On Safari in Norfolk

Mum and I spent a lovely morning at Mileham Village Hall this Saturday for The African Fabric Shop's annual safari to sunny Norfolk.  They had a beautiful display of baskets, African fabrics, beads, buttons...



I couldn't resist the temptation to add a few bits and pieces to my stash :-)



The Castle Quilters hosted the event and they had a lovely display of three dimensional quilted objects (bags, mobiles etc) made for a recent challenge using the African fabrics.

And homemade bakewell tart was a definite added bonus ;-P

Hand Crankin Loveliness

A nearby market town, Swaffham, has gone plastic bag free - hurrah!  Norwich baggers Not More Bloomin Elves were invited to have a stall/bag making workshop at their launch event and I went along to help out.  We had a lovely morning sewing bags in the Assembly Rooms and I was thrilled to be able to use the Elves' beautiful old handcrank Singer:

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Numbers

Three pinwheels:


Three liberated trees:


And the hexagon count is up to 56:


And that's it :-)

Warding off Sewing Machine Withdrawal Symptoms

Well, I am about to embark on my first week away from my Pfaff and I'm going to miss her :-P

Luckily, I spotted this: http://www.texasfreckles.com/2010/05/hexagon-thoughts-week-six-piecing-in.html



and thought, "I know!  I can sew English paper pieced hexagons while I am on holiday!"  Plus, it will also give me a nice, portable hand sewing project to fit in at odd times of the day and when waiting for the boys at various sporting activities.

I have made a few Grandmother's Flower Garden arrangements before, but that kind of fell by the wayside a bit...I think it was just a bit toooo traditional for me :-).  I love the idea of making a random charm quilt with the hexies.  With 1,173 1-inch hexagons required for a lap size quilt, it may not be a 'true' charm quilt unless I can get swapping with people, but I will try to make it as random and colourful as possible.  The only criteria for the fabrics I choose, is that they must not be too "shy and retiring" ie no very quiet neutrals.

I made a start on a few at the sports centre this week while Gman had his track session, and have cut out more paper pieces and squares of fabric ready to go.  Woohoo!

When did the village get so big?

I made this house.  It's kind of conventional compared to the others but if you look closely, the bottom half fabric is snakeskin so I guess someone quite wild might live here :-)



I have also been making wonky cross blocks for the border of this quilt.  I like the way they look, sort of a crazy picket fence:



While the boys played the Wii earlier, I made use of Gman's lovely big bedroom floor to lay out all of the blocks and wow, the village is getting pretty big :-).



Not sure how to sew them all together but thought I would add bits to the sides of each house block so I could have columns of equal width to sew together eg one column where everything is 12 inches wide, one 15 inches wide etc.  If I try and vary which side I add the bits to, this shouldn't look too uniform hopefully.  So, now to make some random bits to make blocks up to size :-).  I'm thinking half square triangles, little log cabin blocks, strippy bits...and maybe a few more trees and stars.  What fun!

All Hooped Up and Ready to Go (aka Thanks Mum!)

I have finally bitten the bullet and prepared my Jacob's Ladder quilt for hand quilting.  It took me and mum about four hours (thanks Mum, you're a star!)  to hand baste it but I think we did a good job, it seems very secure.  So "all" I have to do now is quilt it :-P



I have bought a selection of different coloured cotton quilting threads so I can keep with the multicoloured scrap vibe.  Am finding the thread damn slippery stuff, it keeps trying to escape from the spools.  Any tips on preventing this would be gratefully received!

I haven't made any more liberated houses this week, but have made four little liberated stars for  Gman's red and black quilt.  These are only three inches across so difficult to get them to lay flat for a photo but I think they look quite sweet.  I will probably make a few pinwheel blocks this size too and intersperse with plain black squares to make up the next border.  That way I can lop bits off or add bits on to make the borders the right size, without worrying about having to match anything up.  It's not lazy, it's liberated :-)

100 Bags, a Dotty House and a Star is Born

First of all, I have to share my latest liberated house.  It has to be my favourite so far and is also Waif's favourite:



I loved the door so much I made a matching tree :-)

In other news, I have made four more Morsbags which takes Snoozepod's grand total up to 100. Yes, I have made 100 bags.  Woohoo!



I have decided to take a new direction with Gman's black and red quilt.  Since discovering the joy of liberated quiltmaking, the conventional stuff seems, well, a bit boring...so I have sewn together some of the log cabins I have already made into a star formation and I am going to transform into a medallion quilt, taking inspiration from Gwen and Freddy.  I think my first border will have to contain some liberated stars, then who knows where it will go from there..?