Finished Top and New Blocks.

I've now finished the green and grey Plusses quilt top which my friend dubbed the Chartreuse wonder. Now gone off to be quilted.

And this is what the design wall now looks like:

Although it will have to come down at the weekend when the Easter visitors arrive...

and my new favourite block!
It looks like I'll need another two, and then sashing, and what a surprise, another square format quilt!

International Quilters Day

Our IQD was held this year at Haddiscoe in a very nice village hall with lots of parking. We based our activities around different techniques to do with Hexagons. I started proceedings with a quick introduction to machine pieced Double Hexies, and everyone had a couple of strips of fabric to try out the idea. This is my design board:
 

It showed the different sizes that you get according to the size of your starting strips which are cut using a 60 degree triangle ruler.

 I also had my cushion, finished now, to show how the design comes together when you stitch the half hexagons together into rows then join the rows.



The girls inevitably invented some new variations of sewing the triangles together:

 Tina's border strips.

 Sarah's spiderwebs - she was annoyed that she hadn't made them the same as mine and promptly got some more fabric and re-did them in blue... Lovely aren't they?





Then Helen taught a machine pieced hexagon star and after some struggle with the interesting Jigsaw like arrangement there were some stunning creations produced... this is Brenda's.

After a fantastic lunch produced by Abi and Paul we had a selection of hand sewn hexagons and paper piecing to round off the day.
And a good time was had by all!

Wool Needlecase

Another woolly thing..

some nice herringbone tweed in a gorgeous blue with a scrap of Japanese fabric and some pale, variegated orange silk for stitching.









And five nice shell buttons ...

Completed with pages cut from the felt that was around the stems of my Mothers Day tulips that came in a cardboard box!

I made folded pockets to tuck useful extras into like my tiny sewing scissors.

Lots of hand stitch in front of the telly.

Key Fobs

There is a wool fair coming up at Ickworth house and I promised some small sales table items. These key fobs are made with a piece of Harris tweed that I bought on holiday in Scotland long ago - very scratchy!

easy to find your key in the bottom of your bag though, I've been using one I made a couple of years ago for a long time now.

Double Hexies

Double hexagons: strips sewn together and cut with 60 degree ruler. Each pair of strips makes two hexies with inner and outer fabrics transposed; there are of course other arrangements too. There are five pairs of blocks in here and two odd ones without their partners.

this is cushion sized as I used two inch strips, and i plan to quilt the rest by hand with big stitches in thick silk thread, in the car on the way to my Granddaughter's wedding on Saturday.