Christmas in July

 First of all, the RSC blocks I’ve made recently. Some Wonky stars and three Ticky Tacky houses.

Not much sewing in the last couple of weeks because I’ve finally had my Christmas present!

Back in November last year my husband asked what I would like for my Christmas present and I said a new sewing table as I have been using my son’s old desk for the last 24 years. Not ideal because the desk had drawers on the right and with the kneehole on the left it meant that my sewing machine was on the left of the desk and nowhere for my sewing to rest. Particularly difficult when I was machine quilting or sewing on binding when I had to balance the work on my knee to take the weight! I also decided to have two shelves put up on the wall above the sewing table and a set of shelves too. Our carpenter was too busy in the run up to Christmas and then another long Covid Lockdown and our carpenter became difficult to contact. Eventually the job was done on 21st July! Better late than never, I’m delighted with the result.

I spent a long time last weekend sorting out all the things I had taken out of the room ready for the carpenter to assemble everything. I sorted out all my RSC projects, putting them into labelled plastic  boxes which went onto my new shelving units.

Then I sorted out all my tins containing all sorts of bits and pieces and labelled all of those too. They went up onto the wall shelves. All my other equipment, plus rulers etc are in the drawers, all to hand when I’m sewing. 

In between I’ve been knitting. One of my quilting friends has a young friend who is training to become a midwife. She is at a hospital in London which has a lot of mothers living in deprived conditions, so the Maternity staff try to make up baby packages for the Mums to take home including baby clothes. They welcome hand knitted jackets, hats and little blankets so I’ve started knitting. I made this little cardigan and am now knitting a second one. I have lots of yarn so I’ll continue knitting until I run out.

Yesterday was a big day as I went to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC,Birmingham. Obviously there wasn’t a Show last year due to Covid so it was exciting to go yesterday. Lots of differences: 10, 000 less tickets on offer over the 4 days of the Show, an extra hall(which are like aircraft hangars), wider aisles, everyone had to wear a mask and observe social distancing and so on. Most of the larger traders didn’t attend which was a shame and there were not many people there either. I don’t think there were as many Competition quilts and all the Galleries were home grown people and collections, not the world wide variety we are used to. Glad I went but it was all rather surreal. Nice to have fewer people though as I was able to see the quilts easily, photograph the ones that particularly caught my eye and move around quickly so I covered the whole Show very easily. Other years I’ve gone two or three of the four days but one day was more than enough time to see everything. I didn’t make many purchases but I did buy two metres of this rainbow fabric which will be a useful backing for an RSC project.

I’ll write another post just on the Show as I have lots of photos to sort through.

Joining up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog for RSC 2021.

Rainbow Beach huts finished

 Ever since I spotted Ticky Tacky houses on Cathy’s blog Sane Crazy Crumby Quilting I have made them like crazy, often each month in the RSC colour of the month, or at anytime using up odd scraps I had in the right dimensions. As a result I had a ton of them so looked around for ways to utilise some of them.

I regularly make Premature baby quilts for my local hospital so made a couple when it was purple month which I’ve already shown on a recent post. We have been asked if we could make some at 1m square which I believe they put over the top of the incubators so I used some rows of Ticky Tacky houses to make one.

I machine quilted in the lilac strips between the rows of houses and then hand quilted with Perle thread around alternate houses. 

The rows of houses reminded be of my favourite row of Beach huts at Southwold in Suffolk, so I am calling this quilt Rainbow Beach Huts.

A close up of some huts:

I’ve had a wonderful piece of rainbow fabric in my stash for quite a few years and I finally found exactly the right quilt to use this as backing. Not quite large enough so I added a strip of the lavender solid fabric I had used on the front of the quilt.

As I’ve been making a lot of quilts during the last16months of the pandemic and Lockdowns I needed to replenish some of the colours in my stash so I did a bit of retail therapy online. 

First quite a few pieces and a couple of FQs from the Fabric Guild, a company I’ve used several times. 

Then some spots and checks from a new-to-me company called Pastel Rose, recommended by my quilter friend Sarah.

 

The purple and green with tiny white spots I’ve bought before but can’t remember where I got them, so I was delighted to see them on Pastel Rose’s website. The purple is the same fabric that I used in the Rainbow Beach Huts so it’s great to have another piece in my stash. I’m contemplating getting some larger pieces of both of the spots fabrics and have a look to see if they have it in other colours too. A nice basic for my stash. 

Now off to watch the Wimbledon Men’s Final Game and then this evening the Euros Final between England and Italy. Spent the last two weeks watching tennis and football which is why not much sewing has happened here! Better chance next week?

Joining up with Angela’s Soscrappy blog for RSC 2021