Happy Birthday Gloria

Happy 50th Birthday Gloria

Hope you have a brilliant day.

I was given this beautiful card on my 50th birthday last year
and thought I'd share it with you. .

My OH was 50 in June this year. He climbed Ben Nevis in
Scotland on his birthday! - on his own!

Have a good one!

Inchies

Thought you might be interested in this........
A few years ago it was the 25th birthday of a local textile
group. They issued a challenge to produce a piece to

celebrate the occasion. If I remember correctly there was
a size limit, can't remember what it was. I racked my

brains and eventually came up with the idea of a charm
bracelet using inchies. It became a charm cuff.For the decorative side I bonded silver fabrics to some
vylene and machine embroidered to secure. For the
date side I marked out a grid on black fabric and
machine embroidered the dates, one in each square.
I machined the 2 sides together with 2 lines of stitching
then cut them up between the tram lines. Zigzagging
finished the edges of each square. Jewellery jump rings,
wire and beads were used to attach each inchie to a
machine stitched cord which was then handstitched
to the cuff. The cuff was a dark grey fabric and vylene.

The winner of the challenge was a beautiful machine

embroidered box. But really it was one of those occasions

when everyone was a winner. It was interesting seeing

everyones take on the challenge. Sorry no picture.

I set myself a challenge when I decided to this which was

not to spend any money! Not because I'm tight but

because I've got so much stuff I thought I'd use some of it.

I think I succeeded with the group challenge and my own.

In the past I've used inchies for making cards for all sorts

of occasions. I've used trimming from bigger pieces. I don't

like wasting anything.

New Pinny

I've been between major textile things because of the
garden but I have been busy-ish. I've been delving into piles
of fabrics and doing small projects or finishing off others.
It feels very virtuous to do these little things and the piles
are getting abit smaller, only abit though!

When I'm doing any thing messy I'm very bad at wiping my
hands down my sides. An ordinary pinny isn't substantial
enough. I was decided to re-purpose an old pair of jeans.
I seem to remember being inspired from a blog but for the
life of me I can't remember which one, so apologies for
having a bad memory and thank you for the inspiration.
I decided to make abit of a challenge out of it - to use as
much of the garment as possible and the only additional
item would be thread.
It took about an hour to de-construct the jeans sitting in the
garden in the September sunshine watching the resident
blackbird pottering about.
This was the result.............not a bad result, I think............


The front bib pocket........................

The neck strap formerly the waist band.............

The fastening at the back - more waistband..................and the

only 'extra' apart from the thread - a button for the fastening.......

The leftovers!

Gift, Patchwork

Back in April we went to see my OH's parents, they

weren't in but we were spotted by one of the neighbours.

This lady has always been a big knitter and sewer.

She gave me a large bag, said she was having a clear out

and could I make use of this?

Never one to say no, this is what I accepted.........

She had started this project back in the 70's using Laura

Ashley offcuts and adding other fabrics into the mix.

It was never completed and had been lurking in a cupboard

ever since. I was honest from the beginning and said that

I probably would never complete it either. She didn't mind

as long as it was used some how. She knows that I'm not

always traditional in my textiles!

I consider this a great gift - when you think of the hours of

work, the preparation all done by hand. Now, I don't want to

finish it but I do want to use it - is that bad?

As soon as I looked in the bag ideas started to form........

Garden

The garden has been in need of 'sorting' for a while.
We've recently spent time just cutting back to see what's
beneath. This was a clump of Crocosmia that I'd put in
about 15 years ago and should have been divided about
every 3 or 4 years - or not! This was before the clump had
been sorted. I've been giving away bags of bulbs and the
rest will go to the WI. Some have gone back in to the
same border.
The gardenis looking better but it doesn't really look like
ours any more, there's too much soil showing.

Can't remember what these are called but they're a

relative of a wild flower and seem to like it in our garden.

We have a clump of horseradish that has never been

used but has given a great display of large green leaves

each year. Something has always enjoyed these leaves -

the caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly.

They create these lacy leaves, I like them but I'm sure

a real gardener wouldn't!

I was given a marrow the other day. I made an apricot and

walnut stuffing - stuff I'd got in the cupboard - and stuffed it.

Was rather yummy! Thank you H. The rest of the stuffing got

nibbled at suring the evening and never made it to the freezer!

I stuffed the rest of the marrow with minced beef and onions

later in the week. Still yummy!

Festival of Quilts - last one!

The NEC at night, not scary but wierd! took this whilst waiting
for my lift to arrive on the Sunday evening.
The bonnet on the right is one of mine. It's for
Roses from the Heart : Christina Henri, Conceptual Artist
A worth while project.
The goodies - fabric, some for my mum and some for me!

More fat quarters - do I really need any more?

Other bits and bobs that I can't resist.

Finally, the winners, with pictures, can be found here

Congratulations to all the winners.

Also a huge congratulations to the Little Gems CQGB team

and to all those who donated or bought tickets for the massive

amount they raised with the Little Gems - I believe that £9,700

was raised.

Came home with lots to think about.

Festival of Quilts 3

Just some of the rest that caught my eye.
'Roadwork 1' by Sue Dawson - this I like because it's
the normal everyday things that we can look to for
inspiration but often get overlooked ........................
Some would argue as to whether this is a quilt or not
but I love it, Margaret Woodside's 'Pearl Essence'..........................

I love simplicity, it's always harder to achieve than it appears.

'Country Terrace' by Sarah Nicol......................

One of my favourite fabrics is denim so I love this piece,

Bea Sewell's 'The Mawkin's Coat'.................................