Another Month bites the dust

Oh my goodness where did the month go!  It doesn't seem like yesterday when I was showing you my Drunkards Path Mini Quilt and today it's the "show and tell" for May's Cathedral Window Challenge.

I did try my luck with this one, offered it up as this months challenge, (to be fair I had made it  a year or so back), but I got a big 'No' ( from the rest of the group - Boo Hoo!) so I had to make a new one

All of the flowers were embroidered, and now is my sewing machine cover

So - off to the cutting board

all cut now pressing 

The folding not too shabby, let's hope the next step goes as well

All neat and tidy

I was not sure what I was going to have in my windows, then Higham Piecemakers had one of their social 'all day' sessions - 'Collage Creation' was the title.  Janis brought lots of scraps and a lot of it was Liberties Lawn and I knew that would work perfectly in my windows.  Very kindly Janis allowed me to take a few scraps.

I believe these are all off cuts from Liberties hexigon kits 

I had to put some sneak peeks onto flickr and these were the ones I chose

Bit of a close up

Black and white, but most spied the Liberty fabric

and this is my finished Mini.    As you can see it finishes as a  6" square..... too tiny for my sewing machine so hand sewing was the way to go.  I would love a full size quilt just like this, but I don't think I have enough hours left in my lifetime to complete it

Wonder what next months mini will be.  Pop over to Flickr and see the other beauties.

Pink Jobs and Blue Jobs????

Do you have pink and blue jobs in your house?  I don't think we do really, but our jobs have changed since Mr. D has retired.  Pink jobs used to include the garden, decorate the house including tiling etc. etc.which I know most folk would consider these 'blue' jobs.  Nowadays many of these jobs have turned into 'blue' jobs along with shared cooking (what a treat), bits of shopping, tidying the house.  This weekend the sun was shining and it was actually warm , so I wanted to power wash the drive and patio ready for the 'stunning' summer I long for, but I had the distinct impression that Mr. D now felt this should be a 'blue' job, but after a bit of discussion out came the power washer and this was me a few hours later.

Not sure I'll ever get those pants clean.

These next few jobs are definitely on the Pink list (big grin)

This week is crochet week again, and last time we met we were shown the boxes for Emily's star that some of us started to fill with bonding squares, hats, booties and incubator size quilts for our local hospital.  One thing that was in the box were little comfort toys for the babies, so I thought I would have a go at making them.  I have to say I have not got very far.........ONE is complete, but I did have good intentions, even bought a soft fleece blanket ready for the many that I should have finished...Blah! Blah! Blah!

So cute

They really don't take long to make and the white blanket is ready for the 'Off'

I did have an unexpected trip to my sister-in-law (S) last week and we took the opportunity to go to Lichfield to Spellbound Beads   The shop looks a bit boring from the outside, but inside is a wonderland of beads.

Sparkling Icicle 

Starry Night tassel 

We just couldn't resist, so came away with a couple of kits. and S bought beads which she plans to make into one of these....

My second half doll skirt

You would not believe just how many beads are in that skirt, it takes almost as long to thread the beads onto the perle thread as it does to knit the skirt, still keeps me off the street.

Don't forget if you would like to join our Mini Mania group over at flickr.  The next challenge is Cathedral Windows, the  instructions are here.

Till next time, happy days x x

Aprils Mini Mania Challenge Tah Dah!!!

Yep! It's that time of the month again.....Mini Mania Challenge 'show and tell'.  This months challenge was the 'drunkards path block'. We also had to use solid coloured fabric which suited me as I had used solids on my 'Pineapple block'  challenge and fabric still hadn't found their way back into the cupboard. Now I have only made drunkards path once before and that time each block was about 6" square and all sewn by hand. This time I wanted a 2" finished block and machine pieced, so a bit of Internet trawling and I came across this website that showed you how to make your own template, then I found this one so thought I'd have a go at making my very  own templates.

But I wasn't happy with the result, and so I then had one of those light bulb moments!  A couple of years ago I did a quick workshop at one of the quilt shows.  This workshop was to show you how you could frame a circle with fabric.  I have used this technique on a couple of occasions and thought I could make it work for my blocks.  Out came the compass again and voila! My drunkards path blocks were born.

I made them a bit bigger than needed so that I could trim down

Once all blocks were done I then the fun bit of choosing a design....and what a choice I had.  In the end I had three that I had to choose from

Eventually I settled on this arrangement.

Sandwiched and quilted, I am rather pleased with my little mini quilt.  This one will end up in a large quilt at the end of the year, that why it has no binding.

Why don't you head over here and have a look at the talented ladies creations.