BFF SAL 10 (so I am told)

 White, white more white and oh no miscounted followed by ah not miscounted just missing a light teal stitch. What a relief..add teal stitch then...

White and white and more white.

and next time, there will be........yup white and white and more white...

CLICK HERE for an update from my BFF.

In the Hoop at last

 it has been so long since I completed the top for the sampler quilt and made my attempt at adding a quilting pattern.

There have been some mental reworks but just could not settle on anything.

I think it is the size, and the different blocks and thinking of something that would suit each patch and yet unite them all.

After much delay and contemplation, I am taking a different tack now and after sandwiching the quilt I am going to just take once block at a time and let the threads bring it together.

Progress so far....

as you can see I have picked a very subdued colour for the backing!

BFF SAL..lost count

 both of which SAL this is numerically since we started and of the edge colour that I was hoping to use to get the right placement for the pink dots so as to make the big area a just fill bit.

Ah well got there in the end and this is tonight's finishing point.

my BFF had her own trials.  Pop on over to her blog  By clicking HERE to see how her project is progressing.

Sunday Stitchings-an update.

 Whilst I was not posting these last few days there was a little bit of stitching going on and the sewing part on my Sunday Stitching's piece is finished.

The kit came with its special bits for fully finishing, and I will get to that later I think. Needs a little press first.

I altered the colour choice for some of the backstitching, all of the detail on the clothing was to be in white, I changed it to the lilac on the pale pink and to dark purple on the lilac.

Not that the lilac shows up that much better on the pink than the white, but it was worth a try and the dark purple was too dark on the pink.

So looking through my cover kits to see what to use for the next Sunday Stitchings project.

In Respect

 there will be no posts or updates during the period of National Mourning for Queen Elizabeth II .

Music & The Spoken Word | Queen Elizabeth II – Grace and Goodness

BFF SAL oodles of fun

 as bit of a surprise this week, we are back to the SAL, well sort of we are on a same yet different theme. I will touch on the sameness in a moment, we had not intended or anticipated having something to work on "together" just yet, but my BFF made a suggestion, I made a counter suggestion and here we are both content with the projects chosen.

So the sameness...the projects are seasonal, the base material and the original source is the same. The finish is roughly the same, they don't look much like they will yet and we are having lots of fun stitching them.

Here is my progress for the evening, I would say I had completed all the stitches in two of the colours (I could but I better not as when I said that during the sewing session new stitches in that shade appeared on the pattern out of nowhere just to spite me) 

now I know what I think this looks like, I won't say in case I influence you, but what does it make you think of? Whilst discussing it my BFF and I recalled something of a similar sound from our childhood and an album we both at one point owned (oh alright I hoard I still have mine)  Happy Monsters! 

I thought about pulling it out and adding a picture but in this internet age I can add a link to YouTube and you can have both a look at the cover and enjoy the story if you like!

CLICK HERE

Now I did do some Sunday Stitching but was having problems getting my tech to work so there was no post for that so her is an update on that project.

Dark Purple and the last of the mid pink all done.

Now click on over to see what my BFF is up to and if you were wondering about that little project, she started last week and what it might be, well she has finished it so you can see.

BFF Link

A little RAL

that I managed to sew at all tonight was in doubt, that I managed to sew over one was amazing. I have not had the best of weekends headache wise (no Sunday Stitching) so that there was any progress on the Earth was good.

 I had hoped that I would finish all of the shade of blue I was working on tonight but I ran out of steam at about the same point my BFF  started her new project.

CLICK HERE for her update.

FFO and BFF RAL updates

I have previously mentioned the lack of square frames  that are not box frames. Indeed  when I have found square frames I have felt a bit like goldilocks,  One was too large, one was too small, before I found one that was Just right. 

Well sort of I had originally thought that brushed silver would look good. 

And here it is in its frame.

I quite like the look of it in this frame now that it is in there.

Now the pattern has a name Yggdrasil (which a quick search turns out to be old Norse and means an intense and central sacred tree) however I am calling mine

 Knot, Just a Tree

 and I am calling my BFF's

 Knot Just A Tree.  

That comma is very important as denotes the same but different aspects of  our approach to this pattern. 

As for this evenings sewing, more work on Millennium and on the Earth. There was quite a bit of white filling in and the curvature remains and I am still liking that.

So CLICK HERE for my BFF's update.

Sunday Stitching's purple

 a lot of purple but not all of the purple so I know what next week will bring and looking at the area sewn and what remains to do on the left and the little bit on the right perhaps I will have it all done next week and get to move on to another colour.

They are coming together nicely and I am looking forward to trying the method of finishing which came as part of the kit.

Down the Rabbit Hole

 sometimes being a crafter an idea gets hold and you just have to go with it even if where it leads you feels a bit like being Alice after a white rabbit.

Some years ago now at work, a charity day was planned and the theme was Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

With prizes for the best hat.

I found a hat in a charity shop that had a little ceramic tea pot on the crown and a cup and saucer on the brim and a black bow and feather to the side. A perfect starting spot.

I added playing cards (which had been a serendipitous inclusion in a sale brochure for ace bargains or something like that) . Sadly I was unable to attend on the day and the hat was relegated to the loft., it has been keeping the Christmas decorations company.

So when the theme resurfaced but this time as a Relief Society activity at Church the hat also resurfaced.

It should have been a simple case of re-sticking the playing cards which had come loose but a conversation about the rabbit and the pocket watch had me thinking how to add one to my hat (a pocket watch not a rabbit at this stage). A real one would have been far to heavy, that little tea pot and cup are heavy for a hat to begin with.

If you have visited with me before you know I like to reuse things when I can. So the bottom of a Cadbury's Little Pot Of Joy looked just the right size. Cut it off with a craft knife, covered it in tin foil and then a nice sticky label with the clock face on. Foil covered tooth pick for the winder, some random chain and pocket watch for hat.

I was rather pleased with the look of it and the drape of the chain over the tea pot down into the cup.

You would think that would be sufficient, sensibly that would be quite enough for one hat. 

However, this is me, and I started thinking that the side with the cards was a little bare at the bottom and needed something to balance it out. I thought about it, jam tarts perhaps what did I have that would be a quick tart? Most things I thought of were too heavy or would take too long as at this point there were only a few days to go.

What about Alice, I contemplated using a peg and some paint and paper, but that sounded stiff and I could not get my mind to play it through. 

So it became make a little doll Alice. Wadding trimmings, old tights, scraps from the quilting.

And a little doll, not Alice just yet. This is the first time I have tried this and I was quite pleased with how the wadding in the tight fabric moulded into the head and face with some sculpting stitches.

The arms just made with rolled tight material contracted a little and felt a little short in proportion  but given this was without a pattern that there were arms was a good start as far as I was concerned. I did push a little bit of wire (recycled from a used up ring bound note pad) into the arms as an afterthought so I could position them.

I did consider adding the hair using embroidery floss, but then a little ball of pale yellow wool caught my eye and I thought that might be just a bit quicker. Time becoming an ever more important factor now as this was now the evening before the event.

I am sure that sewing on the wool was indeed faster than the thread would have been, not so sure about brushing it out , styling it and getting the Alice band in place. I used white ribbon as I had some very thin white ribbon which did double duty for the bow on the apron and the Alice band.

The legs were scraps of white around more wadding scraps .The shoes were drawn on with black permanent marker and that was by far the quickest and easiest part of this process. The legs also had wire pushed in to make them less floppy. Here she is on the hat.

On the day, the hat stayed solidly in place on my head, Alice stayed put on the hat (used double sided tape to hold her on) the chain on the watch moved a bit and the watch came unstuck and was repositioned into a loop of the bow. (Thank you BFF)

As you make have guessed from the previous paragraph my BFF was also in attendance, with her own embellished hat. Not sure if she will blog about that herself, if so I will add a link when she does. And if not perhaps I will update with images of her hat.

We had a lot of fun, riddles to answer, a getting to know you game, lovely food  and some interesting spiritual lessons referencing some of the lessons Alice learned on her journey.

The new experience of making the little face was enjoyable, the hair less so (and it is a good job she not  made to be viewed from behind). Indeed as she was intended only as a decoration the join of the legs to the body is basic, there are raw edges under there and on the back and the wire is by no means invisibly secured. She is certainly not meant to be a toy.  However some of the techniques I may try again at some point with less time constraints and a more durable finish. Should the right project arise.

And as for the hat, at least it got a day out in this incarnation before heading back to the loft, and there is space on the back of the hat next time this theme comes up and I head back down the rabbit hole of I could just make rather than settling for it as it is!  At least that is one thing I know about myself.