Tuesday 15 March 2011

Some progress photos

I said the other day that I'd post pics of my progress on my 2 main pieces. Well - here they are -
This was my stocking up to last weekend. I've reached the bit where it spreads out for the "foot" shape, so I'm keen to see if my calculations of the size of the aida piece were correct! I hope so, otherwise I shall just have to sew an extra piece to the side so that I don't have to start over again!


And this is Egypt as I picked it up last night. Still in it's frame, but I was in a hurry to take the photo! Hopefully you can spot the progress since the last post in February for it.

I've spent the afternoon waiting for a Virgin Media engineer to call and connect our TV and it's a good excuse to just sit with a cuppa and sew!

Til next time
Sandie

Sunday 13 March 2011

A Good weekend

Hi all
we had a nice weekend - apart from the weather that is!
Yesterday my daughter, her husband and grand daughter came down to see us. The five-year old daughter of a friend of hers had invited Jessica to her birthday party, which was in Clacton-on-Sea, so as I was going too (I'm friends with the 5 year old's grandma), we all went together. We had a good time with all the kids, and then they came back to ours for dinner before heading home. We got some pics of Jessica on my rag quilt too!
Jessica on my first quilt
The mum of the 5 year old is the one who's expecting in July so I thought I'd better make a start on her birth sampler - just in case! So I spent a couple of evenings making a start and it's going quite well. I just hope that the colours don't look TOO blue when it's done? They are the sort of violet blue shades, but I hope it doesn't look too boyish when it's done.


 


Erika didn't see my flower fairy quilt that I'm making - I'm trying to keep it as a complete surprise for her until it's finished, but I'm so pleased with how it's turning out! I've managed to complete 2 rows of the fairy panels now, so here it is. She hasn't got internet access at the moment so there's no chance of her seeing this in advance! But don't tell her if you see her will you?
The edges look a little off-square, but I think that's just my photography! I've been doing a bit on the stocking too, but as my camera battery just died on me (all those photos of Jessica yesterday!) I'll have to post that later on. I'm going to rotate back to my Egypt piece this week as I feel the need to get it moving again after all the frogging I did last time I picked it up!

Saturday 5 March 2011

Missing in action!

I looked at this blog a day ago, and was amazed to see that it's been nearly a month since I last posted!
No excuses really - as I explained to someone in an email this week - life just seems to have run away from me recently!
And my creatve juices have been flowing in strange directions lately too!
I had the urge to make a rag quilt for my grand daughter, the first quilt I've ever made! At first it was daunting - cutting up fabric into lots of squares, only to have to put them back together again, but I finally finished it yesterday and it's currently in the wash, being "fluffed" up a bit. Luckily my daughter and her family are coming to see us next weekend for a friend's daughter's 5th birthday party, so I'll be able to give it to her then without having to post it to them.
Squares everywhere!, some sewn into strips, others not yet tackled.

Finished but not fluffy enough yet.

The colours don't show too well, but there's a white, pink and pale tan square mixture.
I planned the squares using Excel - amazing how we use what's available - it saved me drawing lots of squares onto graph paper - and lots of rubbing out too. I was aiming for a sort of neapolitan ice cream colour mix, but any darker brown/tan seemed to really draw the eye rather than blend in. Hope they like it?

My cross stitching hit a minor brick wall - the last time I worked on my Egyptian piece I ended up frogging about 150 stitches as I'd gone wrong in my counting, and with the King Tut mask you can't just ignore it unfortunately. So I put that down and picked up the stocking, and did a few more stitches in that lately. I'll post photos of both pieces next time.

I've also got a new Smartphone - a Galaxy S, and it's taking a while to get used to it. One day I'll be brave enough to try to post from it, but not just yet! And then our home phone decided to collapse too, so I've just spent another morning playing with those - setting up phones, transferring phone numbers etc seems to have been all I've done for the last day or so.
Take care and keep stitching everyone. XX