Stocking up

I have been busying away in a few spare moments over the past four or five days at stocking up some makes for our forthcoming Fundraiser/Exhibition early next month.

In spite of really not wanting to admit to myself that Christmas isn't so very far off, I forced myself to start thinking festive in the hope that an early November stitch sale might attract a few folks looking for Christmassy items.

Christmas Stockings - hoping folks might be interested in hanging one of these up at the beginning of Dec.

And, bunting - again for Christmas decorations (2 sets) and potentially for gift purchases (3 sets).

As you can see, these makes are still not quite finished but hopefully a wee stitchy afternoon with the other Bee Blessed bees on Saturday will soon tidy these up.  Along with a wee pile of baby taggies and a host of brooches I'm hoping that my contribution to the sale table is respectable.  Now just fingers crossed that they will sell, although I admit some of those brooches are going to be an acquired taste!

Making Me Smile - 42/52

After a three and a half month struggle to get my new duvet cover and pillowcases in the house at the same time (long drawn out saga of "awaiting stock", returning pillowcases when stock unavailable, suddenly stock arrives but pillowcases were away - agh!) I have new bedlinen.  Yay!

Smiling too because I finally got floral prints in the bedroom after nearly 16 yrs of marriage!  It's a small success - let me enjoy it.

Pixellated Heart Finish

My pixellated heart quilt is complete, all neatly trimmed, bound and labelled.

It will be a gift for a friend as you can see by the label - a little heart porthole label!  (Fuzzy ipad pic.)

This is such a happy finish and I think that truly it must be one of my all time favourites.  Thanks for the fun class J!

HipBees hand-quilting progress

Although it has been almost a month since I wrote about starting to handquilt my red and cream hipBees sampler quilt, it isn't languishing in the corner as a forgotten UFO.  I've been trying to sneak in a wee bit more handquilting here and there.  Admittedly, it is slow going but I think the results are worth it.

Some of the blocks are very obvious about how they should be quilted in outline.

Others raise questions about whether the white outline stitching is enough.  (I did quilt in the red corner squares and centre square, but you can't really see the red thread here in this photo.)

Occasionally, I find it hard to make the right decision and I've managed to quilt myself into a bit of a pickle now and again as in the block above.  I kind of got myself a little confused where the star point outlines overlap and think there probably was a neater way of doing this one, but hey, every day's a learning day!

I think the back stitching looks kinda cool too, don't you?

8 down, 8 to go!  Come on, Sarah, keep at it!

Making Me Smile -41/52

Scrumptious!!!
I snapped up a layer cake and some text prints and low volume dots when Pink Castle fabrics had their 30% fall discount a few weekends ago. Beauties at a great price, smiling big over here!

Posted with Blogsy

Modern Stitching Bee -October

Emily is this month's Queen Bee in the Modern Stitching Bee and has asked for highly contrasting log cabin blocks with low volume strips on one half and mainly blues to navys on the other. She has thrown in a wee red centre and a touch of yellow and green too.

These blocks are going to look smashing in a quilt and there will be so many possibilities for the layout. I wonder which she'll choose? I must admit to a little trepidation that my stash might not have quite been up to the selection of the right shades of blue, but fingers crossed they might just scrape by.

So, that's one set of October Bee Blocks sorted. Hoping to do the hipbees ones soon.

Posted with Blogsy

Making Me Smile - 40/52

Audrey sent me a Making Me Smile card this week! How thoughtful is that? Both the card and its contents brought a smile to my face this weekend.

Audrey is not a blogger but she is a fabulous supporter of Bee Blessed and has been a top contributor to the Siblings Together block drive too. Her beautiful stitching and generosity are sure to bring smiles to a lot more faces than mine.

Thank you Audrey!

Posted with Blogsy