Quiet week

Well, other than a lot of snow falling not much has been happening this week.  We have been taking the opportunity to walk around the village, especially as we invested in some snow spikes for our shoes.  The spikes are great, they fix onto the bottom of your boots or shoes and make walking so much safer, they make a bit of a noise when walking around the shops and I certainly would not want them worn around the house, but to use them for what they were designed for is great.

So fresh and clean

The Church is much more impressive than it looks here.

I have been sewing a challenge given by my quilting group, but I can't show you that until they have all been unveiled in March, but I can show you this..

So darn cute

 I fell in love with this design the first time I saw it, and was given the pattern to play with.  It is paper pieced, and as the pieces are so small I can't imagine making it any other way.  I needed to add borders, but what colour would look best...

The blue is actually lilac, but bad photography 

or this 

think this is the way to go

Yes, I decided a bit more brightness would not go amiss.

Got to think now how to quilt it.

 For Christmas I received this beautiful Amaryllis as a bulb, and have had pleasure watching it grow, but my holiday is looming and I am thinking I will miss the full flowering, so I have cut the flower stem and hoping to persuade it to blossom before I leave.  If it performs I will take a photo of the flower heads.

We will be visiting grandchildren while on holiday, so writing this blog may not be at the top of my priorities, but if I do manage to do anything exciting I will get some photos and show you when I can, so until next time.... take care.

Winter has arrived.

Yes, winter has finally arrived.  On Monday we had some flurries of snow but I decided it would be fine to go to my patchwork group.... how wrong can you be... after driving out of our village it was like driving into a blizzard, very poor visibility on the highway with lots of spray as the snow wasn't settling.  While at group the snow cleared up so the journey home was relatively clear, but I was now on guard.  Thursday, we woke to the sun shining on the fields and what a picture that was.

Our view from the comfort of our bed

Friday we had more snow and a lot of families seemed to make the most of the school closures.  I need to borrow some children then I could 'borrow' their sledge and play along!

This is the recreation ground 

The group of trees in the middle of the pic. are the trees we look onto from our bed.

Love the look of the 'Old Vicarage'

Not much sewing going on this week as we were expecting friends for the weekend, so lots of cooking instead, but the weather closed in on Friday and nobody was going to travel unless it was absolutely necessary, so a quick phone call to some local friends who stepped into the breach and helped us eat the food.  Not sure when to expect the thaw, so we will wrap up warm and take some nice winter walks.

First things completed in 2013

I thought I had been just sitting around doing nothing, but not so... just look at what has been finished already.

While I was away over Christmas I took time out on my own to visit a patchwork shop,  just to see if there was anything I was missing out on.  No, nothing new in the patchwork world, but this shop also sells wool, and I have often seen a pattern I like, but when it comes to costing the wool etc. it seems so expensive that I just pass it by.  This visit was a bit of an exception, I saw a pattern and it required only 3 balls of wool..... even I can afford 3 balls of wool!.  So this is the outcome of my little trip.

It is lightweight and just right for the summer/

I was trolling the flickr pages, and came across this tilda teacup angel so off to buy the book.... that drew a blank, because the book is not being published until about May time.  I need this Angel, and I needed it now.... so managed to buy the Angel wings from one of the Tilda sites, and made my own pattern up using other Tilda pattens that I have already.

Cute don't you think

Now I just couldn't stop at one ...the Angel wings came in a pack of two....what can a girl do... no will power that's me! 

Arms a bit long! May need attention.

I love them.

The other thing I found while surfing the web was this very handy carry bag for an iron.  So Sunday was spent playing.... Voilà!

I am going to try to made a smaller one for my travel iron 

Now what do you think is going on here......

This might give you a clue...

8" x 4" finished

Keep you posted on that project.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all, lets hope this is a happy healthy year for everyone.

I thought I would share a few of the things that I have been busy making through this first year of "My Blog".

I finished this in March.   I had been saving the fabrics, which were a gift, for ages, then saw this pattern and decided that this was what the fabrics had been waiting for .....

The next project took a bit more work to just get the pattern, but once I had that in my hot little hand I spent a few happy hours making it....

Still a favourite of mine

May time brought an internet friend over from America,  it was such fun meeting up with her and some of her family.  We took time out to visit Blenheim Palace and what a wonderful day we had..

Dee  and  Me    

I had a little time to play at making my own pattern, and felt very proud that it turned out so well that I decided to try to make it into the button for my blog.  Making the button took a few days to get my head around,  but I got there in the end 

Meet the button

 June saw the completion of my Birdie Block Quilt.  I followed Little Miss Shabby's block a month 

My friend then asked if I would like to make up this little gem........she had no time, so decided to sew by proxy....

Cute don't you think?

  

I then joined one of the 'flickr' swaps.  I made this for my partner who had mentioned that she loved owls and fresh coloured fabrics..... girl after my own heart.

Dancing Ribbons was the next on my list to make.  

This one is for me

One of the other swaps I joined on flickr was a Round Robin, where we started by making a block which could be any size from 12" square to 36" square.  Mine started as a 15" square and I thought when everyone had added their round I would get back a lap size quilt, well - that was the plan!  As my quilt toured the world it became very obvious that when it returned home it was going to be a bit bigger than lap size.  In fact when it did get home, I decided it was going to fit the double bed in my spare room :

Before

After.. looks great don't you think?

Remember the friend that "sews by proxy"?  This was the next project she would like to have made, but again no time,  so, sew jo stepped in and had fun re jigging the pattern (the original was made with a layer cake, and I only had a charm pack, so its much smaller) and ended up with a lap quilt, just what I wanted!

There have been many more things being made in my little room, but I don't want to bore you, so I will just finish off with this little man that was completed just in time..

Two men actually 

Hope you all had a great holiday and happy sewing in 2013.