Hanging

This was taken at 9am this morning, when this Northish facing lobby gets a glimpse of sunlight. I think it's too high, but Bossman said he didn't think the bottom should be covered up by the plant stand in the corner.

The orchids seem just as happy here as they were in the Southish facing snug, although they have all finished flowering apart from this one...

Ready for hemming

This is the piece pinned up ready for me to hand stitch the tan binding to the back. I think the easiest way to hang it will be a pocket on the back and a curtain rod of the type used for hanging net curtains. Hopefully the next post will be a photo of it in situ.

Progress

Turquoise border.

Layered up.

Safety pinned.

I have the unaccustomed luxury of using batting rather than blanket this time, as I inherited some bits from my friend Dot. I have had to herringbone them together, but they are making the whole thing so much lighter.
I don't have a walking foot on any of my machines, so my machine quilting is very tame. I shall quilt in the ditch. Having done the basic pinning in the centre of each patch with a safety pin, I then use the pintensive method of pinning each ditch at 2" intervals with straight pins just before I stitch it.

Sacrifices have to be made...

...when the Patchwork Goddess demands turquoise;

And from the back of the same wardrobe came a soft green cotton wrap around skirt that will do nicely for the backing.

The result of my excavations...

...in the turquoise mine was a very large zilch. No turquoise sleeping bag liner, no turquoise of any description large enough to go around the modest circumference of my Broken 9's, but poking out of the box below was a largish piece of tan cotton sheeting that might just fit the bill. I have pinned it up to consider the effect. Bossman's comment when asked for his opinion was that he felt that there was a war on. When asked to elucidate, he said that it was like sleeping in a bedroom with blackout curtains, and when was I going to finish it? I gave him the usual answer that a true artist couldn't be rushed, and that anyway my sewing machines have decided that they will only work in the mornings now that it is practically June...

Broken 9 patch

If you have been visiting for a while, you might remember this post and the disappearing 9 patch blocks I had made with some scraps sent by Kate. I never did get as far as stitching them together. Since then, December 2007 would you believe, they have been sitting on my sewing table in a zip-lock bag, being pushed from one spot to another and back again. This morning the spirit moved me to make a wall hanging to fill the blank wall in the new lobby, and those 9 patch blocks seemed a good place to start, but they looked rather dull for the north facing space, so I decided to make a couple more blocks with some brighter colours. I could see some of the turquoise cotton I used to make Pointy Kitty in a scrap box under the table, along with the green and turquoise I used for Paula's Spudgies, and decided to use those to liven things up a bit. I added some charm squares sent by Pam and some bits sent by Paula, and here you can see the result, pinned up on my bedroom curtains. I am very lucky to have such kind cyber friends who send me goodies! I will have a rummage tomorrow for something to frame the outside. Somewhere there is a turquoise cotton sleeping bag liner left over from our boating days. I know I used some of it in a quilt, but I think there might be enough left for what I want. It will be in the cardboard box marked green and turquoise that I can see in the wardrobe from where I am sitting, but getting to the box involves moving more boxes, a fruit crate full of Bus Monkeys, a laundry basket full of assorted tat waiting to be sorted, not to mention....well we won't go into that...


I'm not going to show you any close-ups, either, because there is a very good reason I have called it a Broken 9 patch; The first set of squares were stitched on the Elna and today's were stitched on the Lervia. This noodle didn't take into account the fact that the foot on the Lervia is fractionally wider than the foot on the Elna, and as that is the way I measure my seams, there was a slight discrepancy where some of the corners met. Not enough to bother a Blind Man on a Flying Horse of course, but enough to make me hang my head.

Spec-ulation

For some time I have been making needlepoint spectacle cases, sometimes using normal canvas, and sometimes using plastic canvas as a base. They have been quite well received as gifts. As usual, most of them have gone off to their recipients before I have thought to record them for posterity, but there are some that I use myself, in particular, this one with the hollyhocks; just a scrap adapted from a much larger canvas in a Jill Gordon tapestry book that I have. There is a picture of another of her hollyhock designs here. I have attached a neck cord to this one so that I have my magnifying glasses always to hand. (Bossman thinks I should hang my keys around my neck as well!) At the Craft Club on Monday, Sally asked if she could commission me to make one to give to her 96 year old mother, as she was always losing her specs. She also said that she didn't want to pay a lot as she was planning on giving her lots of small presents for Christmas. I asked how much she was willing to pay, and she said between €5 and €10. As it takes between 10 and 15 hours to stitch one side...say a minimum total of 25 hours to stitch two sides, line and overcast with wool, I told her that I am more than willing to put in that effort if I am making a gift for someone, but not to sell it for less than the cost of the materials. At her crestfallen look, I offered to make her mother a less complicated version, after all, the idea was that she should have her specs to hand, not that she should have the needlepoint...so here is the patchwork version with ribbon for the neck, made with some of the scraps sent by Kate in return for some stiff interfacing.

Patchwork Book Cover

A while ago, I was lucky enough to receive a softie full of scraps from Paula, and I used some of them this afternoon, in a random sort of way, to make a book cover.
For the base I used a synthetic type of felt, sold here in rolls for use as dusters and cleaning cloths, but sturdy enough to use for stiffening postcards and as a base for foundation piecing. I laid my hard backed notebook open on the felt, marked two long sides and one short side, then holding the marked end in place, closed the book, flipped over the felt and marked it at the other short end. This gave me the extra width needed to allow for the wire ring binding. I then marked a working line half an inch outside this rectangle. This allows for a little take up when you sew on the fabric, and leaves a little overlap when finished that helps to protect the pages.

The next step was to cut two equal inner pieces, the same height as the book cover and an inch or so narrower than one cover, and to put these to one side. Then I started on the fun bit; covering the base in a random foundation piecing sort of way. The four triangles cried out to be corners, so I marked roughly where they would be, then filled the space in between. As usual, my camera has its own take on colours, because those blue looking patches on the left are green, and so are the blue ones in the picture below...
Having filled the whole of the area, I turned it over, back side up, and machined close to the edge. I then trimmed all the edges back to this line, and checked it for size against the book. I pinned my cover pocket pieces to each end and machined again over my line, double checked for size on the book, then did a close zig-zag all around the edge, enclosing all the raw edges and making the pockets for the book boards. I am quite happy with it as it is, but if I make another one, I shall probably cover the inside with a piece of material so that the stitching is not visible, and maybe attach some ties and somewhere to slot a pen or pencil.

Colouring lace

I was undecided about the lace square on the CQ heart, and I have now coloured a piece of lace to compare the two. The colours are a little more saturated in real life, as the harsh light of the scanner does it no favours. For anyone interested in how I do this, I use fabric felt tips and a child's blitzer, a simple squeezy bulb device that forces a stream of air past the tip of the pen and deposits a spray of colour on the surface beneath. By wetting the lace first, you force the colours to blend as they spread out. The results are fairly random, as it is difficult to control the amount of ink that is sprayed, or where it falls. I only have a few colours, so it is guesswork at this stage. You will see the odd spot of yellow at the end of the petals where I have attempted to make a different shade of green.
Here it is in place on the heart. I still haven't made my mind up, so I shall leave it hanging where I see it every time I come to the computer, and after a while I hope it will speak to me.

ATCs into postcards...

Having folded in the sides and stitched them in to place, then made a two layer backing and fixed that into place, I wasn't altogether happy with the result of the canvas and needlepoint ATCs. They were very bulky around the edges, and the corners were not neat. Next time I will try folding in the edges and making the outer stitches through the double layer, as one does when making a rug. With these two ATCs, I have left a canvas border,basted them onto a cotton backing, and then hand stitched fabric around, log cabin style. Why is it that I don't see the glaring imperfections until confronted with them on my computer screen? Maybe so that I can't ignore it...

I shall learn from the mistakes, and hope to do better next time. I think there will definitely be a next time.

Take Three...

....Nine Patch squares.


Quarter them....


...and re-arrange to suit...


...like this...


this...


...or this.

But which? Opinions and suggestions gratefully received, as were the patches from Kate and the idea from Helen.

I'm a lucky sewandsew...

...I received a supersquishy from Kate N! Lots of yummy 5" charm squares, including many oriental designs, and the larger strip of "oriental dartboards" that you can see at 2 o'clock in the picture. The picture doesn't really do them justice as the stack has to be 2" high, butI was too impatient to wait until I had fanned them out singly!

Craft sewing is on the back burner this week as I have a big bag of alterations to work through. I suppose I shall have to acknowledge the fact that Ch£!$[µ@$ is just around the corner, and some people are already buying their gladrags. The local Craft Fair is booked for the 25th November, and I have had an email asking if I will pick up the fliers and distribute them. I don't mind distributing them, but I get cross that the organisers only print fliers in English and don't have the courtesy to at least have the main points in Spanish as well. I refuse to ask the Spanish shops to display them as I feel that it is downright rude. Not only that, but if they were in Spanish, then we would attract the many other nationalities who live in our town and make the effort to learn the lingo...but it seems my complaints fall on deaf ears. Add to that the fact that Women in Business are holding their Christmas Bazaar on the same day in another hotel further down the road, and it could go one way or the other...people coming out from the town centre pass our hotel first, so maybe if we have large enough posters outside in a variety of languages, we can pull in the customers first ....

Squares and Triangles

Here is today's effort. I have used the same purple as in the last one. It used to be a sheet way back in the groovy 70's, then most of it was used in a quilt for 0j0, but I still have some strips left in my purple/maroon bit box. I have tried to reflect the flowers in the border print with the sequins. It doesn't show very well in this scan, but I have stitched them on with green rayon, and added a fuchsia lined glass bead to their centres. My points still are far from perfect, but the worst one is disguised by the fact that the adjoining pieces are the same fabric. I shall get there eventually.