Super little presents.

I spent a little while the other day making some little holders to put paper tissues in.

They are really and quick to make and make great little gifts. The instructions came from the Quilting Board, here is the link
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutorials-f10/super-super-easy-tissue-holder-t107636.html

A new cushion and a new experience!

There is a new cushion on the armchair now. It is the latest in my idea of having lots of cushions in all different techniques to add interest to a drab sofa. They are taking a long time to acquire!!

This was a pattern form the France Patchwork magazine which had about 30 of these made into a quilt.

The new experienmce was a trip out to sea from Roscoff on the motor sailing boat owned by our friends Rudolf & Karin. I was a bit scared I must admit but it was a beautiful day and we had a wonderful trip. I was allowed to take the rudder for a lot of the journey and, thanks to the sea sickness tablets I was fine. Here is a piccie of the boat and of Ron with Rudolf at the helm!

It was a shame we didn't do any fishing but there's always another day.

New shoes.

The family has gone home and we have had other friends staying for a week so not too much time for sewing or posting.
While our friends were here we went to a couple of markets and I found these hand sewn leather shoes - not my usual style but I was feeling adventurous at the time!!

I have a friend here who has a black Scottie dog so when I found a piece of material at a sale with Scotties on it I couldn't resist. It was her birthday last week so I used it to make her a bag.

I am so looking forward to September when all our sewing groups start again, I am missing my patchwork friends a lot!

A new neighbour...

As I was looking out of the window over my sewing machine yesterday a new neighbour moved in....

He is beautiful, huge and amusing. I love to watch him rolling around in the grass, then he takes off for a canter around the field and the earth vibrates, he is so heavy. I think his 'family' live along the lane and they show him at the Breton horse shows.

The third FWSQ block is finished, it's going more quickly than I planned but it's nice to have a small piece to work on sometimes.

Sewing will be less this week as Ron's daughter and her family are coming to stay for a few days. It's always nice to see them but it is a bit of a shock to our systems (including the water heater and washing machine) when there are six people in the house instead of the normal two! We just get used to it and then they are gone and we have to readjust again! Emmy has to share her bedroom with the girls, Alice and Grace, luckily they have two cats at home so are used to being jumped upon in the middle of the night.

More finished projects!

I am doing well at the moment finishing off things. I think my stitching will slow down a bit now as I have made a promise to myself to do more of the dreaded and hated boring housework and not get so easily sidetracked by other, much more interesting things. I'm aiming to do chores in the mornings and stitching in the afternoons. On verras! (We will see)

I finished the little wallet made from the machine crazy fabric we made at the Loperec group.

I also made a little piece of bunting.

This is for the president of our Finistere group of France Patchwork. As she has to give up the presidency this year we have all been asked to make one piece of bunting decorated on one side and with our names on the other side to give her to remember her time as president. As there are usually about 150 of us at each patchwork day we should have a lovely long string of bunting to hang up!

Also, the second FWSQ block is finished.

Jeanne and I are off to the exhibition of the patchwork group at Kerlouan tomorrow. We are taking a picnic and meeting friends at the beach to eat together before we all go to the expo! Fingers crossed for the weather.

New bag!

A month or so ago I arrived at our patchwork group in Roscoff to be met by my friend Jeanne who told me she had a present for me! She produced a little roll of fabric which was plasticised... and covered with pictures of little cats. It was really cute, she had gone to our local fabric shop and had found the offcut. As it was plasticised she thought I could use it to put Emmy's food bowl on. Well, I immediately had other plans for it and here is the result.

It is going to be very useful. I added a zipped pocket inside so I can carry my purse without fear of it falling out.

Farmers Wife Sampler Quilt

I have just bought the book for the Farmers Wife Sampler Quilt (FWSQ) and plan for it to be a long term scrap quilt project probably taking many years to complete! I chose to do this one as lots of ladies here do the 'Dear Jane' quilt and I wanted to be a bit different.
Today I have finished the first block. I'm not sure how large a quilt I am going to do - I have plenty of time to make that decision. I'm not sure about the colours but as it is a scrap quilt I have to wait and see!

The sun is back.

It's another beautiful day today so we took the chance to tidy up the veggie plot and plant a few things we bought yesterday. There is a commercial veg plant supplier near us who opens to the public on Saturday mornings and we bought 6 lettuce plants, 8 beetroot plants, 2 parsley plants and a courgette for 2 euros. it is much cheaper for us to do this than buy packets of seeds as there is only two of us and a very small potager! It is looking good now....

Yesterday it rained all day so it was a good excuse to do some sewing. Emmy didn't want to put a paw outside but decided during the afternoon that she was bored and needed to play - or learn to use the sewing machine!!

Perhaps she will finish the folded log cabin mats I am making!

Homework is finished.

I have been working on our homework from Ploudal over the last few days as I wanted to get it finished and not have to rush at the end of the summer!

I just hope I read the instructions correctly and that everyone else has blocks which look roughly the same as these! We were provided with the fabric to put in the corners and the rest of the blocks we make up from our scrap box. I'll let you know what it ends up to be!

Coin Couture

Yesterday we had our last meeting of the group at Ploudalmezeau before our summer holidays. Although I have only been going to the group for a short time I enjoy it very much, all the members are very friendly and patient with my bad French!! We have homework to do during the summer so I will post photos of mine when it is done.

This is one of the things I made in the first half of the year - a small decorated panel to hang on the door of my sewing room.

I have several unfinished projects I plan to work on over the summer, I will post photos when they are finished.
On Monday we have a patchwork day at our club in Roscoff, a report will follow!!

France patchwork - Quilt Mystere

I am a member of France Patchwork (FP) which has lots of benefits for me. Four times a year there is a wonderful magazine which features patterns and textile art from some wonderful designers.
Also, several times a year we have a Journee d'amitie (literally translated to a friendship day) where members here in the department of Finistere get together and make something. We get a kit to make a project , take our picnic and spend the day together happily sewing. Jeanne is my very close friend with whom I spend a lot of time sewing and driving around the countryside to various patchwork events. I will post more about our escapades in due course! We laugh a lot together and practice my French and (occasionally!!!) Jeanne practices her English!
This is my version of the Quilt Mystere from FP for the 2012/13 year.

Cot Quilts

Both the cot quilts I was working on in my last January post have been finished. This one has been delivered to the UK and is hopefully now being used.

The other one is finished but has not been handed over yet as the little one will not arrive until July. Here in France, as in the UK, it is not considered good luck to give baby presents before they arrive.

Kaffe Fasset at The American Museum in Bath

As usual I have been very bad at posting!! I have been very good with stitching though. I will post some pictures soon.
When I was on a visit to UK in April I went with a friend to the American Museum in Bath where there was an exhibition of the work of Kaffe Fasset. It was really colourful and the trees in the grounds had been decorated as well!

More bad weather and......more cats!

The weather is horrible today, more rain, cold and getting windy. I think the forecasters say we are in for another stormy weekend, we will go and sit near the sea (in the car!) as with high tides as well the sea should be magnificent. The weather is a good excuse to sew and today I am concentrating on a cot quilt for a friend here in France and then I need to start on a second for a friend in UK! Everyone is expecting new arrivals at the same time - not good for my quilt planning!

I found a nice pattern for a cat doorstop so I made one for my friend Francoise as she is as mad about cats as I am. I made a second one for myself but donated it to a charity tombola at Christmas. It was won by Christine who is a member of our machine patchwork group and the next time she saw me she was so pleased, she gave me such a big hug. It was such a nice feeling that something which had given me so much pleasure to make was now giving her so much pleasure to have.

Snippets Bag

On Friday Jeanne, Janine and I had a girls day out. We went to St Brieuc, which is a bit of a way to go to two large material shops, it was heaven! I saw a pattern for a beautiful cat quilt in Lynette Anderson's book  'It's quilting Cats and Dogs' and I found some material during our trip which will be perfect!

Whenever I go to my patchwork groups I am always trying not to leave the little bits of thread and fabric I produce around on the floor. At the moment i have a little plastic pot which I take but then I saw this great snippets bag in a magazine so here is the one I have just finished!

The little bag on the table is full of rice to make it heavy enough to hold the bag.

Tonight we are off to a birthday celebration for our friend Karin. Ron is taking his piano to provide some music for us all.

Design Wall!

This is rather a grand title for the 'wall' I have created in my little workroom.

A 3 euro piece of insulating foam and a few bits of double sided tape. It does the job perfectly and doesn't take up any more space. I just have to make sure I open the sliding doors in the right order!!

Quilting Journal

I was looking around on the internet and saw that a lot of quilters keep a journal of their quilts with all the information about the fabric used, where they found the pattern, who they gave it to etc. I thought this was something I would like to do so I made a patchwork cover for a file so that I can make my own Journal.

I have photos of my quilts so now I just have to try to remember the details to put on the pages I have designed!

Christmas Presents

I was very lucky that Ron and my Dad bought me my new computer for Christmas! I was tearing my hair out with the old one. We bought the computer in UK as the french keyboards have the letters in different places which is tricky. Also, the software is in English which makes it easier for Ron to sort out my problems.

Our friends Mike & Barbara came to have lunch with us on Christmas day and brought me a Jelly Roll as a present - I was so happy!

The colours are beautiful and I can't wait to use it.

I bought myself a present too......... a set of embroidery threads for my sewing machine.

Back to Blogging!

I have been so bad at updating my blog. My computer decided to go on a go-slow (not surprising as it was almost 12 years old) and uploading photos was a real problem.  In addition I lost my password details but have now found where I had hidden a copy! I now have a new computer which is so fast I can't keep up with it!

I have been very bust stitching away, I have joined a group doing patchwork by machine in addition to my hand patchwork group. The group meets in the Monts d'Arree so it is a bit of a journey. We go for the whole day twice a month ( I go with two friends from Roscoff and we take it in turns to drive) and take a picnic lunch.

This is the first thing I produced.

We all took a small amount of 4 different fabrics and cut them with a rotary cutter into the shapes. Then, we all swapped pieces so we had 64 different ones. then we made our quilts. This one is now Emmy's and is on her rocking chair!