The King (& Queen) of The Compost

Not as much sewing as I would like going on around here
as we have had a busy time in the garden...

While we're outside, Abby likes to come and keep us company in the vegetable patch:

She has been a bad kitty again and has been catching lots of birds and small creatures so she now has 3 bells around her neck. I have a bag of biggish bells and have threatened that she'll get another bell for every bird that she catches!!!

We are also trying to get the children more involved in the planting and growing too:

Although sometimes a pile of compost bags can be more fascinating than a tray of seedlings,

but at least he is outside and not complaining that he hates sunny days! LOL

DH has extended the vegetable patch enormously in the hopes that next year there will be less building and preparing and more sowing and reaping...

I love clouds:

(nice fluffly ones always remind me of the start of 'The Simpsons' :-D)

And when we're not enjoying the garden we sometimes visit the village playground.

This was my view from the playground the other day:

A full day of blue skies!! Only lasted a day though *sigh*.

Just needs borders...

The story of my quilting life!
Just needs borders.
Just needs finishing,
just needs putting together...

I added more sashings and cornerstones to my charm pack blocks and have ended up with this:

Just needs borders (and basting and quilting and binding...LOL)

We went to Gardenmakers for lunch today and came home with a few plants to attract bees to the garden to help get our beans and vegetables pollinated and cropping...

I wanted to blog a photo of my beautiful little girl, but look what she has done to her ear!!!

She really is a little devil!

Duh!

Take a 5" charm pack and cut all the squares into 4 equal pieces.

Add 1" sashings and central corner stones.

Iron.

Measure the new block: 5"

Quilting, Shopping & Crawling on the Floor

Last night I had a wonderful evening with my dear friend Vicky. We talked about quilts and stuff and then she got me on my hands and knees laying out a quilt for her. What fun! I just wish I had taken photos! I delivered some quilt tops to Vicky for Project Linus that were kindly donated by Kate (Thank you Kate!) and I saw Vicky's WIP's and latest fabric accrual from a new-to-me patchwork shop that is actually very close to where I live. I will have to check it out soon...

After crawling around on the floor and browsing through patchwork magazines, I sewed a few more stitches on my NYB quilt...

Thank you for all the input with how to quilt it.... In the end, I went with following the circles in the darker thread and now I am filling in the borders and gaps with circles...

I do sort of wish I had machine quilted it, but then I would not have had anything to do while on holiday :-)

Today my husband needed to collect something in North Wales very near a fabric shop that I had heard about from my lovely bloggy friend Andrea. (Apologies Andrea that we couldn't pop in to meet you, but by the time we got there it was like a 20 minute trolley dash! I could have spent more like 2 hours there!! Next time!!!) Well, it's an amazing place and the fabric selection was great. I felt it would be rude not to purchase something (ahem!)...

Although the colours are not true in the photo, they are great in real life and they will be very useful for backings as most are about 2 or 3 metre pieces! I am pleased as punch as they say! And now I can get my Cathedral Stars quilt top quilted. (DH even chose the fabric for the back of that one - the teal with spots, although I may go with the brown swirls - ssh!)

Setting off on our road trip, we were behind some travellers with their beautiful caravans...

Appelby Horse Fair is over now for this year so they are all making their way home.

I just wish it would stop raining so they could have a more pleasant homeward journey!!

Wordless Wednesday

Seen here

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside....

We're just back from a week away at the seaside courtesy of my DMIL. It was wonderful.

The only thing better than all that sand between my toes was a trip to the National Botanical Gardens of Wales...

I have rather a lot of photos to sort through, but it was lovely to get away and get my sea view (and flower) fix for the next few months...

Questions about Quilting

I am in the process of basting my New York Beauty quilt top...

So now I am in a quandry about whether to quilt it with Baptist Fans all going in one direction,

or fans going in the direction of the blocks....

or to quilt it in circles...

... and what thread?

I hope I decide soon or it will remain a UFO for a lot longer *sigh*

Wordless Wednesday

A Shock of Pink!

Pink string quilt, machine quilted and backed in lilac....

(As usual, I made the blocks with solids squares using my 'Double your String Blocks Tutorial'.)

I made this quilt for a friend who is hoping to adopt a little girl. She has decorated the bedroom in Lilac and I do hope this is not going to be too pink...

For those who love pink, I guess you can never be too pink, but for those of us who don't, there is a limit to how much pink is too much LOL.

An obligatory cat picture:

She is a great snuggler especially if it's in a spot that I have just been lying in!

Baby Showers

It stopped raining long enough today for me to take a quick snap of the baby quilt

that I made for my friend and his wife's little baby...

The baby quilt has a lilac backing with white flowers...

Hubby is hard at work in the garden and he has extended the veg patch rather dramatically...

Two more raised beds...

And the area beyond the Christmas tree has been planted up with potatoes and beans.

Just as well I am considering becoming a vegetarian LOL

Abby came to see, had a roll, a wash...

...and was then off across the garden like a lightning bolt!

The Sad State of Affairs

I finished my friend's baby quilt last week, but the weather has been so unbelieveably dark and grim that I have not managed to get a photograph of it yet, so instead of sending it a few days after the baby was born, it will be a week or so before it gets mailed out :-(

But at least now when I am sewing I have company in my messy room...

She doesn't mind the mess or the noisy sewing and washing machines, she just seems to want to be close and that's fine by me!

I SO need to tidy up my sewing area and sort out the overflowing shelves and work surfaces, but with this wet weather I have had to share my limited space with the clothes airer and so there really is (as the saying goes) no room to swing a cat (not that I EVER would swing my precious little furry bundle!!!!!)

I took a photo of my table with the 2 sewing machines on, one in front of the other - I use one sewing machine for making hats and bags and one for making quilts and sometimes, like yesterday, I needed to sew something on both sorts of projects, so my table was full! However, DH had borrowed the camera and hadn't put the memory card back in so I was merrily snapping away and recording nothing of the chaos (probably just as well)...

Wordless wednesday - Bad Kitty!

Stitches (and Vegetables) in Ditches...

I guess from now on, no blog post will exist without my (lazy) quilty cat! :-D

Yesterday I discovered that my friend and his wife had had their baby on Sunday so the baby quilt top that has been sitting around waiting to be basted, quilted and bound needed doing a.s.a.p. With a spurt of energy, I ironed the backing, which I had with some foresight pre-washed last week, and pin basted the quilt. I only S.I.T.D.-ed, but hey, I prefer making tops to finishing them :-)

Then I sewed the binding on. I used this lovely purpley-pink batik I have had in my stash for a while. It's definitely time to use those fabrics I love or someone else will be when I am gone!!

I hope to get it done tonight and then I can move on to another deadline quilt. This one is the novelty or pink string one with a self-imposed deadline by me... I think I need deadlines LOL

On the weekend I finally cut into the charm pack that I won in the raffle when I visited Germany and the Black Forest Quilters. I had donated 2 prizes so was allowed as an exception and a non-member (although I would LOVE to be a member and fly over EVERY month for meetings!!) to buy a ticket.

I saw the pattern in 'Triangle Free Quilts' by Judy Hopkins (Great book!) and have sewed all the charms into these blocks so far.

Obviously (if you know me) I did not do it the same size and obviously (me again!) I am going to change it and add sashings in white similar to Kate's first Baby quilt in this post.

DH has been very industrious in the veg patch this year. I have been designated chief seed sower LOL.

This basically means that my job is to get seeds to seedlings, he then plants the seedlings or mini plants and then takes all the glory. Considering it's back breaking work digging bean trenches, I'll give him his well-deserved praise, although we're going 50/50 with the vegetables (especially the peas) LOL