I Have The Most Amazing Friends

I had a day out yesterday with two close friends and look what Anne has made me. I am completely blown away by this hugely generous gift. As she was on an overland Africa trip from mid October last year, she didn't hear about my medical adventures until she returned home on 28th December. Between then and yesterday she sourced the fabric, pieced and quilted this amazing quilt, as well as having a conservatory built, going to Morocco for four days, unpacking from one trip and getting ready for two other trips and goodness knows what else in between. In addition to this she made lunch for us yesterday. I am just overwhelmed by her generosity and kindness. Thank you so much Anne, from the bottom of my heart!!

The fabrics are all flannels on the pink ribbon theme, so some of the proceeds from the sale of these fabrics go towards breast cancer research. The wadding is Warm & White, so it's a heavy quilt, but very soft and snuggly and warm too. It was quilted with our favourite - King Tut by Superior Threads.

Frosted Memories II

This is the second quilt I've made from the Frosted Memories range of brushed cottons. I've gone a bit mad on brushed cottons at the moment, they are so tactile and soft and make such cuddly quilts, plus they're very easy to work with. This one also has the Quilters Dream Wool wadding and it's been quilted with King Tut thread in Reed. I used my favourite technique of drawing the design on Golden Threads quilting paper and then free machining the swirls and stars pattern. I decided to piece the random stars to break up the squares a bit, without them the top was looking a bit monochrome. I did the design in EQ6, which let me look at various permutations before committing to fabric.

A Bit More Knitting

I've made a couple more scarves from bobbly wool (Rico PomPon), but I got carried away and wrapped one up before I'd photographed it. Here's the other one in gorgeous berry colours (Multi Mulberry).


The first one was made from this colourway called Pebble:

The Top Secret Fishing Quilt

This is OH's christmas present, it needs a little more quilting, but at least it's usable. As you can see, it's not taken Fatcat long to find out how comfy it is! The fabric is all brushed cottons and the wadding is Quilters Dream Wool - the end result is extremely soft and cuddly. The fabrics all have a fishing theme, as does the label which was done with the add-on embroidery unit for the Bernina 630 (borrowed from my friend). The quilting so far is simply in the ditch with a cream thread.

More Christmas Sewing

I also made some Christmas stockings ...



The embroidered names were done on my Bernina 630 with the embroidery unit (borrowed from a friend) and they were just made quickly from fleece, so no seam neatening required. Even better, the fleece was already in my stash, so no major expense either ;o).

Christmas Presents

We've had an early Christmas with my brother & family who are visiting from South Africa, so I can now reveal another present that I made recently for my SIL. The leather handles are made by Clover and they've been in my stash just waiting for the perfect project. They were very fiddly to sew on, but I'm very pleased with the finished effect. I used Warm & Natural wadding and the pattern was one that I found on the Moda Bake Shop website. It's designed to use a honey bun (1.5" strips), but I cut mine from fat quarters that I had.

Knitting Update

I have been doing a bit more knitting in the last couple of weeks, I've managed to finish the first sleeve for the pink cardigan and I've also made myself a scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves. The scarf took a couple of hours one evening and the gloves were made today.

The scarf is made from Tivoli Vienna wool, each bobble has a 2" piece of string in between it and the next bobble, you simply knit two stitches into each section with some 4mm-5mm needles, making sure you don't catch the bobble in the stitch. Garter stitch all the way and you end up with an extremely soft and cuddly scarf that everyone will want to stroke!


The gloves are knitted in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran which is a gorgeous soft wool. You only need one 50g ball, so they're cheap to make as well. I used a pattern I found on Ravelry.com. You have to sign up to a free account, once you're on there, search for a pattern called "Fetching". I had more wool left than the pattern suggested, so I unpicked the cast-off and did an extra 4 rows (including one cable) on the finger end which makes them more comfortable too.