Story Book Quilt

Our temperatures have dropped drastically this last week, so I´ve been getting out the blankets and quilts.  This reminded me that when I saw my daughter this summer, I managed to take a few photos of a quilt that I made a few years ago for my grandson.  I have only ever made and finished about five quilts and this is by far my favourite one.

This is a children´s story book quilt based on the Bremen Town Musicians

 and the clever illustrations which captured my interest are by Petra Steinmeyer.

 The blocks are shown in order of the story.............Once upon a time...............

.an unhappy donkey left his owners as they considered him too old to work, and he decided to go to Bremen and be a musician...............

On the way to Bremen he met a dog who was too old to hunt.

A sad cat who could no longer catch mice....................

 and a cockerel which was going to be eaten for supper............

The four animals found a shelter for the night, but spied robbers inside...............

 they all made a terrible noise which scared the robbers...................

who ran away......................

and the four animals decided to make the shelter their home, living happily ever after.............

The End.

Hope you liked the story and quilt.  Until next week.

October Smalls SAL & Giveaway Winner

For the Smalls SAL this month, I made a little pumpkin decoration adapted from a design found at the craft blog `All You´ .  Instead of using a real pumpkin and cardboard, I tried making everything with fabric and added a little fancy embroidery down the seams

I like the end result and it will be a gift for a student of mine.  Heather at Stitching Lotus hosts the Smalls SAL and you can find more information about this group by clicking on my sidebar button.

My Anniversary Giveaway

I started this blog a year ago and I would like to thank all who are followers and regular visitors, those who pass by occasionally and to all those who have taken the time to leave comments. Thank you for having accompanied me during this year and for the friendships that I have found.

I roped in my student Carmen to choose the winner of my giveaway.

Congratulations  Linny, you are the winner of the scissor pouch.  I have sent you an e-mail, please let me have a mailing address where to send the pouch.

  Thank you to everyone who entered this giveaway, I replied to all, so if you didn´t have a reply from me it is because your mail shows as `no reply´ I have this problem often and my settings change automatically every month or so,  please check: Carol - Carolyn L. - Karen L - Tina - Virginia - Liz in Kansas and Joanne, I couldn´t reply to any of you.

A very special thanks to Karen at Faeries and Fibres who surprised me by announcing my giveaway on her blog and therefore I have met some new bloggers.  If you don´t know Karen, please visit her blog and see the beautiful quilt work that she does, her amazing hexagons  which I had to  start making because her designs are so inspiring and Karen also has very informative tutorials to help us.

Until next week.  Have a smashing Halloween.

Sheryl

Pumpkins and Anniversary Giveaway

A couple of months ago, my daughter requested a few decorative pumpkins for this autumn, so we hunted through my stash and sorted out some suitable fabrics.  She agreed to make the large pumpkins and I would make the smaller ones.

I took different photos during the day and with different lighting, but the pumpkins just didn´t want to be photographed and some were even camera shy and are missing from these three  pics shown here.

Where are the bright silver sequins?  and can you find the pumpkin with bright gold leaves?  I assure you there is one.

First Year Blog Anniversary Giveaway

I started this blog a year ago, well actually on the 28th of October, so to celebrate my first year in blogland and to thank all who have so kindly visited, followed or commented I am giving away another of my mermaid scissor pouches.  I had a lot of very nice comments regarding these pouches, so here is another opportunity to win one.

Just leave a comment here on this post.  You don´t have to have a blog or be a follower, although it sure would be nice if you were.  This giveaway is open to all countries until the 28th October.  I will announce the winner on my `Smalls´ post of the 29th October.  Have a nice week.

Linking to Supermom no cape Stitchery party.

More Redwork Ladies

I´m a bit behind with my post this week  I´ve been making a few more fabric pumpkins and I wanted to get them photographed and in the mail.  However this wasn´t so easy with the dull cloudy days we have been having and I couldn´t get the lighting right.  Anyway I will show them in a later post before Halloween.

Here are two more of my redwork ladies finished.

They stitched up really quickly and as usual I added a few beads, sequins and what nots where possible.

and I think these old frames suit the designs.

Here are the four redwork designs completed. I can´t get them to photograph correctly, maybe on your screens you can see them better than I can, but I shall try to improve the photo  Now I will just have to find a space to put the four pictures..

                                     Until next week ---- by the way it will be my blog anniversay giveaway next week so don´t forget to come by.

Smalls SAL - September

I think I have mentioned before how helpful our National Health Service  is with the making of hexies. Yesterday I compulsorily explored our brand new regional hospital, an enormous  building easily mistaken for an international airport terminal and as complicated to find your consultant as to find a specific airline check- in desk. I wasn´t greeted by the smiling face of my consultant´s nurse who cheerily practises her English with me, instead, a cold steel machine required my health care card and issued me with details of where I was to report.

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I sat amongst twenty or so other patients gazing into space as we tend to do when we have nothing more entertaining to look at than a digital screen and have exchanged uninterested glances with each other so many times only to find that we unsurprisingly continue to look the same.  I was prepared as always, and took out my tiny faithful bag of hexicon supplies and managed to sew up 20 minis before the impersonal digital screen beeped and told RJX that it was his, her or its turn to go in.  If I had defied the sun at one bus stop and the wind at the return stop, I could easily have finished 40 or so hexies.  So, it´s always useful to carry your needlework in your bag when you have a medical appointment.

My post today has little to do with hexies, although some of them can be seen at the end of this post with my Tusal jar.  Today is another Smalls SAL check-in.

I found this redwork design on the Internet years ago and just added my usual smattering of beads or similar.

Having hunted about and found several old picture frames, I went on to embroider a second design.

I now have two remaining patterns to stitch  saved in my files which I will hopefully post about next week.  Heather at Stitching Lotus hosts the Smalls SAL, so if you are interested to find out more about this group, click on my sidebar button.

TUSAL -  check-in

My ORT´s jar is now full but will suffice until the end of this year.  More information about this Totally Useless SAL may be found by clicking my sidebar button which will take you to  Its  Daffycat.

See you next week, happy stitching.

Linking this post to Supermom-no cape Stitchery party.

Henry and Anne

Just haven´t been able to get any photos taken for this post until today.  I have been busy with some projects for Halloween, the next Smalls check-in design and just thinking about a possible give away to celebrate my first year blogging anniversary which will be in October.

When we moved from our country house to our town flat, I left behind or threw out a few of my cushion covers and so started to make some new ones .... well better said, I made one, and as I wasn´t too pleased with the result, I haven´t got around to making more.  I love history and especially the Tudor Era.  Here is Henry and Anne.

I very much enjoy embroidering cartoons and comic strips.  This is a cartoon by Tyson Cole and I just added a castle behind the happy couple and also added a couple of guards.

 
I made this applique design using only my stash and added a few of my usual beads and sequins to decorate Henry´s attire and embroidered a few flowers for Anne the bride.

As you can see, the colours are rather bright, so bright that the cushion cover is kept in a drawer and is only seeing the light of day long enough for me to take the photos... poor Henry.

My stitching around the design is rather poor.  The trouble with hand quilting is that I just can´t use a thimble and have never been able to sew with one, so therefore quilting is  impossible. Does anyone else have problems with wearing thimbles?  All my sewing friends use them.
  Thank you for passing by and see you next week.

Linking this post to The Enchanting Rose.
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