Another beautiful day.....

The sun has been beating down today so after a lovely swim .... did I really say that ? ...... I bashed together a banana cake and whilst it was in the oven I played outside with the bairns and the cats. It was so lovely to see them all charging round the garden pulling and chasing ropes. I think there is no nicer sound than children's laughter in the open air.

Gingie in the gardan.

Emi lapping up the sunshine.

Sewing news.

I forgot to post a picture of this ... My TARDIS phone cover. This was great fun to make.

TARDIS phone cover

 Oh and then there was this which I didn't enjoy so much and was subjected to much cussing. What is it ? Why it's an alien costume of course !!!

So now that's outta the way I can get on with some pretty sewing.

I'm off to Greenfield Quilters now.

I hope you have a lovely day ........ and Mam if you're reading this ....I wasn't really cussing !!!

Home at last ....

My tentative trip in to the concrete jungle.

        Last week I went away on a business trip to Birmingham for a trade show at the NEC. On the Saturday I had a tentative trip into the city centre to do a wee bit of shopping.  I will be honest I was well outside my comfort zone. At one stage I was growled at by a young lady with vivid pink hair, bumped, pushed, splattered with milk shake and generally disorientated.
        On the positive side I visited a really interesting shop -

 http://wearecow.blogspot.co.uk/

                                           I had a MacDonald's and I visited a street market whose shouts and smells transported me back to my childhood shopping with my Nana down Doggy Market in Middlesbrough in the late 1960's early 1970's.

Doggy Market in the 1950's

                                         

So I confess I spent the rest of the trip either in my room, the bar or over in the NEC. That sounds terrible me in the bar, but it's where I had my meals and the steak was outta this world.  I usually go to the Show with my Mam and I really missed her this year. But it's a very full on 3 days and and this year she was having a rest.

View from my bedroom window at the Hilton.



A good time with the Shetland Needle Workers.

 As always things were a bit mad once I got back to my beloved Shetland after the show and just at the moment I am struggling with my memory again which isn't helping, so it was really nice to go to a class on Saturday. I'm not sure what the class was called but it was all about doing an ideas book for inspiration and experimentation.I really enjoyed the banter and the laughter. The other ladies produced some wonderful work but having missed the initial talk I felt abit outta me depth but the crack was good.



Frances seemed in her element.

This is the start of her under-water theme

 

My boys are growing up.

 

The boys made their first tentative steps out side, but they were to scared to go any further.

 

Ginger heading out through the study window for his first trip.

Sunday lunch.

 

Yesterday, as we only had two bairns at home, we decided to give Sunday dinner a miss and instead packed a flask, headed out into town, bought fish and chips and drove up to the Knab in Lerwick where we had a picnic in the car before going for a walk and watching the sunset. It was lovely to watch the fulmas on the cliffs and hear their chitter chatter.

Two very happy little girls.

Sunset over Lerwick.

I haven't got much sewing or blogging done this week so I'm hoping to get back on track over the next week. Thank you for calling by. I hope you have had a good productive week.

I am so proud.

This is the quilt of one of my students. We did a course on making Baltimore style quilts.

I love the bright colours that have been used and the rainbow binding, which is made up from the off cuts. Block 5 and 12 are from other classes we did. The two blocks that have been left out were a needle turned star and an intricate needle turned wreath, but I think the Dresden plate works really well here.  Also some of the blocks have been altered to add the quilters own personal twist.

I haven't managed to get much sewing or blogging done this week as I have been faced with this heap on my desk and I have had a migraine since Monday. However my eldest daughter visited me on Friday and showed me the lovely sewing she has started at college. I am so proud of her.

Another delivery of horse poop.

 Ha ha ha I had to admire the bairns solution to moving the manure bags. Why on earth didn't I think of that the other week ?

Once the paperwork was finished.......

I decided it was time to do some instant gratification sewing.

I found out some fabrics, at first I hadn't decided what I wanted to make.

So after a wee bit of playing around I decided to make a phone cover.

Mainly because my girls keep telling me off for putting my phone in my pocket with my keys.

I layered up wadding, outer fabric(facing up) and lining fabric (facing down) and cut it all 6" by 7"

I then sewed a 1/4" seam along one of the short edges.

I opened the sewing out so the wadding is on top of the outer fabric and trimmed the wadding to reduce the bulk.

Next, I folded the fabric in half length ways and sewed starting at the fold on the end with the wadding round the edge and the long side stopped leaving the bottom open.

I snipped the corner to make it easier to turn and again trimmed the wadding back.

I turned the sewing right side out and folded a 1/4" seam under at the open end. This can then be sewn either by hand or very close to the edge on the machine to close the gap.

The lining is then pushed into the pocket. And voila a phone cover.

This was so easy to make. I made 3 in under an hour, from deciding to sew something to finish.

I decided to give away one of the phone cases as a random act of kindness.

I'd seen a thing on Facebook and decided I was gonna do at least one random act of kindness per month.

I hope you have had a good week.

Tell me about RAOK that you have done, or have happened to you.

Straight line quilting ........ I think !!

One of the bloggers I follow - 

Canadian Abroad

has been doing some amazing straight line quilting.

I was so inspired by the wonderful  work she has been doing that I decided to have a go my self.

There's a bit of a runkle, but hopefully I'll get better.

I have managed to do a quarter of the quilt in one day.

So much quicker than hand quilting.

This is a quilt top my Mam has made, I'm just finishing it off for Project Linus.

I haven't learned how to do links yet. 

I'm on a steep learning curve putting this blog together.

Some kind bloggers have sent me links to "How to " sites.

I'm hoping to do some homework this weekend.

I can't believe I have finished something..........

especially when you stop to consider all the help I got from Mittens .... with the machine sewing ..

and Ginger with the hand sewing !!

So here it is finally finished.

Straight Line Quilting.

One of the bloggers I follow was making a wonderful quilt, which she did some amazing straight line quilting on. I have tried to do this in the past with disappointing results. I hadn't realized all the stitching has to go in the same direction. It seems pretty obvious now, but most of my quilting is by hand so I had just dismissed my disasters and plodded on with my thimble firmly stuck to my finger. Just before Christmas I became the coordinator in Shetland for Project Linus, and with the best will in the world, there was no way I could hand quilt all the quilts I need to finish off. So I have made a tentative start. 

 Although Mittens had other ideas...

... and quilting soon ground to a halt.

My lovely family have done this for me.

They have set up the sewing machine in the kitchen on a my wash stand. This means I have more chance of keeping the cats at bay and I can easily get to my machine in a cosy room whilst the house is in up roar with redecorating.