Funny little Unicorn

My 8 year old granddaughter has been asking me to knit her a Unicorn. Apparently Unicorns are the favourite toy at the moment, not sure why, hard sell by Disney, Toy manufacturers? I don't know.

I haven't knitted a toy for years so wasn't very excited by the thought of making a Unicorn. However I found a pattern on the Internet and knitted up the pieces very quickly. Some very weird shaped pieces. I found sewing it up difficult, not sure I was interpreting the instructions properly. Anyway, this is the funny little Unicorn I created.

Giving it to GD tomorrow, hope she likes him  - the jury's out for me!

An afternoon spent sewing

I haven't done any sewing for a long time. Here in the UK, most unusually for us, we have had a prolonged heatwave, drought and high humidity. Most uncomfortable and draining. I normally like sunny weather but the last few weeks have made me very lethargic and I've had no desire to sit cooped up in my sewing room.

The forecasters have been promising rain for the past few days and at 3pm this afternoon it arrived. Nice and steady, no thunderstorms, just what the gardens and reservoirs needed. Now 6pm and it's stopped!

However I took the opportunity to sew, nothing too tasking and have made a needle case for my Patchwork friend Val whose birthday is coming up soon. I'll add packets of pins and needles and some handcream too.

The pattern is one I've made lots of times before but I enjoyed my afternoon immensely.

This summer has been compared with 1976, the last major heatwave we had - one I remember very well as I was pregnant with our second child and we moved house on 20th August that year. I can still vividly remember packing boxes, cleaning cupboards, watching our 2 year old son and dripping with sweat! 

It's a finish!

I have repaired the quilt I gifted to Catherine 17 years ago. Never done a repair to a quilt before so this was a steep learning curve.. ..... I started with replacing the worse block, a log cabin which had two badly sun-rotted logs and replaced it, sewing one seam on the machine, the other threes sides I hemmed into place.  I was lucky to find little strips of the original fabrics in my strip stash.

Two more repaired blocks. Fabric strips under the ricrac darned and hidden by pink ricrac. Herring bone stitch around the centre of the Star square hopefully supporting thinning fabrics and a flower to cover the worst bit.
I gave the quilt a good wash on a gentle machine wash and dried on the line overnight when it was cooler. I didn't want it in the direct sun!

So, fingers crossed it works. And fingers crossed England wins their World Cup match tonight!!!

17 years old Quilt back for repair

 

One of the first large quilts I made back in 2001 was this single bed sized quilt called "In the Pink" for my cousin's daughter's 30th birthday.

I was so pleased to learn recently that the quilt is still on Catherine's bed at her parents' house  and she still enjoys it.

Unfortunately her room gets a lot of strong sunlight so the colours have faded badly, especially in the bottom half of the quilt. The hot sun has actually rotted two of the fabric strips in the log cabin blocks as you can see in the second photo. One of the appliqued elephants is coming adrift and the black stitches which represent his ear have disappeared!

 

So it's back with me  for repair - something I haven't done before so tomorrow I'm taking it to my Patchwork Group meeting to ask for advice.

 

Interestingly, 17 years later I still enjoy making Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Bill blocks ( I have some on the go as handwork at present) and I also applique names on the front of quilts, Baby quilts these days.

 

Happy memories.

Traditional block but new to me

Here are my Sunshine Lotto blocks for July, the theme was Pink and Green.
I took the opportunity to try a new - to me - block, the Shoo fly. Middle two blocks in this photo.
 I thought the pink rabbit fabric would make a fun centre to the block and I'm happy with them.
These will be added to the 4 June blocks.
Off to the Post Office tomorrow.

Sunshine June blocks

I only managed to make 4 blocks in June as we were away half of the month.
The theme was Novelties. Im happy with the way the turquoise with white spots Wonky star shows up and emphasises the Woodland animals fabric.
I've had the teddy bear fabric in my stash for several years and never found the right place to use it. So much character in each teddy bear it has always seemed a shame to cut it up - so I cut large centres for the blocks.