Back to Sunday Stitching ?

It has been awhile since I have had a set Sunday Stitching project.  I was using little cover kits, the delight being all the things needed were there.

When I ran out, well I was doing a bit of this and that, but not being organised and feeling rushed.

Then I recalled something I bought years ago (a craft club item)  book of patterns that came with the thread , just adding the material and a needle sounded good. 

Off to the cupboard where I was sure I recalled it was waiting...I was looking for an All Our Yesterdays book, and indeed it was there, as was a Country Companions  one of the same format.

As it had a wider variety of sized patterns I decided to go with the Country Companions.  The thread came presorted, on cards, I found some fabric

And made a start, first colour, check the symbol, find it in the key, find it on the card and a new Sunday stitching is started ..not too many stitches in that colour, change to the next same process, symbol, key, colour on the card, sew.

Bit more in that colour, not a huge amount as I have chosen to start with one of the smaller designs. So on to the third colour, symbol, key..thread on card....wait, no thread on card...no number for this thread on the card?

Oh, ah well pick another, oh dear same result, and the next.  Now given that these missing shades are the colours for Ed's face, and a lot of these patterns have Ed in them this is a bit of a surprise and a disappointment.

Now I am sure to have those shades in my collection, so it is not a disaster of unable to proceed proportions but it does take away the easy in a bag option I was hoping for.

It is so past too late to raise it as a ? with the firm I purchased it from and of course puts a question mark over the thread supplied with the All Our Yesterdays set.

Also a bit surprised at myself that I did not notice when I was drawing a thread off from each colour for starting ease that there was for instance no white, there is a fair amount of white in quite a few of the designs.

Ah well, I don't suppose I will be buying in this format again anyway , I don't get tempting joining offers for craft clubs arriving through the post anymore.  But if I did I would better read the small print, as perhaps it just said a selection of threads came with rather than all the threads ,I will admit I did not expect that the thread would necessarily be sufficient to sew all 21 of the designs included but I was thinking there would be a bit of everything needed to make a start.

So I now need to look at all the symbols, key and check what threads I am missing and get them sorted out and added for next week...just need to get myself organised.

 Wasn't that where I came in?

From cover to quilt

The first piece of patchwork I shared on this blog was made about 28 years ago as a quilt cover. a-matter-of-perception.   Regrettably, the basis of the cover to stop the gifted "quilt" from slipping never did really work.  And as the little polyester inner quilt deteriorated, and bunched it was making me rather sad.

I decided I would try taking the cover apart and quilting it, with my grandmothers gift as the wadding (batting).  Regrettably I had left that too late, the bunching was not recoverable and I had to give that idea up.

Then I decided I would use an old fleece blanket that has rather lost its original adorable softness but was still nice and warm.

Happily the blanket was plenty big enough to do the job.

I have never used a different filling for my quilting sandwich before.

Flatter, yet heavier is was odd quilting it.  I did that by hand and kept to a simple sew in the furrow around the dark diamonds.  As I worked I remembered that I had made a mistake with the logcabin blocks.  I had sewn a few backwards, and by the time I noticed the idea of restarting my hand sewn blocks was awful. So I did not, I just did half one way and half the other.  It changed the shape of the finished sets and influences the overall design.

It was rather pleasant remembering as I was sewing.  I also recalled that whilst collecting the material for this patchwork the grey materials were the tricky bits.  I had just started work and the manager was giving a talk to all the staff, and my first thought was his hair was the exact shade of grey I was looking for.  I mentioned this to a colleague in passing some time later..the response, "well I have heard of come to bed eyes but never bedspread hair!"  Took some time to live that one down.

Having hand sewn the patchwork portion in the middle I moved on the the edge.  It felt a bit wide to just leave, yet I was not sure what to do considering the Flaming Pearls and the dragons on the corners.

I opted for straight lines and the chance to use a new foot I had bought which is to help get an even distance between stitches. 

It worked very well and any wobbles to the lines were a reflection of the original wobbly edges of the quilt.

The corners required sewing up to the dragons, stopping, leaving a length of thread for finishing then making a new start at the other side.

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When it came to the binding I used the double over and  sew and fold method my BFF introduced me to.  I was drawn to some material in my stash that had wide stripes of  purple fading to lilac and back (which alternated with a pale teal with purple flowers on it) It would be easy to just cut off the purple stripes and use them I thought.  Although why this shades of purple appealed I did initially recognise.

It was as I sewed it, continually looking at it (well except when looking at pretty things) that I realised it contained all the shades from my grandmothers gift, it had been large purple tea roses on a very very light background.  Over the years, even though it was mainly in its cover, washings and drying on the line had faded it, lightening out those purple roses to ever lighter shades till they were almost invisible.

I like that there are memories in the colour of the binding.  Now it is almost finished, how almost?  Well it needs a label.  I have been trying to do labels for all new quilts and add labels to the quilts still in my possession since the concept of labels occurred to me.




So what to call this new yet old quilt, what to say on a label.  How to encapsulate all of the memories, emotions and journeys it represents onto one little label.  I am giving that some thought (feel free to add any suggestions in the comments) and whilst I think here it is in is new incarnation. 

? quilt

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UPDATE : the quilt has a name and a label. 

Memories Edge

Grandma & Me

I added both the original cover finish date and the reincarnation finish date.

Then in a first, as suggested by Joe, I added the blog address. Although not the full ink to this post as that was a bit long.

A new Eurovision tradition?

So, for the first time I have watched the Eurovision Song contest whilst sewing on binding.  It has had the double benefit of keeping my legs warm given the drop in temperature and being able to just listen when the strobe and lighting effects made things too hard to watch (or other reasons).

I did like the sound of Norway's entry.

Of course there is also the chance to stop and watch when there was some thing pretty to see.

Like Estonia ..... I could be wrong   but that's a matter of opinion.

















Or the mind boggling staging for Australia   



How did they sing waving about like that.  Thank goodness I am not trying to sew moving like that...although some of my stitching would suggest otherwise.

Now it is the intermission act and the swapping of songs, so taking a break from the sewing.

Then there is supposed to be Madonna

And who and I voting for..must confess I have not voted for years, the last time I did was for Malta.

I can't of course vote for the British entry, who comes from a town just down the coast from me but I do wish him luck.