Friday Felting

I had such a lovely morning yesterday at Rachel's 3D Felting class. Look - how cute are they?!

You may remember that I attended a class she ran back in Sept with my daughter and made a lovely little mouse. Miss Plain Stitch has gone on to all manner of advanced felting makes, less so her mother!

With this in mind I signed up to do Rachel's class for PlainStitch yesterday. 3 glorious hours of uninterrupted creativity. It was a full fab fun class with everyone achieving more than they thought they'd be able to. Look at all of this felting loveliness!

For anyone who comes along to the Sewing Bee, I think I've succeeded in persuading Rachel (who likes to hide her considerable talents under a bushel!) to run a little Bee based class to show us how to make Xmas decorations. The felting technique is fantastic for quick and easy Christmassy decorations and gifts so the timing of the Bee on the 3rd should coincide perfectly for anyone starting to think of  getting those decorations up! I have definite plans for a twiggy christmassy decoration adored with mini toadstools! More details to follow here and on the Bee Blog.

Remember remember the 5th of November.....

...it was easy to remember the date of this months Wendover Sewing Bee. It's always such a fab event. Today, outside the rain was falling, it was particularly cold biting rain, but as we each shivered in, out of the rain, into the cosy St Anne's Hall, shrugged off our wet coats, pulled out blocks and quilts, and felting, and biscuits, brewed warming drinks and gathered around I took a rare moment to reflect again on just what a lovely way to spend a morning this was.

Such a riot of colour and texture, the buzz of chat and peals of laughter, teaspoons in hot drinks clinking, oohs and ahhs as work is shown to the group, encouragement and  friendship. The Quilting Bee - throughout time it's always been a special way to share a love of sewing and creating. I love, love love that we get to have our own part of that history here in my little village in the English countryside.

Half Term Heather Ross Honeycomb Hexagon EPP Sewing, Finished!

Yay - a finish at last! I've been using the autumn evenings to finish hand quilting my Heather Ross Honeycomb Hexagons EPP ( English paper piecing) quilt ( try saying that fast after your customary Sunday evening Downton Abbey companion glass of Baileys!)

It's been a joy to quilt. The Heather Ross fabric is buttery soft and I used a Sew Simple 100% bamboo wadding which is my new total favourite wadding. The combination of the two is soo dreamy - I wish you could all have a scrunch of this lovely quilt. This quilt is 1 of 3 samples for an EPP class next May. The other two in contrast are still very crunchy and full of paper! I'm at the awkward, sewing on the border part of the other two quilts which means wrestling with a huge crunchy papery 'thing' each evening - but I can see the end in sight. I'm hoping to have a couple more quilt tops to show you soon.

In the meantime, just to mix things up a bit I am starting on another machine pieced Half Square Triangles quilt. Lots of trimming of edges going on below, very therapeutic. I hope you all had a restful and productive half term too! See all my local sewing friends at the Wendover Bee tomorrow, dx

Long Hot Summer..........

I'm back at the computer screen after a lovely long hot lazy summer hanging out with my kids and family. It's been wonderful. I've done ooodles of sewing and have so much to show you over the next few posts but wanted to pop back in quickly today to remind everyone local that the Sewing Bee is back next Tuesday at 9.30am at St Annes Hall in Wendover. Will be lovely to catch up with everyone and see what else you've been sewing this summer. I'll be showing off my Hexi Honeycomb Quilt which I'm itching to get on and start quilting when my backing fabric comes into stock, it's a shot of summer to keep me going through the winter as I hand quilt it in readiness for an English Paper Piecing class next year. Enjoy the last blast of this summer sun today, you'll be reaching for a warm quilt tomorrow if the weather forecast is right!

Bee-Licious Way to Spend a Day

It was our fabby Bee morning yesterday and it was just so much fun. I know I rattle on a lot about how even more enhanced the fun of sewing is when you multiply it by friends, but it's just soooo true!

 Ok, so I know they taught me quadratic equations at school for a reason so here's my shot at applying it in real life -  just spent an evening trying to justify to my kids why they need to do maths homework rather than mess about outside :(

(Sewing + Friends) x (Cake + Tea) = Contentment ≥  Joy

( get me with my  ≥  greater than or equal to sign, see Mr Jones c.1990,  I WAS listening when gave me a detention for chatting!)

This week I actually did do some sewing rather just running about chatting and harping on about just how LOVELY it all was! I need a new set of Rayburn Mats to go on top of the shiny lids to protect them when I dump hot things unceremoniously down on them (usually as I've tripped over my dog who loves to play 'who can get most in the way at tea time' as she inches closer to the warm stove, love her).

I made these ones way back when, but given that they should probably get a wash at some stage (!) I thought I'd better make a new set. I love the blue and pink combo and i'm working on some new blocks for a modern machine piecing class I'm pondering at the moment for next spring so I figured I'd try out one of my favourite blocks, Rolling Stone. I've finished one and the other is half done so all in all, a productive day.

More Log Cabins!

Gosh, where did the last month go? I have mostly spent it running round and round in circles! Log cabin circles that is! I have been making the samples for my Log Cabin Class that starts in the autumn. I LOVE log cabin, and three quilts in sucession down i'm STILL loving it! Thats pretty good advertisment for the versatility of this great block wouldn't you say!?! Heres my latest offerings;

I'm calling this baby quilt, 'Small Bear in a Big Log Cabin'. Can you see the cute bears in the middle?

And I'm calling this Picture Frames Log Cabin Variation, 'Gaucho Kate' as it's inspired by and destined eventually for a Little Girl who just LOVES playing with ponies, big and small.

Join us on Tuesday 11th at 9am for our second Wendover Sewing Bee

The Wendover Sewing Bee Blog

Check out our lovely new felted mascot for the Wendover Sewing Bee! Rachel is our very talented local felter ( and baker!) and she made her for us, isn't she wonderful?

You can now keep up to date on the doings of The Wendover Sewing Bee at our very own blog for dates and info at The Wendover Sewing Bee - do pop over and leave us a comment, or better still pop in if you can on the 11th June 9-11am and have a cuppa with us!

Wendover Sewing Bee

Sewing Bee : a small informal social gathering based around the activity of making or mending things,

involving a needle and thread.

I'm really excited to let you all know about a new local group that I am hosting called the Wendover Sewing Bee. It's going to be a drop in, once a month gathering of people who love to MAKE! As you'll all know by now, I really do LOVE to sew! But best of all I love to share the love!

The Sewing Bee is an institution that has stood the test of time for a reason, it's all that is best about being creative. The chance to share, learn, chat, be inspired, and helped. Many of my most precious friendships have come about through the special bonds of sharing the inspirations, triumphs, uncertainties and failures.

Sewing is an inherently social activity, we all have busy lives and it's hard to make time. We hope that the Sewing Bee can be a little productive two hour window in your month when you can devote time to something you love to do, guilt free, without having to look at the dishwasher begging to be filled or emptied!

I really hope that, if you are local to Wendover in Buckinghamshire and you fancy it, you'll pop along and hang out with us for a Tuesday morning. If you're new to sewing, coming back to it, or just want to share your project, or hey -  just want to use one of our nice big tables to hem your curtains!

We will be at the St Anne's Hall, on Aylesbury Road in Wendover ( opposite the doctors surgery) on the 7th May from 9 til 11am. Just arrive with your project, we're very friendly, there's lots of tea and Rachel who is legendary amongst my class pupils for her lovely cakes will be on hand with an enticing tuppaware to keep morale high! Keep Calm and Stitch On!