Good to be back.....

Hi everyone, I'm back and I must thank Helen again for keeping things going while I was away.  After an eventful visit with Mum and Dad, I had an even more eventful trip back.  Unfortunately I got caught up right in the middle of the air traffic control strike over France, and spent 9 hours sitting at Birmingham Airport before eventually arriving home at 2am!  Fortunately I had a bit of stitching with me to help pass away some of those very long hours.
It´s good to be back in the warm, bright sunshine and to see all the work being done on various projects by our group members.  There were about twenty ladies at Tuesday´s meeting, including our newest member Sandra, who enjoys knitting and embroidery.  Welcome Sandra!

Sandra with her current project, a baby shawl

Kath is embarking on a new project and has decided  to have a complete change in both the style of patchwork and colour from her usual themes.   She has decided to make a pieced quilt after spending the last few years perfecting applique techniques, and also to use a more muted colour palette in place of her usual signature darker, bold colour schemes.  Below, she is with Pam discussing her ideas. Kath is incorporating two designs;  chevron strips, and incorporating a narrow sashing between the strips.

Sue and Shirley were busy chatting and knitting

Shirley has been making blankets and jumpers for what she calls "Fish and Chip Babies", which is a charity sending knitted clothes and blankets to Africa, to help save babies lives who have only newspapers to keep them warm after they are born.

Sarah, who only began patchwork after joining our group, has designed a quilt layout to show off a Thomas the Tank Engine fabric she found recently

while Leslie is finishing off a cross-stitch sampler before she delivers it to the UK where it is being given as a gift

Ann, above and Pam have been making articles which can be sold or raffled  to raise funds for a charity in the UK.  Ann is making pairs of cushion covers, which she is donating.  Pam´s daughter works at the Sea View Centre in Poole, Dorset which regularly holds events to raise money for the Centre for Adult Social Care, where she works.   They were able to raise 800GBP last year as a result of items made and donated by members of our group, and were thrilled to tell us the money would go towards new fixtures and fittings at the centre to make things more comfortable for those who use the Centre.

You may remember seeing Pam´s christmas project in an earlier blog, Pam is busy embellishing the pretty parcels under the tree with hand sewing, something she rarely does as it slows her down and she usually only makes things by machine!

Pam is also busy making this cute sleepy-looking owl using xmas fabrics.

Jacqueline seeks advice from Kath about the borders on her batik strippy quilt,

and Christine works on this lovely embroidery of  Rennie Mackintosh´s rose design

while Helen above, and Carole below, concentrate on quilting their projects before looming deadlines!

Yvonne added more of her signature hand embroidery to a piece of felt-backed silk paper which she made in a recent "play-day" with the Diversity group.  Yvonne laid down the fibres when making the paper, to resemble a landscape setting, and is now adding blossom to the trees, together with further hand stitching on the background which unfortunately doesn´t show well in this photo.  

By the time I got back round to the other end of the room, I was amazed to see how quickly Sue´s pretty knitted scarf had grown.  

Carol was thrilled with her finished cushion cover, the top of which she has been painstakingly quilting over the last few weeks.  Today she mastered the art of inserting an invisible zipper in the back of the cushion cover, with the help of instructions from the internet and was very pleased with herself!  Gwen too was very pleased to have finished another of her projects started some time ago.  This was an on-line block-of-the-month project where participants downloaded a block each month.  Gwen has customized some of the blocks to have a Spanish theme in place of the original Americanised style.  More photos of Gwen´s completed project and Carol´s cushion will be available to be seen on their respective gallery pages on the group website when it is updated in approximately 2 week´s time. http://www.vinuelasewandsews.eu/

Gwen is now embarking on her next project, and has been busy making snowball blocks.  You may have noticed a colour theme in all Gewn's work, she loves the warm autumn colour range of tans, soft reds, oranges and yellows.  Apparently, Yvonne is making it her mission to encourage Gwen to move away from this comfort zone and begin using a new colour family.  Gwen replies that a visit to her home will show that she is firmly rooted in using her favourite colour scheme!

While Ann is awaiting delivery of her new Bernina sewing machine, she is adding some hand stitching to her Stupendous Stitching project.

Finally this week,  I have just started working on two cot quilts for my 6 month old great nephews, (that makes me sound old!).  I found the central Peter Rabbit panels on e-Bay and couldn't resist them.  Both will have different coloured borders, and their Mum Louise, would like the quilts to have their names and birth-dates on them.  I'm really looking forward to the quilting stage, as I have been treated to a life´s-worth-of-birthdays present from my husband Frank, of an amazing long-arm quilting machine, which makes it a joy to quilt with all the extra machine throat space.

I hope you've enjoyed keeping up with all our projects, and I  hope you visit again next week, bye for now.

                                                                                            Rachel