub collection.

I used my painted crinkle fabric and placed lots of small star stitches in the crevices to represent crocus's poking up through the soil. Crocus's always make me think of optimism and hopefullness..

I based this on a beautiful ornamental red cabbage, that I got in a bouquet I received for valentines day

I based this on my little red acer bravely poking through the snow in january

little greenies

And here they are, my little greenies...

A totally mad week

Every one at my house is running about like headless chickens taking stuff to the tip, painting, cleaning,trying to make the house look nice for the photos ,it does,they are great.In between I have managed a little sewing, finishing some little jackets that I have made for some of the babies in my mums and tots group,I like making these, I have an old prima pattern about 20 years old sometimes they are simply a layer of fleece and a layer of cotton fabric, sometimes I do the whole patchwork thing ,I usually have something on the go because there is always another baby coming along in our village . I have just tidied my sewing room so drastically I may never find anything again I hope we sell soon or I shall unpack it all again

A baby quilt for donnas caitlin.

WIERD PLANTS

Here are some weird piccies of some truly weird plants I spotted in pots outside ,some sort of sedum or succulent I think they were very small and very twisty and curly- gorgeous ,don't you think?

academy kantha.

Well, I have just got back from the Academy group in Grantham,where we sewed and talked and talked and sewed all evening. Everyone worked really hard on their kantha doing both embroidery and running stitch, we are going to save the pieces to insert into something later in the year, a book cover or a box maybe. It is a bit scary teaching people a technique and I was a bit nervous but everyone seemed to get the idea and they were all very enthusiastic,and there were hobnobs with the tea, great! A good time had by all I think.
Here are some of the show and tell items.. frankie has been let loose with the soldering iron again, but I am going to post that on expeditionquiltart!

kantha by academy

here is some of the kantha pieces made by the academy ladies.

julies bag

A bag by Julie AKA mixed media, who is exploring patchwork, julie has dyed and printed the fabrics and it has an embroidered tablecloth as a lining, and she is very keen to point out that ALL THE POINTS MATCH.It is gorgeous and perfect

joyces quillow

joyce has made this very use full quillow using a rail fence pattern , joyce is just discovering patchwork and enjoying it very much.

sues bag

And last but not least,-A sneaky shot of sues bag, lovely, and overstuffed as usual. I will say night night as I am off on a bus trip shop n hop with the pea pods to Norfolk tomorrow.

KANTHA FOR MY SANITY.

Not much blogging recently because we have decided to move house so have been very busy trying to make it look A. desirable and B.like sane people live here., understandably its been very difficult hiding everything in order to achieve both A and B and not much sewing has been going on, however tomorrow I am off to the academy quilting group at Grantham to demonstrate kantha - a traditional form of Indian quilting We meet monthly and they are a very keen and adventurous group always willing to try something new. This has meant doing a bit of stitching to make two samples hurrah! my sanity is returning, now if I can just remember where I hid my threads......

embroidered kantha.

this is a more traditional form of kantha quilting using running stitch for the figures ,I have used very simple shapes,hearts and circles because this is a sample to simply explain the technique. I have to say I love kantha and I really enjoyed doing this,I used a pure wool wadding which, as you know is stitching heaven and an actual kantha thread ,-it gave a nice contour, thicker than quilting thread and finer than no.12 valdani but it feels nice and firm definitely use this again I will post everyone Else's results when I return tomorrow night.

THIRD PRIZE..

My good friend Angela rang me from the guild A.G.M. at Southport last week to tell me that my quilt ;Generations.,had come third in the recycled quilt challenge it is white, pink and cream,ice cream colours. and quilted all over in embroidery threads it is constructed of torn strips of soft cotton clothing overlapped and closely quilted.

I am terribly pleased with this as I worked very hard on it ,it is only 24 inch's square and I packed a lot into it,sadly I have received no official notice so I am taking Angela's word for it .Mr shedman thought I should at least get a rosette like our guinea pig did in the pet show at our village fete,.oh well,maybe one day.

A babys dress, and her blanket,her aunties pajamas,,mummys shirt, grandmothers blouse great grandmothers sheet and great great grandmothers lace.

the wadding had to be recycled too,so I used a babys cellular blanket,but it turned out to be really floppy--soI stitched text into the back all over to try and firm it up a bit,seemed to work.