SEW CREATIVE ON SUNDAY

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all enjoying a super weekend. It’s a bank holiday here in the UK. Yahoo, three days of peace and quiet. So, I got up early and did my household chores and disappeared into my sewing room and had a little play. Here’s what I have been prepping …..

I’m hoping to be able to give myself permission to play in my sewing room again tomorrow. I really would like to start machining these patches in place. Note that I keep my designs simple nowadays. Doing this kind of appliqué work gives me a chance to use my scraps. If you look closely you see that even the background is pieced using leftovers from other projects. Piecing the background is a boring chore but it’s definitely worth the effort. Not to mention that when I next purchase fabric to be used for backgrounds I won’t feel guilty.

Well that’s my report for this fabulous bank holiday Sunday. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching, I kid you not, stitching makes life better.

Lucie x

ROLL ON SPRING

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’re all enjoying the last bit of winter. It almost feels like spring here. The temperature is spring-like here today. We even saw a little sun for a few minutes. Roll on spring.

Well the past week has been full of this and that. I did some painting in my hallway. Thank goodness I had Sarah’s help because this almost sixty-year-old happy stitcher doesn’t have the stamina to decorate rooms anymore. As well as that little bit of decorating I did a wee bit of sewing. I’ve been helping one or two ladies finish projects. Here’s one of those projects.

I was given the fabrics and a photo of the finished project but no instructions. So I started cutting and sewing …..

And joining rows together …..

And ended up with this little quilt top …..

Which I turned into this …..

It’s not identical to the picture but a pretty good adaptation. I think my friend will be pretty happy with the finished result. And now that I managed to make this one, I think I’ll make a similar cushion cover for myself.

I made a drop of soup yesterday. I was chatting with a friend of mine, Ann, on Saturday and I was mentioning that I was on a slimming programme again and I was fed up with salad especially in the colder weather. Well Ann suggested I make some soup. She had a pretty simple recipe for a lean soup which she inspired me to make. So, I set to and made a lovely drop of soup yesterday. I can’t impress upon you how lovely it was to have a warm lunch both yesterday and today. The soup was even tastier today than it was yesterday. I will be sure to make more soup and more regularly now that I have to confidence to try again. Sometimes I just need a little nudge.

In my quest to do more of what I love, I set today aside to do just that. I loaded a quilt and stitched a freemotion quilting design. This is the back of the quilt as the design didn’t show up very well on the front for photography purposes. I love this design. I will use it again on the next quilt that comes up. It was great fun to stitch especially after the first few minutes when I felt more relaxed about stitching it. I spent so many years using a digital quilting system and now I’m going back to basics and stitching basic freemotion designs.

Doing more of what we love is so important. We get to an age where we no longer have anything to prove to anyone. We women spend our whole lives trying to prove that we’re worthy. I’m not sure why but we do. It’s time to stop that. So, you can be sure that I will be posting more photos of my freemotion work in the near future. If I can do this anyone can.

It’s been a pretty good day in my little corner of the northeast of England. We got a preview of spring which was lovely. The crocuses are starting to flower. And the daffodil leaves are poking thru the ground. I’m quite sure we have more cold and winter-like weather to endure but knowing that spring is around the corner is making the rest of winter a little easier to handle.

So, I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy doing. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching.

Lucie x

PROGRESS ON A SUNNY WEDNESDAY

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had a super day. It’s been sunny in my little world today. I just wish the sun would bring some warmth with it.

I’m sorry I missed you yesterday. I was at my Quilts for Comfort volunteer afternoon. By the time I got home I had no more energy. My brain was too tired to post. However, today I have a little bit of progress to show you. I spent quite a lot of time adding some raw edge machine appliqué to last weeks new design. I stitched a few circles on …..

And a few hearts …..

And then I joined the three sections of this quilt together and this is what it looks like now.

I’m might add one more bit of appliqué in the bottom corner. I just don’t want to spoil it by adding too much. You know I quite often say that less is more. This is another quilt that was requested which I feel needs to be a quick make which will cheer someone up. So, I kept the design simple and added some machine appliqué to soften the straight lines. I’m not quite sure when but I will be longarm quilting this quilt top sometime soon.

My other little bit of progress is really only prep work, so not something very exciting but it needs doing if I want to make serious progress on my little hexagon project.  I cut hundreds of fabric hexagons …..

I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. When you find a technique that you enjoy, even the prep work is fun. I’ve found a great method of cutting my fabric hexagons. And I stick to that method. I feel the repetition is soothing. I keep al my fabric shapes in a box that contain dividers which helps everything from getting all jumbled up.

So, it was back to normal today. Whatever normal is. My Sarah headed off to Manchester to attend a music gig this evening. So, Maisie and I have the house to ourselves this evening. It’ll be feet up with some hand stitching for me and a lot of snoring for Maisie. I hope you all have a super cosy evening doing something you truly enjoy. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching.

Lucie x

ON A WINTER’S DAY

Hello my lovelies. I hope you’ve all had an enjoyable day. We’ve had snow, snow and more snow today. And there’s more to come. I just hid in my sewing room longarm quilting to my little heart’s content.

I finally finished quilting my Dresden quilt today. I clicked the on switch at 9am and carried on until the job was finished. The quilt still needs to be bond and labelled but I just needed to show you a little progress of all the effort I put into this simple quilt. Here’s a sneaky peek …..

I’m going to sew in all the thread ends this evening and I hope to bind and label it tomorrow. I am so please with this quilt. I think this one is going to be hung in my living room where I can see it every day. I will be sure to show it off before it goes up on the wall. It feels so good to have almost completed this quilt. This is one project that started on paper as a drawing and I was able to bring it to fruition. I will post more photos when the binding has been added.

I did a little bit of fine hand appliqué work last evening. I’m really enjoying this hand appliqué work. Here’s a little peek …..

Does anyone else do fine appliqué work out there? Do you love it as much as I do? My favourite appliqué method is using freezer paper. However, I recently finished a raw edge machine appliqué project and it looks great but I didn’t find it as satisfying as hand appliqué.

I mentioned yesterday that the weather forecast for this week was going to be a bit full of snow and cold. Well the wind has set in and is definitely driving the snow. We’re experiencing plenty of falling snow and the wind is very cold indeed. You would think that I would be used to kind of weather because I was born and bred in Montreal where the winters are really hard. I have definitely softened up over the two+ decades I have spent in the UK. The weather, although very damp, is much milder here in the UK winters than ever they were in Montreal. I was quite pleased to hide in my sewing room today. Sarah had no such lucky as she had to travel to uni for a studio session.

I guess that’s my report for today. I hope you all have a super cosy evening. Snuggle down and enjoy a relaxing evening. Until next time,

Let’s all keep on stitching

Lucie x