Les Fleurs du Mardi - finished

and on the wall of our dining room.

I really enjoyed playing with fabrics on this quilt.

All blocks are hand stitched needleturn applique.

You know you are nearly there when you are putting it all together; 

but, of course, there is still the quilting to be done.

I use tags instead of pins when quilting, I find it more convenient and quicker,

and a handy tool for removing tags when the quilt is finished.

This large quilt had been a year in making and I just wanted to see it finished, so I took a deep breath and went for machine quilting; it was quite a learning curve, as this is only the second quilt I have ever machine quilted.

Because of the variety of blocks, I used simple free form quilting inside the blocks,

but for the borders I used for the first time the Parrs-Reel Ruler 

I bought at a show last year.

 

I was taking quilt pictures outside, but the quilt was too long for the washing line.

Les Fleurs du Mardi - TheTuesday Flowers - was BOM 2016 by French magazine Quiltmania; 2 blocks were being published the last Tuesday each month.

All blocks were taken from this book, 

also published by Quiltmania.

Although I am very pleased with the result - it is time to move on......

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2017

Les Fleurs Du Mardi top

All done; I am so pleased that I managed to finish the top this side of Christmas; the rest will have to wait until next year.

I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas!

Anna's wall hanging

My granddaughter (age 11) has been working on a present for her other grandmother (with a little help from this one). 

She designed it herself and we shopped together for the fabrics.

And this is it!
(It is actually more straight then it looks on the picture.) 

It has a little pocket for those small treasures.

The background fabric for Les Fleurs du Mardi quilt has now arrived and I have started to plan the layout of the blocks. 

Quiltmania has used a dark fabric for their quilt, which I think is a very good idea. There are so many colours in my blocks; it would be difficult to find the right one.

I think this fabric is the right solution.

And a little cheer at the local garden centre - they really do move, play and sing 😉

Take it easy this week!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2016 

more blocks and Vignette 13

We have been having some horrendous weather this past week, rain, wind, floods.....

Not the time to go out unless you have to, so I managed to catch up with with all the blocks of Les Fleurs du Mardi BOM;

 and I am curious to see how Quiltmania is putting them together.

block 19

block 20

I am sure many of you know "Vignette Magazine"; for those who don't, this is  magazine published by Leanne Beasley ; it should had been published every qtr, but it is not working quite like that.
I bought an early issue, but was very disappointed; I thought it was very overpriced for what was inside. If you have come across it, I would be interested what you think.



However, much later I saw issue 10, which had the first block of "Mrs Beasley's Sampler Quilt" BOM in it, to be published in 4 parts, and I got "seduced". I loved the design (the combination of patchwork and embroidery, which I love) and I got stitching. Later came block 2, and after some pause, block 3 in issue 12. That was more then 18 months ago! Since then I had been waiting for issue 13.
During that time there was no explanation as to when or if ever the next issue of the magazine will be published. Even magazine distributors (and my supplier) had not been given any more information, and Leanne Beasley wasn't answering any enquiries.
I was beginning to give up, thinking I would have to make up the last block myself.
It seems that Leanne was "too busy" with her new fabric collections, but at last the issue 13 has appeared, and I can finish the quilt.
So, I have pieced the last block together and started on the embroidery.

We are now short on daylight, and the days have been dull, so pictures are not as good as I would like them to be.
I will try to replace them another day.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2016

catching up

It seems like ages since I blogged about any stitching!

First of all - my granddaughter (age 11) also finished her wall hanging, her first one; 

you might remember - we started making the same project at the end of the summer holiday - same pattern, different ideas about fabrics and colours.

both together

Being away for a couple of weeks, we seem to had missed the best of the autumn colour;

a quick visit to Stourhead last week just proved the point - a sharp frost few days earlier brought down many of the beautifully coloured leaves.

But I did take several nice pictures, despite it being a very dull day.

We never go home without a quick visit to the farm shop.

At home it is a busy time in our small garden - new long bed of roses is being planted in the front of the house. 

At the back we changed alpine garden, which wasn't doing very well here; we planted an olive tree and grasses instead. There is also a "re-shuffle" going on in the rest of the garden -

we will have to wait until next summer to see if it all worked.

Our quince tree produced its second harvest, a big improvement on last year, but unfortunately we lost some fruit to the brown rot.  Never mind, we are learning.

Still, there is enough fruit to process,

quince jam,

cake,

and there is still quite a few in the fridge waiting for me to do something with them.

Today I finished block no 18 for Quiltmania's BOM "Les Fleurs du Mardi".

The end is near, only 2 more!

Do you remember my holiday project? 

It was a kit by Nancy Nicholson and I embroidered the nice bag the kit came in, before we went away. 

This is what was in the bag, "Cuckoo", a cushion cover embroidery kit, very easy stitching, with the design printed on the fabric, just the thing to take on holiday.
You can see more of Nancy's kits, if you click here .

But the weather was much warmer then expected, and even sitting outside on the terrace of our hotel, my hands were getting too warm, so this is all I managed!

It's OK, it is a nice project to have around when I don't feel like doing anything demanding!

I hope to see you back here soon!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk  2016

FNwF

Thank you Cheryll for hosting yet another FNwF.

I somehow missed the last couple of these, but I did remember this month!

Friday evening I finished block no 17 of Les Fleurs du Mardi BOM, by Quiltmania magazine.

3 more blocks to go!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2016

just small things

For some reason my sewing is not going very well at the moment, you know how it is, other things get in the way.

But I have 2 small pieces to show you.

You might remember that just before the end of the school holiday my granddaughter and I started a small wall hanging each, following one of Lynette Anderson's designs. 

It is a good project for a beginner, like my granddaughter - it is small enough as not to be scary, but using different techniques, patchwork, quilting, applique, little embroidery....

My granddaughter is still working on hers, school and homework getting in the way at the moment :-)

I have finished mine.

And another block, number 16, for Quiltmania's BOM, Les Fleurs du Mardi.

Enjoy your Sunday!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2016 

another season is here

September - autumn is really on its way, but we are enjoying mild and mostly dry days.

The garden is beginning to look tired, but there still is enough to pick for the house.  

Last week I made another batch of jam, and although it is September, I still called it "Summer Jam" - a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, apricots and plums.

This combination really works, it makes a delicious jam.

Another lot of "sunshine in the jar", to be enjoyed during grey winter days.

 

Last weekend's baking were biscuits, thin and crunchy - with dry cranberries, white chocolate chips and oats. 

They keep well in the jar.

DH and I went for a long walk in the woods; we did hope to find some mushroom, but this was the result of our foraging, rather a sad and miserable show. It has been very dry this summer. 

This is a managed forest and there has been a lot logging going on this summer; places, where we would very often find something, were disturbed; it will take some years to get back to normal.

But of course, we don't come here just for that, the walk itself is a pleasure and interesting.

Not much stitching going on, but I did finish another block (no 15) for Les Fleurs du Mardi,

 Quiltmania's BOM quilt.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2016