29 SLEEPS TO GO

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all been enjoying the lead up to Christmas. I’ve done a little Christmas shopping. I made myself a promise a while back, that I was going to start my Christmas shopping early and get as much stuff sorted before the mad rush next month and I must admit that so far, it’s working. It isn’t easy being organised but somehow, I’ve got most of my shopping done. Even some of the food has been purchased!!!

Speaking of food, now that the cold weather has set in I am cooking  a lot more simple meals from scratch. My slow cooker comes out every week. I mainly do pot roasts and such. The leftovers go into soups and casseroles. Don’t ask me for recipes because I seem to just wing it and somehow it always turns out good and tasty. If anyone has any recipes for the slow cooker they wish to share please feel free to contact me. Sunday mornings are pancakes with loads of maple syrup breakfast mornings …..

I’ve been keeping busy working my EPP project. I enjoy the prep work as much as the sewing …..

I’ve spent many hours painting the sewing room. I seem to have spent more hours sorting thru sewing supplies and reorganising storage than the actual painting …..

And whatever I do, I have a supervisor who keeps me right …..

With Christmas looming, I have completed a wall hanging which I plan on using as a door banner …..

We recently had a rather impressive full moon. I stepped out in the morning to get this photo. I’m not a great photographer and my camera isn’t very fancy, so I was tickled pink when I snapped this shot of this impressive full moon …..

Life is finally settle down at happy quilter manor. The cold weather has brought out every winter woolly I own. My Maisie enjoys the fresh mornings and she runs circles around me during our walks. We had several hard frosts this past week. De-icing the car first thing isn’t my favourite pastime but it needs to be done if we’re heading off early. There’s only a few more weeks before the Christmas holidays start. I look forward to a more relaxed schedule. I must admit that to everyone’s dismay, I am hoping for a wee bit of snow for Christmas.

So, for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be either knitting socks or doing some EPP. I hope you all have a super cosy evening working on something seasonal. Until your read me again,

Happy stitching  ♥♥ 

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PEOPLE WATCHING ON A PERFECT SUNNY DAY

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all enjoying some gorgeous summer weather. It’s been lovely in my little corner of the northeast of England. It’s a super time to get things done in and outdoors.

I have been progressing on different projects as well as trying to keep up with chores and other important issues. Everyday life throws up challenges which need to be dealt with.

First, I would like to reply to a comment from Bryan regarding my Quilts on the Grow which up until just this morning, was in my UFO pile. The main progress for the moment, is that I was actually able to find it quickly!!! Hooray 😊 I have quite a lot of these quilt as you go quilt blocks done right up to the hand quilting part.

I’m tempted to switch from my Patchwork of the Crosses project to my Quilts on the Grow project for a few weeks in order to make a little head way on it. All of my hand sewing projects make great evening armchair projects, especially once the prep work is done. So, watch this space Bryan, hopefully you will see my Quilts on the Grow grow and grow.

I have a little longarm quilting progress to show you today. My Burnopfield Belles colleague Lynn was struggling to quilt this quilt using her domestic sewing machine. So I took the quilt top, wadding and backing fabric away and loaded it into my longarm and did this to it …..

This is an example of what working together produces. Lynn pieced the quilt beautifully, I took it away and machine quilted and I will be returning the quilt to Lynn for binding. We both come away from this collaboration feeling like we’ve done something worthwhile. This quilt, once it’s finished, will be handed over to Quilts for Comfort. Being part of the Quilts for Comfort crew that works on these quilts gives me a sense of accomplishment. I know that every single stitch will produce something good. Belonging to the Burnopfield Belles is brilliant as well. We meet once a month to learn something. Everyone has something to offer. We have several ladies who lead sessions in teaching us new techniques and revisiting old ones. Not only do we learn from each other but we support each other as well. It’s amazing how a bunch of ladies with life experience can put the world to rights. I’m thankful for being part of something that brings comfort.

My Sarah and I stepped out today. I rarely go into Newcastle but today I had some specific business that needed taking care of. Once my appointment was over, we headed off to have a sandwich before heading home. We sat quietly people watching while eating. Lunchtime on Northumberland Street is rather busy so there were quite a lot of interesting people to look at. One thing that I looked for is men wearing nice shoes. As I understand it, you can tell quite a lot about a man by the shoes he wears. To my surprise there are a lot less men who wear socks and sandals these days; I’m not a fashion expert but I think socks and sandals do not look good at all. It was the perfect day weather wise for people watching. I’ll be heading back to Newcastle again soon to finish today’s business, and I’m going to make a point of taking the time to do some people watching again.

All in all, it’s been quite an enjoyable day in what is usually my quiet little world. I’m always up for an adventure. My next trip out to Newcastle will be nearer my birthday so perhaps we can have a better lunch than a quick sandwich but I hope to do some more people watching.

So, for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be choosing between the Patchwork of the Crosses and a Quilts on the Grow project. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥

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ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all been enjoying the spring weather. We had a lovely week with plenty of sunshine. It’s been great to spend some time in the garden. I must say that my garden is starting to shape up nicely.

Today is quite a special day for me. It’s the 24^th anniversary of the day that I landed in the UK. From this day forward, I will call it Lucie Landing Day. I posted my little story last year here. The last 24 years have been full of ups and downs. I have experienced quite a lot of loneliness but I’ve also had quite a lot of satisfaction in my role of mother to my one wonderful daughter, Sarah. I have experienced a sense of worth because my lovely friends have treated me with respect and kindness. And thru all the ups and downs my family back in Canada supported me especially during the hard times. I found a quote that struck me last week …

I think I promised that I would post a photo of my funky purple planter when it was planted up and in its’ resting place …..

When I first moved it and the sun was shining brightly, I thought perhaps the colour was over the top. However, now that it’s planted up and the plants are growing, I really like it. It’s cheerful. And I’m really pleased to have been able to breathe new life into something old.

My main hand sewing project over the past month or so has been my Patchwork of the Crosses. I have so far joined 9 blocks together giving me a real sense of what it will look like when it’s finished. I’m so pleased with the look which definitely makes it worth working on. All in all, it’s not difficult work. And I feel the repetitiveness is soothing and brings comfort. Familiar things always bring security.

So, my friends, please tell me what you have been working on. I haven’t been out and about much lately. I crave seeing other projects in progress which may bring me inspiration. I thrive on inspiration.

The last few weeks have been full of something and nothing. I’ve been working hard rebuilding my life. Slowly but surely things are falling into place. The house is feeling great and the garden even better. The university deadlines have been met. What a relief!!! Now it’s time to get out and about and enjoy the upcoming summer.

So, for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be working on the Patchwork of the Crosses project. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing something wonderful. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥

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MOVING FORWARD PREP WORK

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had a super enjoyable day. It’s already the last day of October!!! The end of year is approaching far too quickly.

So, I’m back today with a little more info about how I approached the task of piecing my Moving Forward quilt blocks ….. Once you have tacked your fabric shapes to the Freezer Paper and you have done a really job pressing the shapes let them cool. Once the shapes are cool you can remove the tacking stitching and remove the paper gently. If you have done a really good job pressing you will find that your fabric has good sharp creases in the shape of the Freezer Paper shapes. Now we’re ready to layout the shapes and tack them to the background fabric. Do you remember how I pressed guidelines diagonally from corner to corner? Well now is when those guidelines become very useful …..

I use proper appliqué pins for this job. Appliqué pins are shorter than normal patchwork or dressmaking pins and so when it comes to tacking the patches in place my pins don’t interfere with the thread while you sewing your running stitch around the patches.

Now some of you may be thinking that this seems like a lot of work, however, I think that prepping can make all the difference to the final result of your project. Tip: prepare loads of patches and spend an afternoon sitting quietly pinning and tacking a whole lot of blocks in one go. When I spend an afternoon prepping, I catch up on some of the TV shows that I tape for just such occasions. In life, the journey is every bit as much fun as reaching your destination. So, the prep work for a quilt is just as satisfying as the hand finishing the binding.

Something that I don’t think I have mentioned yet ….. you can re-use your Freezer Paper shapes a couple of times. So, if you’re making a big quilt like the one I produced cut a dozen Freezer Paper shapes and re-use them. Once they don’t stick anymore cut a few more fresh ones and start again. I’ll be back later in the week with some more info about how I made my Moving Forward One Stitch at a Time quilt. It really was made one stitch at a time.

I had a super weekend. I did lots of chores and relaxed in equal amounts. I did a wee bit of knitting instead of sewing. A change of pace is really good for the soul. This week I’m going to concentrate on hexies, two different kinds of hexie projects in fact.

So, for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be working on hexies. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥

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GOOD PROGRESS

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had a super fine day. I can’t believe it’s already midway thru the work week. And it’s almost mid-month as well. Time sure does fly.

So I thought I would bring you a little progress on my UFOs. Let’s starting with my knitting …..

I’ve started to add pattern and contrasting colour to the yoke of my pullover. I would have liked to have had it finished it by now but the quiet moments have been few and far between lately. I need peace and quiet in order to count to be sure that I’m casting off and putting the right colour in the right place. Now that the temperature is cooling off I will appreciate this pullover!

My Lucy Boston hexagons are growing nicely. I am busy at present working on the filler hexagons that I will add around the blocks. I’m dying to join a few block together just to see what it will look like. This is a great project to work on while watching mindless TV in the evening.

I love this time of year. The leaves are falling from the colourful trees. And of course, it’s pumpkin season …..

My Sarah has always carved a pumpkin in October. So why should life be any different this year. Things have been ticking over nicely in happy quilt maker land. Christmas is just around the corner and we’re furiously planning out the best Christmas ever. Sarah and I have been making decisions that will affect the rest of our lives. I look back on my early days and realise how important it is to make the right choices at the right time. I wish I had been more discerning with the choices I made when I was young. Someone once said to me … take your life and make it the best story ever. So that’s exactly what I’m working on now.

So for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be working on hexies. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing something you truly love doing. Until you read me again,

 

Happy stitching.

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ALWAYS LOOKING FOR JOY

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had a super day. Can you feel autumn setting in. While walking my Maisie girl dog this morning I could feel it in the air. The temperature on the thermometer showed 13C which is not cold at all but the autumn breeze was making it feel cool. And the best part was that I found a little pile of leaves that I could crunch thru! Have you noticed that the supermarkets have pumpkins now? I love pumpkin season.

In a recent email, someone said that they missed my chatty posts. Well I am sorry if I have been a little hit and miss when it comes to posting lately. Most of you will know that there are things brewing in the background of my life that need my attention. So I am concentrating my efforts dealing with family problems but rest assured that there is plenty of other interesting stuff brewing in the background. Once again I have been given the opportunity to re-invent myself. I have received proposals from different organisations which has given me ideas on what I might like to do next. I will of course carry on with my volunteer work. And I hope to go a little further helping ladies who suffer from domestic, violent and emotional abuse. Due to my recent circumstances I see life thru different eyes and helping others come thru difficult times is close to my heart. You can all rest assured that I will still be the happiest Lucie the Happy Quilter there ever was simply because that is my nature.

I would love to report that I have been doing loads of sewing. Well I have regularly hand sewn stuff which doesn’t grow very quickly. It’s funny how things change ….. five years ago I did not enjoy hand sewing because it took too long to see any progress. Machine quilting was my favourite but I have been concentrating on hand quilting and piecing of late. It’s a lovely quiet and soothing process that I have discovered brings me comfort in difficult moments. It focuses my mind and gives me the opportunity to come up with solutions to current problems. And while I sit hand sewing, inspirational ideas pop into my head. I try to always have a notebook close to hand to record such ideas, otherwise I will forget them. Who knows I could possibly come up with the next trend!

It seems my post today has become somewhat chatty without even showing you any progress. Well I thought I would do things a little different this time, instead of showing you progress I will show you a couple of projects I would like to progress on. The first is my knitted pullover which I started in the last couple of weeks. It’s time to add some colour pattern in the yoke area …..

As there will be a lot of counting and colour changes I need to be able to concentrate so I have decided that Sunday afternoon will be perfect time for that task.

The next project I would like to move forward on is my Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses. I pressed some fabrics this afternoon in readiness for tracing and cutting more elongated hexagon shapes …..

This is one project that I enjoy working on. Every stage is soothing, right from choosing fabric, cutting shapes and sewing them over the papers right thru to pressing the fully assembled block. English Paper Piecing is the best.

The last project that I wish to work on over the next few weeks comes from this book. I haven’t chosen fabric but I do have one or two of the supplies listed on the requirements list. Quilt Country is a relatively new magazine which is packed full of quirky projects that are my kind of style. The magazine is published quarterly and it’s in French. I can’t wait to show you what I’m going to make. Hee hee hee

So those are the projects that I plan on concentrating on during the month of October. As well as those there’s always plenty of other things running in the background. My garden is very windswept at the moment but I stepped out for an hour to do a little pruning and bagging while the sun was shining. Sweeping was almost impossible but I did manage to pick up as many clippings as I could. What I didn’t collect will be blown into someone else’s garden. Ha ha ha

I have read in a couple different places that we’re supposed to have a hard winter. I have noticed that the tree across the road from me is laden with berries which is supposed to be a sign of a hard winter. I’m sure I heard this same rumour about having a hard winter this time last year and it didn’t happen. So we will just have to wait and see how the winter unfurls.

A couple of weeks ago I was feeling sorry for myself because I suddenly realised that I was a single parent now. Well it turns out that being a single parent is a lot more interesting than I expected. A gentleman came to my door this morning to deliver these beautiful blooms …..

I suddenly realised that in the last six months I have received more lovely blooms than I did in the 2+ decades that I have lived in the UK!!! I must have been a good person in my younger years to be receiving lovely flowers like these. I am grateful for all that I have and I choose to concentrate of finding joy in all good things.

It’s been a pretty good in my little world. I spent a little time in my sewing pressing fabric ready for cutting up. I worked out what we should have for our evening meal. Yum yum. I tidied up my garden which looks a hundred times better now. And basically my day went without a hitch which is rather unusual.

So for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be cutting elongated hexagon shapes from carefully selected fabric. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing what you love best. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥

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GIVEAWAY REMINDER

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had a great day. I’ve had a full day of running errands followed by coffee with my lovely friend. It’s amazing how my ladies are coming forward in support of my current family situation. It warms my heart to know how many people care. Someday I hope to pay it forward by helping others thru difficult times.

I have received many questions about my Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses project. So far I have only pieced two blocks which I posted a photo of yesterday …..

You may have noticed that both blocks are the same layout except that I have changed the placement of the light, medium and dark patches in different places giving each block a unique look. I have seen this Patchwork of the Crosses design made up once or twice before over the years and didn’t realise what it was all about until I saw someone working on it recently and she had a small stack of finished blocks. And that’s when I realised that it was hexagons, albeit elongated hexagons which of course are my favourite. It’s a long term project that will definitely get me thru the winter and beyond.

I just want to remind you that I am running a giveaway. If you want to enter please click here to be taken to the post for details on how to enter.

So for this evening, this very happy and super ambitious quilt maker will be working on POTC and thoroughly enjoying it. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥

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SILENT SUNDAY

QUILTS ON THE GROW WEEKEND PROGRESS

 

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LITTLE OCCUPANTS IN THE GARDEN

Hello my lovelies. I hope you all enjoyed some warm sunshine. It’s been a brilliant day in my little corner of the northeast of England. I was desperate to get out in the sunshine this morning. So I stepped out into the garden to have a little look around. And this is what I found. The potted violas look splendid …..

And this is my first peony of the year. Pink peonies are my favourite flowers. While they’re in season I try to buy them as often as I can from M&S. They look fantastic in the house.

While I was taking a few photos in the garden I heard something that I didn’t recognise at first. I kept listening until I worked out that this little nesting box has occupants in it again this year …..

For the past three years I have had families occupying this nesting box. We waited such a long time for this nesting box to be used by little birds. It sits just outside my sewing room window. So I will be sure to pay better attention when I’m in there to be sure to see the parent birds bringing food back to the nest. At the moment they seem to be invisible but they are around.

It wouldn’t be a proper post if I didn’t show you some sewing or new project related progress. Well last evening I decided to work on my Quilt on the Grow blocks …..

This is number 16 of 52. I spent the evening sewing the fabric around the paper templates and joined one triangle of shapes together. I hope to get the next 5 triangles pieced and rest of the block joined together this evening. I need to concentrate on this project for a while now.

It’s been a pretty good day in my little world. I enjoyed a stroll around my little garden which needs a little attention at the moment. The sunshine was so cheery that my garden shall grow more beautiful every week.

So for this evening, this very happy longarm quilter will be working on Quilts on the Grow blocks. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing something you thoroughly enjoy. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching ♥ ♥

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A LITTLE MORE HAND QUILTING NEWS

Hello my lovelies. It’s finally the end of the work week and the days are getting shorter. That means that I get more armchair project time. Last evening, I sat quietly doing some hand quilting on a Dresden block. Here’s the block sans quilting …..

Now here’s the block after I added a bit of basic quilting in the ditch and echo quilting …..

I find that the quilting adds texture and brings the block to life. I use a quilting hoop while I quilt …..

Which helps me keep my stitches uniform in size. Don’t get me wrong my quilting isn’t perfect but without the hoop it would be much less uniform. Here’s a view of my stitches from the back of the block …..

This afternoon I disappeared in my sewing room to finish longarm quilting Claudia’s quilt. I love this quilt. The 1930s prints look really nice with the contour curvy stitching around the stars. After seeing how nice the simple curvy contour quilting looks I feel like make a star quilt for myself. I believe Claudia used a Jelly Roll to piece this quilt. The Jelly Roll would certainly make the job easier. Now I just need to choose which Jelly Roll I want to use. Oh and if we could increase each day from 24 to 26 hours I could probably fit it in. I guess I’ll have to add this project to my Gentle Goals 2016 list.

CLICK ON THE PHOTO OF CLAUDIA’S QUILT TO SEE MY QUILTING SYSTEM IN ACTION

Well it’s been a lovely day in my little world. I’m so pleased to have finish Claudia’s quilt. I will be loading another of Claudia’s quilts on Sunday to start stitching early next week. We had a wee bit of sunshine which makes any day a good day. Tomorrow I will be keeping company with a few ladies who want to learn how to make Inchies and Postcards. Permission to play …. We’re going to have fun.

So for this evening, this very happy longarm quilter will be doing some hand quilting. I hope you have a super cosy evening doing something you really enjoy. Until you read me again,

Happy stitching. ♥ ♥

 

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