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!