Old friends

Last Friday, I met up with my friends Julia and Sharon.  We all went to college and studied catering together many many moons ago.  We meet about three or four times a year and have a meal.  We tried Kettleburgh Chequers this time and it's well worth a visit.

Julia makes and decorates the most amazing cakes - birthday, wedding and celebration cakes.  She has a website in the making and I'll be linking to her site when it's up and running.  Sharon brought us some home-grown tomatoes.  It was lovely to be given some as home-grown tastes so much better than shop bought.  I've been making lots of chutneys, pickles and jams this summer, and put aside a jar of Plum Jam for each of them, only to get there and realise I'd left them at home.  It will keep until next time we meet.

Improvised light box

Tomorrow I am demonstrating hand-quilting at market.  Today I thought that maybe I ought to get a piece of hand-quilting ready to quilt.  I'm still not sure that what I've chosen is a good idea as I decided to design my own piece and not use a quilting stencil, but, hey, why start simply!

As market is at Orford, I thought maybe an outline of Orford Castle would be good.  I have a lovely photo of the castle that I've printed off onto A4 and then I wondered (8.45pm tonight) how the heck am I going to transfer the outline to fabric?  My natural lightbox (daylight through window) is not working at present (it's too dark outside) and I don't own a light-box, but I do have plenty of clear plastic storage boxes and my husband has a powerful torch .... so solution is empty box, put on torch, put empty box over torch and hey presto  -  a light box.  Shame the box has got curved edges so that it doesn't sit properly - but never mind, it will serve it's temporary purpose.

Jenny

Launch of my applique kits and patterns

I'm so excited. I've launched my first patterns and kits. The cupcake, flower and sailing boat are three of my favourite designs. They are fusible-web applique, suitable for beginners as well as those with more experience, and are availabe as patterns or kits. They are very reasonably priced at £3 for the pattern or £5 for the kit and are can be bought from my website.



This cupcake can be used on so many things, cushions, table-runners, tea cosies or placemats.



The flower head I have used to make a really pretty cushion.

And can you just imagine sail boats on a pair of plain curtains for a young sailor?

These are all postcard-sized projects using fusible web applique. Suitable for the beginner, the designs can be used by those with more experience on other projects, a few listed above.

In the autumn they will be some christmas postcards ... watch this space.

Jenny

(Please note that kit fabric colours may be different from those shown)

Hunters Star

Do you like this fabric? It is the French Farmhouse range. I want to make a Hunters Star quilt with it. I love the muted blues and creams, it's not overtly flowery, so my husband can't complain about it being girly, and I love the Hunters Star block and I think these colours would look good.

But ... it's so long since I bought these fat quarters, it's probably sold out. I have to go to my local quilt shop this week, and if it's still in, I'll buy some more.

Jenny

(Ahhhhhh .. I just cannot get the hang of formatting these posts)

Flower embroidery finished

Well, it's been so long since I last posted, I'd forgotten the password, but it is good to be posting again.


After an hour here or half an hour there, I've finally finished the flower embroidery. I was asked to make it into a wall-hanging, after it being in a drawer for about 40 years. The embroidery was made up of small flowers approx 2½ x 1½". I removed the outside row of flowers as some had been put on horizontal rather than vertical and there were a four or five that were really quite soiled. This left me with an embroidery of six rows by six columns. Button-hole stitch had been stitched between each column. There was also a few individual 'new' embroideries that hadn't been attached to begin with, these were lovely and clean and because they hadn't been handled, they were in pristine condition.

I made this the centre of the wallhanging and added on another three columns, two on the left and one on the right. There were enough of of the 'new' embroideries to make two new rows, one above and one below.

A border was needed to finish is off, and cream silk does the job nicely. I left the original button-hole stitching in place, and once the border was attached, I continued this theme vertically between the columns I'd put on, and horizontally between the 'old' and 'new' embroideries. I buttonholed around the edge between the embroidery and border, this seem to finish it off. It called for a darker colour for the binding than the cream, and the pale sage green silk echoes some of the colour of the flowers.

Detail of the wallhanging.

It will be back with it's owner on Saturday. I hope she likes it.

Jenny