Update from Towse who still sews no matter where she is!

Just spent a happy few days in St Ives, Cornwall where the view is beautiful and when the sun comes out the sea turns Mediterranean blue. The food, drink and ice cream is also lovely but the less said about that the better.

First a finish. I have fully completed my sewing group challenge inspired by the roof of Marylebone station and I have to say that now it is quilted I am very happy with it. So happy that I will take it to the next group show and tell that I attend. 

The next pic is the applique cushion cover that my nephew brought me back from Delhi. Looks so much better with a cushion pad.

Then there is the selection of fabric that my mate Stu brought back from a business trip to Portland, Oregon. As a result of that this blog now has a new 'friend', Martha, who is the lovely lady who took Stu off to the fabric store and helped him choose his wonderful selection. (One of which Doug has already 'appropriated' for his own stash! I'm hoping that Doug will post his own creations very soon. I have to introduce him to Drunkard's Path next I think!

The last picture is of a part done 1970s EPP piece that Silve has passed on to me, it having been 'rescued' from being dumped at a charity shop. When it came to me it was in several pieces with some odds of fabric left. It seemed to me that so much work had gone into it already that it was a shame not to try to complete it. This picture was actually taken when I had dismantled the smaller pieces to that I could build up the main piece. At this stage I was edging all the flowers with white and working out how to shape it. I took it to St Ives with me and finished it!! But that picture will have to wait for next time.!

FABRIC BASKETS

There's a new love in my life - and it involves fabric (again!).  These wonderful fabric baskets are my new obsession.  After spending a lot of time on my daughter's quilt and the current Farmers Wife creation it's great to have something you can start and finish in a couple of hours - really satisfying.

I attended a workshop at Deb McGuire's PlainStitch Workroom and created a fab basket in about two and a half hours.

My first "kitchen" creation

That was it of course - spent the weekend gathering new fabrics and considering who would be on my list for a lovely little surprise gift!  That was a no brainer - ME :)  Spent Mother's Day morning at the sewing machine and had a ball.

Some storage for the bathroom

Just a small stash - Penguins a bit random but couldn't resist!

Even approached my sons expecting a firm "No" but was pleasantly surprised and now have to find some Marvel Heros fabric.

Still attending the Farmer's Wife Classes but I have also started a new project - quilt for son number one.  I'm using a large pattern for this one and it's growing nice and quickly.  In the meantime I think my house is going to be very tidy ;) as you can never have enough Fabric Baskets.....

Jane

More Farmers Wife from Towse

More Farmers Wife from Towse

Thanks to those who have also started to post - it is much appreciated. Now I've discovered how to re-find the tool bar I'd lost I can show what I've been up to. Here are my FW blocks for the last two months. I actually have Bouquet left to do but I've been leaving that until I feel like a fiddly sewing session.

I thought it might also be amusing for you to see the name badge I have constructed for the Fat Quarters sewing group in Missenden. They wanted people to wear names as it is quite a big group so gave us all pre-printed labels with the instruction to sew and decorate them how we fancied. Inspired by Carolyn's badge and having had her show me how to do chain stitch (I have never done embroidery) I decided to also get out the Heat and Bond and create a mini 9 patch quilt as well. Graham thought I had gone completely mad!!

Spreading the addiction

Some of you will already have met my neighbour, Doug, who has been initiated into the mysterious art of patchwork and is busy producing his own first blocks. Typically he has also gone off piste and started to experiment with distressed fabric with bleach. dyeing with various natural products and printing. He, like me, usually works cerebrally (he is a university lecturer) and was taken with the idea of going back to his artistic roots as well as a practical relaxation. I didn't realise that he would just start another obsession. His partner is also somewhat alarmed at the number of times she comes home to things bits of fabrics soaking in pots, or the ironing board in use! Here's some evidence ...

 

He's also completed a block of half square triangles and is now working on smaller triangles. Needless to say he is also accumulating his own stash, including some materials that I have never used myself!

Ta Dah! Finished At Last

My First Post :)

After nearly a year of picking it up and putting it down, I have finished my daughter, Kate's, quilt.  I think I'm in a competition for the biggest "monster" creation - who's winning Towse?

Here it is - my husband is hiding behind it, stood on the kitchen table holding it up!

 

I have quilted some flowers and butterflies on it and also her initials.  She is going to study Acting in September so I've also quilted masks in the top corner.




Hope you like it.


Now I only have the Farmer's Wife Quilt on the go but I do have a list of requests from the rest of the family, so onto another project - one just isn't enough.

Jane

The Leeds Challenge

  

The shoe box project

Back in July 2013 I was inspired by my friend to make a patchwork quilt for my daughter Katharine who is planning on going to Leeds University in September 2014. The challenge was to make a hexagon hand pieced top without buying any new fabric. Sadly that "not buying bit" didn't work. Anyhow since we  were going on holiday almost immediately I turned it into a project in a shoe box to make it portable.  In the box I put all the usual sewing kit, thread, scissors and pins. I had also prepared envelopes containing prepared fabric and papers. The papers were made by drawing around a cardboard hexagon template and then cutting along the line. 

 

Piecing over papers back

And front

I returned with this collection of "flowers"

March 2014 almost too big to photograph!

The paper was pinned to a piece of fabric which was then cut out with a small seam allowance approximately 3/8". The fabric was folded over the edges of the papers and pinned  and tacked in place.

This worked brilliantly. So easy to take away.

Each set of hexagons was then sewn together to make flowers.

I had forgotten how enjoyable hand sewing is.

I came back with a large collection of "flowers" to stitch together which took a while and focused my mind on the need to speed up. In January I discovered the Wendover Sewing Bee run by Deb of Plain Stitch. I had a lovely evening and met lots of inspiring sewers. I was also reminded of the marvellous product freezer paper. Thank you all so much.

Now the top is almost big enough to add borders and really tricky to photograph, I will fall off that chair one day!

It is interesting looking at the photograph as it highlights well the light and dark areas of the patchwork.

Thinking back, I should probably have made a plan for the patchwork but it was intended to be semi random which somehow makes it more difficult.

7" to go to finish the hexagon piecing and then on to the borders.

Towse's first 'sewing group challenge'

Around the middle of last year I joined the Fat Quarters sewing group, which is based in Great Missenden and affiliated to The Quilter's Guild. I have learnt a lot of new stuff and met a lot of very clever women! In the Autumn, to my bemusement, they brought around the 'February Challenge'. Everyone was given an eighth of self patterned cream fabric and a photo. The instruction was to create a piece inspired by the photo which used all of the cream fabric. My photo was the roof of Marylebone railway station.

Interesting as it was, I had no idea what to do with it, so there it sat until Christmas and a conversation about architecture with neighbours. Then I started doodling, re-arranging and more doodling until I had an image that I thought I could replicate. Of course it wasn't that simple with little paper templates and the realisation that I had done some 'strange' junctions. I also realised that the whole thing would have been easier if I had understood the practice, rather than just the theory of foundation piecing. However, here is the finished piece, which might well end up a cushion cover or something.

My neighbour, who knows more about architecture and art than I ever will, has shown quite an interest in the pattern and the process. (In fact, he drank tea while looking keenly through my latest patchwork pattern book the other day!) He says my piece reminds him of cubist inspired abstract paintings of the early C20th such as this one of 1913 by the Russian Mikhail Larionov. Does that make me an artist?

2014 and the Farmer's Wife blocks keep coming!

OK, I admit it, my FW is going to turn into another 'Monster', but then when I read the book I understand that I could need 111 blocks to make a double bed sized quilt. So that's my story and I am sticking to it!

Because I have got so fascinated with the possibilities for pattern and colour combinations I have carried on doing duplicates of the blocks that Debs has already covered and then I found some blocks on a US blog that I realised I could re-create using my current templates. So they just started to grown like Topsy - and now I discover that I am up to a grand total of 50 completed blocks. Either I am officially a patchwork addict or I definitely need to get a life!

So here they are and if you click on the picture to enlarge it and then look closely at the red and white images you should be able to read which FW templates you would need to make them up yourself. I also did another of the Card Tricks block, because I like that one too!

And yes, I have rectified the mistake on the above and it looks much nicer!

Here is the applique elephant that my nephew brought me back from an England Hockey Tour in Delhi because he thought I would like it - which I do. It cost him the equivalent of £1 and is all hand stitched!

And then I just needed some more fabric, honest!!

And I have discovered on EBay someone in South Korea of all places who is hugely efficient on the postage and has a good selection of fabrics all at reasonable prices. So I bought these:

A metre of this

And rather more of these because I thought they might be useful for backs......................

This week I also go on the first of two sessions to make me friends with the old sewing machine that lives in this house but I can't use. Heaven knows what will happen if the machine and I become friends and start to create blocks together!