Archie The Wonder Dog

I wasn't going to enter the Bloggers' Quilt Festival but after seeing all the wonderful quilts out there I decided that I would enter at the last minute!  I was going to enter 'Going in Circles' but that's already been in a show this year (The Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate - see this post if you're interested in seeing more)so I've decided to share a different quilt with you that I've not shown on my blog. I started my sashiko sampler quilt in 2007 when I'd been quilting for about six months.  I'd seen a sashiko cushion at a local quilt show (the first I'd ever been to!) and had instantly fallen in love with the intricate stitching designs and I knew I wanted to create a sampler quilt using some of the patterns.  I bought The Ultimate Sashiko Sourcebook by Susan Briscoe and set about choosing which of the many designs I was going to use.  I used a hera marker to create the stitching grid and stitched the ...

Hello! The wonderful Lynne has published the fifth post in her Christmas Gifts for Quilters series.  Click on the button for information about FQ bundles that are available from Backstitch and enter the giveaway for a chance to win a Hurricane bundle - good luck! I hope you all had a good Halloween?   I've seen lots of lovely photos of children in costumes on other blogs but as I don't have a child and I'm not an owner that dresses up my dog (he wouldn't let me even if I wanted to!) this will have to suffice.. Yes, I did spend an inordinate amount of time trying to work out how to do this quickly using some fancy editing before resorting to Paint! Archie was very good at guarding the treats that evening and it was a good job as I just had enough for the 50 or so trick or treaters that came to the door ( note to self for next year - buy two Cadbury's treat bags for the younger children and three bags of toffees for the teenagers - it's cheape...

    I really didn't think I'd done enough to make a mosaic for October but I've just about managed to scrape one together! I made some more hexies right at the start of the month (and haven't made any more since!)  I love stripes! , Untitled and Untitled I was assigned my partner in the Pillow Fight swap and sketched some Design ideas and stitched the First four blocks I also did A spot of crochet and finally remembered to take some decent photos of wonky Untitled I made charity blocks for Judith Untitled and Karen Untitled And I was lucky enough to receive presents from two friends Presents! (fabric for my hexies!) and Aurifil from Lynne And last, but not least, there was Archie voting in the Japanese Scrap Bag challenge Quite a good month considering how tired I've been!  I hope you've had a good month of stitching, hop over to Lynne's Fresh Sewing Day to see what everyone else has been up to!   I can...

...in the Japanese Scrap Bag Challenge at Pings and Needles ?  Archie has!  Would you like to see?! I've really enjoyed following the challenge on Flickr and through some of the blogs but when it came to voting I was stumped...who to vote for?  How to choose from all the fabulous things they made?  So I decided that when it came to tricky decisions there was only one thing to do... What's that you say?  A tricky decision?  I'm the dog you need! So Archie carefully looked at all the entries.  In the interests of fairness I didn't say anything about any of them as I didn't want to sway his decision.  He looked at them all but so you don't get bored I'll just show you looking at his favourite four.... (I feel a bit bad that Archie's vote isn't going to be secret and I really hope that no one gets upset that they didn't get chosen by him but the photos are so appealing that I just had to share them!) Yes they're nice but no, I w...

Hello! I do hope you're all well and enjoying life?  I'm still wiped out but I'm sure I'll bounce back soon so don't worry about me, I'll be fine!  In the meantime I'm doing lots of sleeping, a bit of stitching and not a lot of housework and Archie is mainly sleeping and keeping a beady eye on 'his' pavement! On Monday I had a lovely afternoon in Whitby with two friends - lots of chatting, some gorgeous scones (fruit) and cake (lemon and poppy seed - delicious!) and a teeny tiny bit of shopping.  We went to a lovely little craft shop crammed with goodies and had a whale of a time choosing ribbons and thread and I  bought somehow came home with a FQ as well.  Want to see?! £2 for 6 reels of cotton thread! I'm planning to use the Tilda stripe for the back of my crochet cushion and as it's slightly wider than usual I should have enough left to make a hexy or three... Monday was also turned out to be a present day.  Before ...

I know, I'm posting twice in twenty four hours...unheard of!  (And it's probably never going to happen again!) After reading some of the summer sewing round up posts and hearing that Sarah@Fairyface Designs was planning a winter version I decided it might be just the thing for me - I love lists as they always make me feel organised and stop ideas whizzing round in my head.  I'm afraid that some of my plans are a little woolly as I usually find Christmas exhausting and as I'm going through a bit of a bad patch at the moment I have no idea how much stitching I'll be able to do.  (For those of you who are new to my blog...I have ME/CFS and am unable to work due to the condition - sewing keeps me sane (ish) but I can't do as much as I would like due to my low energy levels, etc.)   So, here's my slightly woolly and fuzzy winter stitching list (in no particular order!): 1 & 2 .  Add backs (cord?  Velvet?) to my knitted and crocheted squares to tu...