July furtle

 Well what has been happening in July??? It started off on facebook with the following photo, it showed up in my memories so I shared it again because it is one of my favourite pictures of me and Mark at my graduation in 2016.

One of my lovely (non quilty) chums sent me this which absolutely made me roar with laughter!

Facebook memories have been throwing up a lot recently, this was 7 years ago, my chum David making me my bespoke sewing table, a fantastic ikea hack which cost me 50 pounds and is still going strong!

There have been finishes! This was made from a layer cake of chirp chirp kindly donated to the charity quilt cause by lovely Kim! Thank you Kim i had a blast making this one.

More progress on this! My retirement quilt, it’s the Discovery pattern from the book “sewing with liberty” from Jenni Smith sews, loving making this one, one more round to go!

Oh we just had the loveliest day out, went to Drummond Castle gardens with Scoobs, how beautiful are these!

Oops bit out of sequence, earlier shot of retirement quilt

I went to see the Barbara Hepworth exhibition at the modern gallery in Edinburgh, really nice but my favourite bit was this ceiling.

We have been having some great skies recently. How beautiful is this one.

July has been an odd month, its 4 weeks now till i retire, a huge occasion for me, am still processing all of it, my goodness what a milestone. See you at the end of august!

Chirp chirp!

 

When a lovely chum gives you some much treasured layer cakes to help with your charity quilt making you treasure the chum and the layer cake! The lovely Kim gave me two Momo Layer cakes to aid with the charity quilt making. I really wanted to make the most of the beautiful picture prints so chose the giant swoon quilt pattern from the moda bake shop, they have called it the love pattern but its a swoon block! but that may be trade marked? dont know? 

It was super quick to put together and actually didnt take that long to quilt either, simple straight line quilting, but it is big!

for the backing i cut up pillow cases from ikea duvet cover sets. I have been buying the duvet cover sets when they are on sale and using for backing, wanted to use the pillow cases too, they work quite well i think!

thank you Kim! I loved playing with this, great fun

Fettling the finishes 2022 mid year check in!

 Well here we are at the mid way check in! I will admit to my heart sinking when i saw the call to link up. I was sure that i had done nothing of note and would score a big fat fail on most of the list  but actually I had done way more than i thought and can tick some big wins off the list! Which is the whole point of having the link up, not only for accountability but to show you how much you have actually done, so thank you Archiethewonderdog! so What can I tick off the list?

Garden Trellis

So that was the Garden Trellis quilt top when i started the list, very happy to say it is now finished! Here is the link to the full post and here is a pic of the completed top, beautifully quilted by Cumbrian Long Armer.

So that is a big fat tick!

Blossom Jane

Ah, not any progress with this unfortunately, too much other stuff on the go and I have sort of lost my way with it a bit, thinking I will wait till retirement and get back to it with a clear and less stressed head!

Hexagon sewing case

Done! another big fat tick! I loved making this even though i did get the dogs the wrong way round! but managed to fix it. Link to full post on this.

Floral big cats - lion, tiger, lynx

Yea!!! another partial tick for this, I have now done the Lion, need to add Cheetah to the list but there is movement here!

Link to full post on the Lion

In the garden sew along 

Well this really really tested my FPP skillz! but again a lot of progress on this one! I hope to get the borders on it and maybe even quilted this weekend. I got all the blocks put together at a lovely in person sewing day last weekend and can see the finishing line in sight 😊

This is the current flimsy:

Chirp chirp layer cake quilt

And this is another tick!!!! I rushed my Scoobs out after his breakfast this morning to take a picture! I will write up the blog post about it this weekend but here is the finished quilt!

Oh deer layer cake quilt

No progress but i have a plan! and upcoming oodles of free time 😂

Temperature embroidery from 2021

I made some progress with finishing off the mandalas to go with the temperature squares, this is all good to go and make up now, i just need the head space (stares mistily forward to august 😂)

Wheel of the year embroidery

Catching up with Wheel of the year , still got summer solstice to do but will crack on with that.

Marbling fabric

Nothing on this, needs to wait for retirement

The waiting list

Quilt for Henry the dog in Blue and Teal

Bubbles in speckled fabric

Selvedge quilt

FQ melody Miller quilt - striking this off the list I have other plans for the FQ bundle

Macaron pouch

Mintiya purse

Bargello Angels wings with Tula - New for 2nd half

Tula butterfly in capel and castaway - new for 2nd half

medallion quilt in liberty big prints - new for 2nd half

June Furtle

 I sit here writing this as yet another dose of cak has hit the work fan, seriously August cannot come soon enough 😂

Anyway where were we? ah yes June! What has been happening in June?

I have been working on this, it’s Quiet play BOM - in the garden. I have finished all my blocks now just figuring out final layout, i think one below will be it, i was using up darker liberty fabrics, this will be one of my Alice Caroline quilt SOS this year.

I have been slowly picking away at my mandalas from Carina Craft Blog, these will go with my temperature embroideries from 2021. This was my last one!

I entered a quilt for the FOQ!

We went away for our first hotel stay in 2 years!!! How amazing and the weather was incredible.

Finally the weather up here is nice enough to sit outside, my garden has been such a sanctuary these past two years, love it.

But mostly THIS!!!!! As of 30th August i will be only stressed about which quilting pattern to do next. And after today it cant come soon enough!

Budsmam liberation weekend

I can post this now!!! now that the news about my retirement is out in the open i can post about my fantastic retirement weekend with the loveliest bunch of chums!

I started planning this last August, at that point i thought i was going to leave in may of this year, for a variety of reasons that got delayed and i will now leave in August. i was handing in my notice in May so we all sttill went ahead. I put together a group of lovely chums, chums who have helped me through the years.

What to Take? What to pack? Well I picked a rather special pattern from the Jenni Smith sewing with liberty book. I want to make the Discovery quilt in liberty. 

Oh my goodness I almost wept wheni saw this lovely entrance again. We were in what I like to call the ballroom, lovely airy spacious room.

I popped into the Cayzer room for a look.

I hadthe same bedroom as  before!

All setup waiting for chums to Arrive!

On the Friday night we had a show and tell! Here is lovely Sue with her lockdown makes. 

Cath with her makes!

View from bedroom window.

I was blown away by this, lovely lovelyJo bought us all these metal water bottles 🥰 made by her daughter Emily, @sovendebjorn how utterly amazing are these! 

Jo and Kim happily hand sewing.

Kim's utterly amazing Jack's chain.

Sheena working on her entry for FOQ.

Jo's tula pineapple quilt and my center medallion.

Happy busy sewing.

Cath got me a new panda chum! Po

Oh my word, they got me a cake! And how perfect is this!

I will have a  dry happy retirement because I am blessed with such wonderful chums.