Making stones

Still building my wall.  I have gone back to making the square units, but just to stop myself getting bored, and to make putting the next bit together interesting I am making some with one odd side:

Laying a few out I got something that looks like this:

I need to keep going and make a few more, though, before I can go much further. Back to work.

Linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday. 

Revisiting denim and a confession

This seems to be my month for going back to things that have been pining for attention; this time it's my hand-stitched denim.  It got put away when juggling several projects at once got too much for me, but it's out of the bag now and I'm ready to go again, so this will be my Sunday stitching project for a while.

Just as a quick reminder, this is where I had got too.

I have mentioned before that the denim got under my skin a bit and that I had been eyeing up people's clothing rather too much, so here's the confession:  earlier in the year I was at a cricket match with my sister, standing in parallel queues for food, when she pointed out the rather nifty patches adorning the jeans of the chap in front of her.  Wasting no time I slid my camera across the lines to her and she sneaked a photo of which this is a tiny detail.  Mission accomplished!

Then I got home, looked at my photos and realised that maybe a hobby which leads me to be sneaking photos of the jeans of strangers is a hobby which has gone a step too far.  Harmless but a step too far towards weird?  

They were great jeans though.

Saturday photos #34

Cannon Hall Museum, Cawthorne, near Barnsley.

Want to improv?

Back at the beginning of the year I posted my first ever bee block and commented in passing that I wished there was a bee for improv quilters.  This prompted Ann of Fret Not Yourself to suggest to me that we should consider starting something together.  

 Now of course it's not quite that simple: you can't really say to a load of other people "make me an improv block this way, using these colours and finishing at that size".  After all, if they get all of that right they're not improvising.  But we couldn't quite let go of the idea and so we've come up with something a bit different.

Starting in September we will be running a monthly linky party specifically for all improv quilting projects (our definition of improv is a broad one, but more of that nearer the time).  However we also want to offer a place for discussion, encouragement and inspiration - potential starting points for anyone out there who wants to try improv but doesn't quite know where to begin - so each month we will put up posts on a different aspect of improv; discuss different approaches; review some great books ; look at sources of inspiration. 

I have noticed recently that improv projects seem to be popping up all over the place. Of course some people work like that all the time but I think maybe some of the recent books on the subject (Sujata Shah's Cultural Fusion Quilts for example, and Sherri Lynn Wood's Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters ) have sparked an extra interest, precisely because they offer great starting points.  

We are calling this project AHIQ (Ad Hoc Improv Quilting) so keep an eye out for future posts. Whether you are happy to leap right into a pile of fabric with your rotary cutter or are someone who finds that idea terrifying (or ridiculous) we hope to have something for you.

Back to the wall

So, I have reached the point where all the excitement is over for the summer and we're just coasting along, trying to make the most of the sun, as and when it appears.  No more festivals, no more family gatherings, just back to routine and back to my sewing machine.  I have to say I am ready for this - I've been getting a bit twitchy and am happy to be looking at this wall piece again.  

(Note to self - I must think of another name for it as this is a bit misleading: it's not a piece for the wall, it's a piece inspired by walls).

I decided to take out the little checkerboard pieces I was playing around with when I last posted about this and replaced them with this:

I am happier with this, so have carried on and now have a fair sized chunk.

Linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.

Nearly a dress

Not much quilting has been going on here the last couple of weeks; partly because I like to be in the garden (though it has been a pretty cool, damp place) but also because all my sewing energy has been going into my dress.  To be quite honest I think I got a bit carried away, but it's been fun and now I'm nearly done.  There are lots of tiny shapes still to outline, but the bulk of the work is out of the way and I am very happy with the result.  There are things I will tweak when I make another one, but that's always the way.  

Everything is hand stitched, I felled the seams and have tried out reverse applique. with and without beading, straightforward ordinary applique and a sort of satin stitch. The beading is probably a one off; as much as I love it I just don't live that sort of life!

Saturday photos #32

Out and about last weekend, so here's a taste of what I got up to.  I became strangely obsessed with taking photos in the dark.  Since my little camera is only simple this has resulted in lots of funny blurry pictures but I like them anyway, so have included my favourites (one of them has the moon in it too). What the collage doesn't convey is that most of the time was spend running like made from place to place to escape torrential rain, so I could have done a whole other post with wellies and raincoats and things dripping. I choose on this occasion to remember the drier bits!