Wednesday 28 October 2009

A Wonderful World

Here in England we are enjoying the most wonderful weather at present , it is so different to this time last year ,

Iv,e had a wonderful day today, I had several jobs planned but as soon as I stepped outside to feed my goldfish I knew I would be outside for the rest of the day . I,m clearing a lot of plants out , I need to clean the soil up for next spring. The house next to me has a lot of Ivy growing up the fence , as I,ve been clearing the ground the roots of the Ivy are a real network in the soil , I,m so concerned that I will never get it all out , the tiniest bit left in will start a new plant . I,ll keep at it hoping the weather stays good .

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Scuppered Again


Bluebell and I planned to go to the Malvern quilt show this week,
Mmmm, I,ll make an appropriate bag for the occasion, this is it, we decided that Thursday would be the day . The quilt show is usually 4 days , Thurs to Sunday. This afternoon bluebell popped round with the news , the show would not be starting till Friday, so , another best laid plan gone by the wayside . I cannot go Friday , the man is coming to give the boiler it,s annual service and the roads are far too busy at weekend, so we keep our money in our pocket for something else ,
If you have looked at bluebells blog you will see we had a lovely day out yesterday until we went to a favourite lunch place , Lunch!!! it was so bad , bluebell was brave and ask for the money back , not a girl to be trifled with is bluebell ,

Sunday 25 October 2009

My halloween T,cosy

I decided Saturday afternoon I would get together orange fabric and make something . I settled for making a tea cosy , I do drink a fair amount of tea , so this is my effort for halloween . I didn,t get around to it until this afternoon . My best laid plans always get waylaid


This is the back of my tea cosy,so now you can see it definately is a halloween one . The good thing about accumalating a big stash of fabric is there is always something suitable for a project.


This is my pattern , just cut out from a cereal packet . Best sort of patterns , cheap and cheerful .

up a gum tree lying down


This is no,.3 in the gum tree designers series. I hope you don,t get a crick in your neck looking at it side ways .
On the pattern it is a hanging , I decided to make mine into a bag,

This bag I made for no reason at all but I shall probably use it to take stuff to our sewing group

Two bags full


This bag I have made this week, it might be to carry stuff to the quilt meeting , or , it might be to put christmas gifts in

I think you will have tolie on the floor to see this one,its the gum tree designers bag . no ,.3 in a series

Saturday 24 October 2009

Fabulous cheater fabric


Isn,t this just beautiful cheater fabric, look at that lovely border. I had one and a quarter yards for a lap quilt. I finished a cheater quilt last Thursday, took it to show at the fabric guild, it is now hanging there so people can see how the fabric makes up. If only one of my idols Kaffe Fasset would do cheater fabric in his glorious colours I would stash up and stay indoors all winter. Does anyone out there have any influence ?

New fabric


This is the fabric Ibought yesterday at the fabric guild, far right 8 yds for backing, the other 3 are for the front. The ball of wool is for a curly scarf,crotchet . I found the pattern on a blog last year .
I have to finish a project from Gum Tree Designers then today I,m going to play about with bright colours e,g orange, zingy stuff because its a rainy dayand dull , isn,t going to be dull inside though

Thursday 22 October 2009

Christmas table mat

This is bits left over from a split 9 patch
Posted by Picasa

Slowing down for winter



Some days my creative bones are on full alert and I,m scribbling and drawing like crazy . Other times it,s a mental block and I,m overwhelmed with too many ideas and bits of paper .


At present I,m mulling over doing a needlecase with silk ribbon embroidery. I have every thing ready for when the impulse strikes .


the adverts in the magazines say sew many quilts ,so little time . How true this is but there are , so many weeds , so much dust, I try to priotitise , a quick flip with the duster , 1 hr, weeding ,a quick browse round , cooking , 1 pot cooking most days this time of the year .


Some days I have to snooze in the afternoon to re,charge my batteries , I call this going into sleep mode, I have achieved quite a bit of sewing this week though .and I do have ideas in the pipeline for a bag with velvet patches and wool embroidery, I have made a start on that . I think a cuppa and a ginger bisc,. and I.ll give it a second look .

Monday 19 October 2009

The christmas table mat

Here is a picture of my christmas table mat that was the b,o, week last week on www.gumtreedesigners.blogspot.com Please visit , there will be a different block each week up till christmas . I made a error on mine because I was distracted, but it is stil lovely, thank you Joy
Posted by Picasa

Wednesday 14 October 2009

The Winter Tree

The following pictures are my watercolour quilts
Posted by Picasa

The spring Tree

Posted by Picasa

The Summer tree

Posted by Picasa

The Autumn Tree

Posted by Picasa

Watercolour

This is a watercolour bed quilt is depicting the four seasons of the year . All my watercolour quilts are made from 2" squares . This quilt was made of several blocks before joining them altogether . the red tree has summer coloured flowers, the green tree spring, the blue tree is winter , and the brown autumn . T o get a diverse amount of colour and pattern for the watercolour effect I had to use furnishing fabrics as well as regular patchwork fabric.
Posted by Picasa

Watercolour

I thought my friends might like to see my watercolour quilts,this one is monochrome and entitled Slag heap .

The ones following are window scenes , and composition of whatever took my fancy , one has celtic work in gold shiny lam,e fabric on the top . Perhaps more visible if you click on the picture to enlarge .

I hope you enjoy
Posted by Picasa

watercolou

Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa

more watercolour

Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa

more watercolour

Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa

Digging in the archives

This is a photograph of one of my watercolour patchwork pieces . I was br owsing thro,. photo,s and thought you might like to see this .

I have been searching this afternoon and evening for 2 books I have on ribbon embroidery by Ann Cox , can I find them? no, I have seached every nook and cranny . It is so frustrating . I got the silk ribbon out and set myself up for a bit of creative time but once again best laid plans scuppered .

I can hear loud and clear again now . I have been deaf in my right ear for a week, it,s now sorted.

I had a little sleep this afternoon thinking I would be awake and alert for embroidery this evening, instead I,m tired from rooting around looking for that which is lost ,so, goodnight
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Bit of everything

Today I seem to have done a bit of everything to try to keep one step ahead . I was going great guns on the garden , then a friend called . Well ! best laid plans and all that , I downed tools to gossip and make tea , the garden can wait but friends must always come first .

Up with the Lark and I made a early start on the housework then bluebell called , would I like to go out, of course ! out we went, the housework can wait but friends must always come first . We went to the garden centre ,bought some winter food for the goldfish , they really are lovely , and growing well .

My garden still has lots of colour and still looks good . I,m outing some flowering plants to clean the ground up . I,m thinking of having a salad plot for next year and I do like to have kidney beans . Rocket is so easy to grow and I will be able to make pesto fresh as I need it , also little gem lettuce . I tried growing stuff in containers but it is a lot of work ,they dry out so quickly .

I took my laptop in yesterday to be sorted, nothing wrong with it the man said, it just needed a bigger memory (like me) 10 mins,. and it was back in my arms , working a treat . Thanks P.C world .

It promises to be a nice day again tomorrow so hopefully I will be able to finish what I started in the garden , as far as I know there will not be visitors , unless , my sister calls .

Sunday I rooted around in my fabric for red christmassy stuff . It,s half way there to being a christmas table cloth, washed and the top is done , when I find something suitable for backing, hey ho towards christmas .

Sunday 11 October 2009

Another fine mess I got into

It has been brought to my notice that I,m giving out the wrong address for the Monday weekly pattern that you are able to downlad free .here goes with the right address-------------------------------www.gumtreedesigners.blogspot.com----

Apologies to anyone who had difficulty finding the site, if you have not been there yet, get going .

Saturday 10 October 2009

8 down 8 to go

I have just read bluebells blog , she ask me to tell you about the prunes ! Our corner of the sewing group was doubled up at this tale

The old gentleman who lives next door to me very often pops in to give me his latest news and fills me in on his daily happenings He does his grocery shopping online , usually gets on o,k no problems , doing his weekly shopping this week his computer froze !!! he kept dinging on the thing, nothing happened except !! a notice came up on the screen from Asda, sorry, we cannot let you have more than 16 tins of Prunes , laugh ! I was almost doubled up on the floor

We did have another funny incident when we were shopping , bluebell said, "look at that girls thin legs , I want legs like that" I solemnly replied " I want a six pack " we don,t ask for much really

Judith,s bag

This is my effort of Judith,s bag . you can download the pattern , I,m not sure how long the pattern will stay on the site of http://upagumtree.com there will be a new pattern each Monday

Funny few days , last Wednesday I went deaf in my right ear , I,m putting olive oil in daily and I have an appointment with the clinic to have it sorted hopefully next Wednesday . That friend bluebell has been tutting and so on because I cannot hear clearly what she is saying . No patience with the afflicted.

Bye every one, I,ll be in touch
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Quilting


This is the quilting I,ve been working on . They used to be called cheaterfabric but I have also seen it advertised as convenience fabric , I think that is a much more civilised term . whatever you call it I like it . It will be on the back of a pink striped chair in my sitting room , I might decide to do some cable quilting on the sides , if I do you will be seeing it again .
Tonight I will be embroidering a little panel to go on a christmas gift bag . bluebell rang to tell me of http://amongthegumtrees.com the pattern is on this site to be downloaded .
Have fun, love to all my friends and the ones I,ve yet to meet

Monday 5 October 2009

And there is more

bluebell has told me today of a site, Fantastic ! http://gumtreedesigners.blogspot.com , these sites are real gems

I do not have time to go into detail about anything tonight , but my dear friend bluebell has been ill with the flu but is gradually getting better , the reason I,m short of time ? I,m hoping to finish some quilting tonight .

Bye for now .

Saturday 3 October 2009

S,O,S

All bloggers , Barb of bejewelled quilts lives in the area of American Samoa , she is appealing to us all . Everyone will know this is the place that has been struck by disaster , I personally feel helpless, what do we do to help??????

Friday 2 October 2009

New found site


If your a fan of shabby roses from Jenny at elefantz you will love this site featuring these little robins--http://cinderberry stitches.typepad.com
Please tell me what you think

Thursday 1 October 2009

Sorry

A few mis,spelt words,It,s because I had a bee in my bonnet about the state of my home,town

Best Laid Plans

I fully intended to have a day sewing, sorting thro,. fabric, poke about in the garden . It,s 11.30 a,m and I have done none of thosethings yet .

bluebell is ill with the flu , During the day Monday she was fine , and like a flash of lightening the flu bug got her . Poor Jilly .

Silver sewer visited yesterday with a bag og goodies .3 Sweetcorn , leek,2 small marrows and a pot of her home made marmalade , clear as a bell . I really enjoy these veggies, oh! and a cabbage . I eat marmalade most days .

Yesterday I went to the town , I like to visit the big city, mmm,! It was once a very interesting place , thriving with a wonderful market and boutique shops , a real hustle and bustle . The city planners in their miguided wisdom decided to banish the buses and cars and pedestrianise the place, Oh the High St,. would be pavement cafe culture and wonderful. In reality , no one goes down thse roads any more because the buses and car parks are too far away , the little shops closed due to no business. It really is the most terrible waste of peoples tax money. How do these so called educated idiots get away with ruining what once was one of the richest cities . We were known for our hosiery and manufacturing factories and we made shoes that were known the world over. Of course then every one got greedy sending stuff to other countries to get it made cheaper, Now we have nothing and I mean nothing, city councils ! university educates , ! I say big headed.simple minded know alls that know very little. Well ! thats my soap box oratory for the day, The ordinary man in the street has more brains .