Friday Night with Friends

A late report from my Friday Night with Friends, sorry. One good thing about my Friday night was that I didn't have to cook tea - for the third time this week, that must be a record! I hadn't been sure what we were doing but we ended up going into town to the Dairy Company store where we buy a lot of our farm goods (RD1). They invited all their suppliers in for a meal (Spit roasts, very yum) and a bit of fun. 

However I joined my fellow bloggers and FNwF-ers while in the car on the way there ...

40 minute trip, you can get a fair bit done.

...and once we got home I pulled out this...

40 minute trip means the wine had worn off so I could stitch :-)
Just Takes Two block.

I've been feeling the urge to do some needleturn in the evenings lately but haven't had the time to pull out my 'little people'/Quiltmania project - sorting colours etc takes me an age. Instead I decided to work on some more of my Just Takes Two.

I started this back in 2012, when the blocks were released fortnightly (I think). I pull it out from time to time then put it away again. This is the first time I have had all the blocks out for a long time

Unpressed but you get the idea!
The two blocks I've been doing lately are in the foreground.

Another angle. A lot of the blocks are foundation paper pieced, which
I enjoy doing but find I get a little tired of them after a bit. I need to EQ7 some
and convert them to normal piecing.

My whole weekend seemed to be one of snatching moments to sew... because it isn't long until the silly season starts (calving that is, not Christmas), I'd really like to have some more decent sewing sessions  before I'm floundering in the mud with cows and calves!

And speaking of Christmas, on Saturday (when I know it was still Friday Night elsewhere in the world!) I did manage some more on my Christmas in July swap, *here* or *here*. Posting day is just a few weeks away so I was pleased to finish this one....

54 people signed up for FNwF this time round - so I have some visiting to do! Thank you to Cheryll for hosting FNwF and also the Christmas in July swap :-)

Thank you for visitng, I hope you have a happy, creative week, 

Gifts large and small

Gosh, two weeks since my last post; time to scroll through the camera and see what has been happening lately...
Mum came for a visit, which was lovely. She was on a mission and strange things started appearing around the house—

All for a good cause though and this is all I can share for now!

A friend had a birthday so I made this little hanging for her —

I got a little handful of these wire hangers
last year while on holiday - they are so cute,
an ideal size for sweet little gifts (about 3" wide).

Wool felt, yo-yos, buttons and Cottage Garden Threads.
A nice combination :-)

And I got it into my mind that I really needed to make a quilt for a recent birthday in the family, and I knew exactly what fabrics I wanted to use as well.... when you work in a quilt shop there are so many tempting fabrics, you walk past them constantly and they imprint into your mind; some flannels had been calling my name since they arrived, and finally I had an excuse to buy and use them. I haven't sewn with flannels before so was excited to give them a try.
I had hoped this would be a quilt in a day project - haha - not quite, but you could almost say it was a quilt in a week project though, those of you who know me well will know that this really is quite an achievement! Snuggly, simple and suitable for a man was what I wanted...

I achieved simple with a large central focus and simple squares around the outside —

I achieved snuggly - none of the pets could stay off it at any stage of the construction —

...when I was trying to plan...

...when I was trying to quilt...

...trying to sew binding on...

...trying desperately to finish while YD was cooking tea last night...
(the wee guy made himself a little hut out of the draped quilt!)

Suitable for a man - and big enough for a man's lap - um yes, achieved this, in fact I think several laps (and all the pets) will fit under this one.

It's raining and a last minute finish so this is the best photo I will get for now!
Flannel front, wool mix batting, flannel back (a good quality 'twill weave
flannelette' sheet - 50% off special)
84" square.

I've had several people asking lately about how I am getting on with my Sweet 16 - the short answer - LOVE IT!! I kept the quilting on this quilt very simple as I wanted it to be a) finished and b) a functional snuggly affair. (No free motion madness). I did want to make sure all the seams were well secured as I found the flannel fabric frayed a little (probably no more than a standard fabric but because the threads are thicker there are less of them in a quarter of an inch seam... if a couple of them fray away, there's only an eighth of a inch left.)

Stitching either side of the seamlines - I did this rather than SID to secure
down the seams and so there was some quilting to see.

I also practised a little ruler work.

With the size of this quilt you can see how much I enjoyed having the large throat space —

hehe, the MOML thinks I watch videos while quilting on this machine!

 The quilt goes off to its new home today, I"m hoping it will become a major part of the furniture :-)

This Friday, being the first Friday of the month, is Friday night with Friends..... If you want to join in, click *here* to take you to the lovely Cheryll's who is our hostess for these events. I'm going to sign up but I think we have to go out for a bit on Friday night - however if I sew Friday afternoon and over the weekend I am sure I will be keeping someone around the world company on their Friday night! I have a few projects from *this* post I want to carry on with.
Thanks so much for visiting and reading, hope you all have a happy creative weekend,

Some small gifts —

— and a short show-n-tell.

In amongst the bigger projects I've been working on lately I've made a few smaller items as gifts.
Now that I've finally gotten these to Mum, I can show you the covered coathangers I made for her...

I always struggle to make something that I KNOW she will use and was happy I came across this idea.

To my local SS friends, (and other learner crocheters out there)
these are just a combination of treble and double crochet.
(Single and double crochet in American terms?)

I've also recently made this little hanger for a friend. As soon as I came across this tutorial I knew I had to try it, especially as the instructions included a 3" version. SOLD!

I have fallen in love with this disappearing pinwheel block. The technique makes it not-so-fiddly to make the small block version, but Helen also has done the maths for larger blocks as well.

It was so much fun that I took a few photos while I was making one of the blocks.....

Start with a pinwheel block.... 

Slice it into thirds....

Rearrange the outer pieces...

Sew it back together...

Voila! One block. How cool is that?!
Click *here* for the tutorial.

 And now for the Show and Tell. You may remember that last year at the shop I designed a free motion quilting block of the month called Birdy Love. I made it 'quilt as you go' style so that the pieces were easier to manage and so the participants could focus on quilting a little each month rather than wrestling a large quilt. To my absolute delight the other day Nancy brought hers' in while I was at work. It was so good to see it finished. She has done such a lovely job of the quilting.

Nancy's finished 'Birdy Love'.

She said she learnt lots and it has given her a lot more confidence so I was very pleased :-)

The sun is rising so it's time to get on with my day. Hope you're managing to squeeze some creativeness into your day, I'm going to try to do so!

Happy stitching,