A Day Out With Quilty Friends

A Trip to Kaleidoscope quilt shop in Milngavie was organised for our quilt group for yesterday.  what a lovely day we all had.  Unfortunately some of our members were not able to come along this time but don't worry we will be going again!  Three cars of excited ladies arrived at Milngavie, one of which had gone on a detour, yep they followed sat nav!  First stop coffee and scones to fuel us for the first foray to the shop.  The purpose of this visit, aside from looking at all the lovely fabrics, was to buy some books to add to our little library in the group and spend some of our Group funds.  Susan of Kaleidoscope had looked out our book list which had been sent off to her last week and two little bundles were waiting for us. It was quite difficult to choose books which everyone would benefit from and yes maybe we have made good choices and maybe not.  It was so difficult to buy something for everyone's taste and ability.  It was certainly good fun.  We also chose two neutral background fabrics which we will use over the next year to make our Group Charity Quilts adding to these with some fabrics from our individual stashes.  Hopefully the ladies will allow me to show everyone here our first quilt of the year when it's finished.  We then headed to the Tickled Trout across the car park for lunch where we had a good chat and stoked the engines again for one last look in the quilt shop.  Having left stacks of bolts for cutting while we were eating, Susan had turned them into neat little bundles for us to collect and pay for on our return.  A final coffee was required before setting off home.

I have thankfully had a quieter week this week and managed to catch up on some chores and got some things done for myself.  Sewing wise I finished the baby quilt and it was delivered.  

I finished the zigzag bus quilt 

and pieced some of the Racing Minis into a rather fresh bright quilt for a teenager.  All good!

 

 

 

I think I will be layering up again this week although I would like to start something new but I really have too many WIPs lying around at the moment.  Maybe I'll not plan too much and just go with the flow.......

Until next week happy stitching. 

 

Oh Oh!

A very lazy Sunday morning at home here this week - we all overslept so now playing catch up.  The plans I had in my head for today seem to have gone haywire so I'm just going to have to go with the flow to catch up.  We have all had a busy week and I suppose that's the reason for the lie in.  My Dad is having a bit of renovation work done in his bathroom to make things a bit easier for him so I have been there more than normal this week, however all is looking good and hopefully we will all be back to normal by the middle of the week.

Technology is not my strong point and there have been a few gremlins in the house the last few days.  Problems with Sky and phone lines seemingly not connected - we haven't touched anything and has been what it is for years.  I decided to backup my PC, which normally I do every couple of months to discover I haven't done it for almost a year - aargh.  All done now but I may need to buy a new external hard drive soon.  I know things move on and you can back up to the cloud etc but I'm old fashioned.  I had a lesson last night on music streaming from Techie too - music which we used to listen to as youngsters in our late teens early twenties, even lesser known bands which we used to play on cassette tape? and records! You remember them? All can now be found on Apple Music, we had a good night of memories last night.  I'm going to have fun exploring more today.

Quilting you ask?  that's what this blog is supposed to be about is it not.  I have been working on one of the 'bus quilts'.  Number 2 sandwiched, quilted and bound ready for handstitching.  I'm going to enjoy doing that while listening to music and having a cuppa in between things on my to do list in my head.

Zig Zag Quilting on the Zig Zag Bus Quilt

One of hubby's golfing buddies has a new little granddaughter who arrived on Wednesday so I've been working on a nice fresh pink quilt for her.



The old Favourite diagonal quilting on this one



I really must go and get on - time is slipping away this morning, the cup is empty and that to do list is calling again! 

Have a good week.

Two Finishes and an Updated Blog

I have two finishes to show you this week

Circle of Squares

Once again these fabrics were all used from my stash, all bought at different times for different projects and either didn't get used or are left over pieces.  This one has a lovely fleece backing and is quilted using the serpentine stitch on my machine.

The other finish which I am really pleased with is Lace Mountain, I've shown you this before but not sandwiched or quilted.

Lace Mountain

These fabrics were bought from Kim Higgins of Biggar Stitches when she came to talk to our quilting Group.  (Incidentally she opens her doors to the public today in Clydesdale Close, just off the Main Street in Biggar, Good Luck with the new venture Kim!). As you know.........yes yes I've told you before. I'm not a fat quarter gal but there is a time and a place. The Lace Mountain 5 fat quarters plus a solid teal and an Echinacea one all blend together quite nicely in the T Intersection pattern which I found on the Missouri Star Quilt Co website.  And here is the back - two quilts in one!

......and the Back

I used a teal Kona Solid and pieced the leftovers from the fat quarters to make this strippy panel for the back all bound with Kona solid purple.  The quilting was a blast too and a first for me.  The ever increasing spiral all done on my Janome 8900 machine.  I know you shouldn't point out bits you don't like about your quilts so I won't but....... due to time constraints I used Gutermann polyester thread for quilting which I don't and my machine doesn't enjoy so I didn't really like the results. I felt the thread was sitting on top of the fabric and not nicely nestled in the cotton - however 4.5 reels later it's done and as always you learn as you go and I won't do it again.

Oh and I almost forgot - I have updated my pages at the top of my Home page, sorry I have nothing in my Etsy page at the moment  and I can't seem to remove it from the Header I'll need to ask Techie for help,  but I have updated my Just Giving Page, My Gallery and my blurb about my Quilts.  Hope you enjoy the read.

I hope you all have a good week whatever you are planning.

Short Shop Hop

We managed to have a couple of lovely days away this week and travelled down in to the Borders to have a well earned break.  Travelling down through Peebles and stopping for some overdue retail therapy (shoes and trousers for hubby) I spotted this handsome beast.  Not exactly patchwork but very striking and he made me smile!

Oh Deer!

I had a quick look in Thistle Quilting but this shop seems to be moving on from just fabrics and has taken in some wools and other crafty items, this is a very small shop and in my opinion has not quite got the balance right.  We had a lovely picnic lunch at our favourite spot up on the hill overlooking the Manor Valley a lovely peaceful start to our mini holiday.

Onwards, travelling through the border towns our next stop was Jedburgh and a visit to Borderlands,  a well stocked fabric shop and workshop with friendly ladies eager to help.  The fabrics here are more traditional with not so many modern colours or patterns.  I did make a purchase here, a couple of metres just to get me going, I didn't want to spend too much as the main shopping spree was going to be Stichin Heaven in Longframlington (more about that in the next post).  I bought a piece of Makower British Cars fabric though and a couple of blenders - I will be making a few older boys quilts for charity this summer so I thought this might appeal.  These Racing Minis should go down well I hope.  

A short stop at Harestanes craft centre was next on the list of stops - unfortunately the leather workers handbag shop was closed for the day but we enjoyed a look around the Gallery where all sorts of wooden items were on display from stunningly beautiful dining tables to small pentagonal and hexagonal boxes very appropriate for a quilter, all made by very talented craftsmen and women.  No purchases here other than the obligatory icecream, the sun was shining it was very hot and all was well in our little world.

We arrived at our hotel just in time for afternoon tea - not the traditional one though, we didn't want to spoil our dinner!  A pot of coffee and handmade biscuits sitting in the gardens in the sun, was all good for half an hour until the rain came on.  An excellent meal finished off a very pleasant day.

Hopefully you will have noticed I have updated my Gallery page this week.  I hadn't realised how many quilts I had made since the beginning of the year.  I am particularly pleased with the Anniversary Bunting Quilt.  I must admit I was a little unsure of this one when I was asked to do something with the wedding bunting, but I hope you will agree it turned out just fine - and a bonus, A & J are really pleased with the result. Whew! It is never easy making things as a commission, fortunately I was given a blank canvas to do as I wanted.  I hope this will be a well used quilt which will be a happy reminder of a memorable day.

The Anniversary Bunting Quilt

The ladies of our Group have been challenged with technology this week, thank you K for setting it all up.  We now have a Closed Group on Facebook where we can......ask each other questions in between meetings, share our quilty thoughts, show off our projects in progress, make everyone jealous when we go off on holiday, let everyone see our new additions to our stash ......and so the list goes on.  I think most of us who can have now joined, although not many have commented or posted yet and there are a few who are still lurking in the background waiting to see how it all works.  Come on ladies lets embrace technology and give it a go!  Looking forward to seeing you all there.

 

I hope everyone reading this has a very good week doing something you enjoy whether you are at home or on holiday, I hope you manage a little quilting, knitting or stitchery.