This was on a previous FAL list it fell off i think! i love Michael Powell designs, very cute and they make ma smile which is always a good thing. you can ask for much more than that! i only use book marks in my patchwork books now a days i use a kindle for my fiction reading. I love making these though, this is my fourth i think.
No 5 on my FAL 2018 Q3 list! Henry the Horse. Another fab pattern by Tartan Kiwi. Using my horded stash of Ardently Austen fabric. Im too late for the link up but i like to be completist :-) This was mostly done at one of this years Gartmore retreat.
OK all these pictures are in a totally random order but that is probably fitting since this years Stitch gathering was very "random" (check me and my yoot vocab :-) ) and i mean that in a non critical way, the event itself was AHMAZING but me, well i was a bit random .... i hurt my shoulder and arm the week before and everything was totally up in the air. I had promised the beautiful Natalie could stay with me but my shoulder was so bad (i was on morphine peeps ....) that i was in no fit state to have anyone to stay OH THE CALAMITY!!!!!
the house was a cowp (scottish for totally unhygenic and a complete midden ....) also i couldnt dress myself let alone drive, it was a nightmare, in all seriousness i cried so much. Never mind i got the lovely Natalie a hotel and just sucked up the fact that i couldnt go to the meal on the saturday night.
The brilliant scoobs said he would drive me there and back, he is just wonderful so i crossed my fingers and hoped it would all work out.
We all had to make a cat or dog block as our ticket. I managed to get a video of them all laid out.
First up was the great class from Lisa Dolson on embroidery. Poor Lisa was suffering from Labyrinthitis which i have had in the past and its HORRIBLE so well done Lisa for carrying on with the class. Lovely Sandra @rubylovesred gave a helping hand with demos. I loved the class even though my only ouutput was this rather lonesome spiderweb rose but hey, the day before i couldnt even get my knickers on without help so this was progress!
The added bonus was i got to sit next to @cuckooblue me and Poppy always have such a laugh at the gathering, what a lovely lady a pleasure to know.
So its fitting that my first lunchtime picture features Janice!!! yea for Janice, @marydon, another lovely lady who is Poppys neighbour, i cant think of tow nicer ladies to live next to each other, they are both so nice. Janice is showing and telling (with Jo Avery) one of the quilts made with blocks from last years tickets. Jo asked for house blocks, so this will be for siblings together.
Here is Janice again, this must be another of herr quilts for show and tell, to be honest i was doped up on painkillers and cant remember that much of who did what .... sorry!
I had to stand well up the back i was terrified someone would accidentally bump into my arm, it really was that sore still.
I didnt get this ladies name but she must have been at the same class as me last year, the Zen chic glass in Biggar, this is a stunning Globe quilt.
Part of the fun is catching up with chums, the lovely Jane and Tatyana were there.
A great selection of show and tells.
The Lovely Poppy with her amazing Avenue quilt
Cute!!
awwwww here is the lovely Quilty doings with her pixilated quilt of her mum and dad, not a dry eye in the house when she spoke about this.
During the lunch break we had to find our partner for the pincushion swap, looooook! my partner was my luffly chum Jo - @quiltydoings :-) i love my pincushion.
I didnt get any pictures of the afternoon class, i was doing improv EPP with Lucy Brennan, i learned loads but had really run out of steam by that point so didnt manage to do anything in it. Lucy was lovely and so inspirational.
So then that was it all over! wow, so I was waiting for Mark (who was driving me home and Natalie to the airport) to text me to say he had arrived. I was chatting to Natalie and suddenly she said "there's Marksgonewalking!!! (thats his instagram name) the brave wee soul had come into the venue to look for us! He walked into a room full of lovely ladies a lot of who recognised him from his #husbandsholdingquilts pictures on instagram 😊😊 look at him! he loved it, this was when Jo was giving her wrap up speech.
And here she is the woman herself. behind her the lovely helpers, Pauline Allie and Jane.
Phenomenal day as ever, hopefully next year ill be more able to join in, still i did manage to go which was the main thing.
Pfffffffft, silly me, forgot about the goody bag! i did the full sponsor thanks etc on instagram but no harm in thanking them twice! the goody bag is renowned and quite justifiably so, just look at all this!
so thanks to: Aurifil thread, sewmotion, nicolajdodd, lovequiltingmagazine, bethstudeley, duckeggthreads, rileyblakedesigns, mybearpaw, blendfabrics, lewisandirenefabrics, dashwoodstudio, beyond_measure. It was an epic goodybag as ever.
Ok we are not supposed to have favourites but duckeggthreads is a speshul chum and Mini Mini bud was sooooooo chuffed to find the scrap pack from the lovely Sarah in the goody bag.
He was even more excited to see the lovely present Natalie bought me! look at this wonderful liberty!!!
And panda socks! my one sadness was that i couldnt spend the time with Natalie as we had planned. Never mind there is always next year!
Oh man, i am squeaking in with my last list of 2018. Right no messing about:
No.1 - i have two large New york beauty blocks, trying to use up my Zandra Rhodes Lace Mountain fabric. I need to make some more and decide what im going to do with it.
No.2 - Sewn up by Leila Garduna has been running 52 weeks of scrappy triangles. a great fun sew along. It is now week 51, I have been keeping up so I now need to DO something with them.
No.3 - OK this one cant roll over again, i have to make something with this Neptune and the Maiden fat quarter bundle. i might make a quilt from the pattern in the picture but maybe not but it needs to get made into something.
No.4 - well this is coming along nicely, blocks all made and setting triangles are on some of them, just keep on plugging on and fingers crossed the farmers 1930s quilt will be done this year.
No.5 - I bought this lovely embroidery by Ruby Seppings at this years FOQ, love the box!
No.6 - this is sort of a roll over, I made this from several charm packs, it needs backing, quilting and then off to Linus!
No.7 - I got this Jelly roll from a destash, possibly over a year ago, its lovely and has to be made into something. I have two patterns in mind.
No. 8 - Mini tuffet!i got this kit at the FOQ, cant wait to see what it looks like.
No.9 - Emmeline retreat bag, this is a roll over but i really want to use these fabrics and make the bag.
No.10 - I'm amassing too many scraps, i have an idea for a string rectangular block to use this up.
I really dont know where to start, no seriously I dont. How do i encapsulate 11 incredible years in one blog post? and not just nay 11 years, 11 years of ups downs, highs lows, amazing times. so I will start with these, because supporting my subject areas at QMU was possibly the most rewarding aspect of the job (and i have shown Eric Liddells gold medals to Alan Wells 😃) These are the webpages i put together for my subjects. They were always in the top 5 of most accessed pages :-) i trained my students well!
My last day was always going to be a TAD emotional and it seemed to go on forever, but lets start with cake, and not just any cake an Isabel Bentley cake. Isabel is our star baker and was responsible for my totally awesome patchwork 50th birthday cake. How could she out do that?? well i think she did and it tasted as awesome as it looked.
phew! emotional but hey there was cake, everything is better with cake. What else could there be??? At lunchtime my chum Laurie and Isabel wanted to take me to the student union for a drink .....awww how kind 😃😃 as we came out of the main building heading across to the union i wondered why i could hear "beautiful sunday" blaring out??? and why were there so many people in university square??? and WHY WERE THEY ALL DANCING THE SLOSH!!!!! now for those of you who dont know, the slosh is a dance, bit like a line dance which is a regular at scottish weddings. My mother was never a fan and i was not allowed to learn it when i was young (smacked of having too much fun ...) so our student Union Manageress (and mother to Rocco my floofy pal) was horrified when she learned this so taught me how to do it. I never looked back, i have participated in record breaking slosh attempts, i have danced it drunkenly in the foundry in Aberdeen with best chum Irene (hello Irene!) i LOVE doing the slosh and have always joked that i would love to see a flash mob slosh in the main university square! so what did lovely Laurie do? she organised a flash mob slosh as part of my leaving present (to be fair it was a dream come true for a lot of people there!!!)
and so what to do but join in 😁
One of my lovely students - Shu got this video of the second slosh, yes there was more than one tune!:
Phew! i took the afternoon off because i knew i wouldnt be up to doing much. Next came the official presentation. Afternoon tea in the student union. I dont actually remember much of this, i was just too too emotional so let the pictures do the talking.
so who knew i love gin and pandas !
my floofy pal
tins! and notebooks! i love tins and notebooks!
badge from a lovely student
my desk
ooook - my desk
Laurie me and Isabel post slosh
I do love OT
When a lecturer writes you a poem!
bother, rotated the wrong way but beautiful whale pictures from a smashing lecturer!
Not only does Isabel bake great cakes but she buys awesome mugs!
how did i accumulate so much booze ???? so many people know i love gin!
fabulous bookmark from my step count pal Mikey
I choke up when i see this, my floofy pal, Rocco, my lunchtime companion for many years.
Im welling up writing this, a card and badge from a lovely student
leaving presents!
more leaving presents!
presents from lovely people who want you to be happy in your new job, blimey im greetin just looking at these.
oh gosh, a liberty voucher and the loveliest card ...
Wine! salute, as in salutogenesis (google it)
ma pal, in the student union, a happy place
my boss giving my leaving speech
Dearly beloved .... oh lord know what i was waffling herer ....
flipping heck even a card from the bookshop who does a pop up shop on campus twice a year !!!!
My last picture on campus, thank you but Budsmam over and out.
