Quilts, A New Home and A Holiday

Well, today was certainly a challenge as I had a myriad of things to achieve.. and one of them was to get my sense of direction oriented.  Amanda was hosting today's get-together, but as she is literally still moving in to her new house, I said I would complete the blog as she is without internet etc.. due to a hiccup with BT.  Janet has gone on holiday to France (such beautiful weather to have too) and Chris was arriving later due to work commitments.

My first task was to find where she had moved to.... I thought I had the correct address (having left it on my cutting table!!!), so I phoned her, being unable to find the house and no, I was one road to soon!  LOL  Having found where I should be, I then unpacked my bits and pieces and discovered I was the first to arrive.  Two cuppas and a wonderful piece of chocolate cake later, Alison arrived...

with a huge potted plant for Amanda (house warming gift),  amidst a flurry of activity outside (dustmen, Sky engineer etc...) but soon, we were settled to some quilting activities.   More tea and some lovely little meringue confections from, I think, Brittany, were also served.

Show and Tell was rewarding as Alison had her Christmas 'block of the month' quilt top almost completed... we all had differing opinions on the colours we liked on the quilt, but it is still a really jolly example of Christmas - looking at it also brought home the fact that the season of cheer is not too far off now. HELP! 

 I had almost completed a black and white (disappearing 9 patch) quilt for an acquaintance.  This has involved  the purchasing of 27 different fat quarters over about 14months and finally cutting out the 6" squares whilst we were on holiday; I had so little work last week, I was able to machine them into the 9 patch blocks, re-cut and then stitch them together in a matter of days ( a miracle in itself).  So, with machine at the ready, I was able to complete some of the quilting at Amanda's. 

In the mean time Amanda was working on her own project... no photos as I was so engrossed in mine, I forgot to photograph hers!  Apologies to you Amanda.

 Alison began to sew some more of her Farmer's wife blocks and by this time, Chris had arrived, showing us a rather nice blue and yellow charm square top which her mum had begun and given to her.  We then looked at a lovely selection of 'leaders and enders' blocks which we played around with for positoning, as she had cut both triangles and rectangles.  We came up with some reasonable ideas which Chris is now considering.  (At this point my camera ran out of power!!!! So the rest of the photos are on my phone which needs an adapter card to put in my computer... so watch this space for them, please!)  All now updated!

 

Lunch was served... a really tasty spicy pumpkin soup with Tiger bread (no recipe as it was from our local Co-op due to Amanda's hectic moving in schedule!).  Desert was a choice of yogurts.. very yummy and of course more tea!  We chattered about many different topics during the day, ranging from my diet, children with sight 'problems' to moving home, (very topical) and plumbers.. which I was about to dash home for as I received a text to say he was coming earlier than 'anticipated'.  SO.... once lunch was over, I had to leave... after another little meringue and of course, a mug of Tea!  I think we all achieved at least a few elements of our current projects, whilst putting the world to 'rights' and getting small issues 'off our chests'! LOL...

Until next time dear reader...!!!!!

Christmas in September

Today would be slightly different as Alison, Amanda, Caroline and Chris were coming to do a mini workshop. I had made a Christmas quilt sample for Needle and Thread using the Basic Grey range of fabric called Jovial, (which  can be seen in a post in July), and they thought they would like to make quilts using the same pattern.  Caroline and Amanda were using the Jovial range,  Chris was using a range by Kate Spain called the 12 Days of Christmas and Alison would be making a scrappy version.

Amanda arrived first followed shortly by Alison and Chris, Caroline would be a little late as she had an earlier appointment.

As usual we started with tea and  banana and chocolate muffins from Alison and then were quickly down to cutting fabric. 

By lunchtime, most of the cutting was done and the sewing had begun.

For lunch we had chicken and bacon lasagne from Amanda with salad from Caroline. For dessert we had cider crumble slice with creme fraiche from Janet - this was a recipe from the Caked Crusader's blog. 

Chris left soon after lunch, Alison, Amanda and Caroline continued on not even stopping for tea and cakes, they just ate, drank and sewed!!  With our tea we had cupcakes from Stephanie (honorary Tuesday girl for the day) and caramel crisp and flapjack mini bites from Chris.

By 4 30pm Alison Amanda and Caroline were finished for the day having made lots of trees. Alison and Amanda had made over 20 each and Caroline a few less.  In a e-mail, Chris told us she had continued at home and had made 20 trees.

A very productive day, watch this space for the finished quilts!

And as usual a great day with great company.

No more salad

It would be lovely to write of the blue skies of Summer but they seem to be hiding behind the clouds. Watching the weather forecast on Sunday evening it was obvious that Tuesday would not be a day for salads; time to think about soups and casseroles instead.

Poor Alison had a slow drive through rain to reach us and Caroline texted from The Lake District that they were "surveying the Langdale Pikes in gale force winds" before deciding to visit Lakeland Plastics instead! I hope the weather improves for the remainder of her holiday!

We had no specific plans for the day's sewing so all did our own thing as we caught up on our lives. Amanda is preparing to move house and soon she'll be living just around the corner, handy for coffee and the shop! Janet is thinking about her forthcoming holiday. Alison is collecting jam jars as she will be doing more preserving from the garden in the coming weeks. I was sharing photos of our forthcoming puppy.

Alison is hand quilting - beautiful blues and greens in this quilt - not much more to stitch

Janet continued preparing the next few blocks from The Farmer's Wife quilt

Amanda cut and prepared hexagons

I managed a few rows of knitting

Next week, we have plans ... you'll have to come back to see!