Work in progress.

This weekend, amongst housework, school work, shopping and nursing an ear infection, my 'work in progress basket' has made an appearance.

I started a quilting course a couple of weeks ago. The lady who runs it is really lovely and creaed some amazing quilts and other bits and pieces. I have done patchwork etc before but have always just been self taught. It was great to be taught the 'proper' way to do things and I discovered there were mistakes I had been making, such as pressing the seams open instead of pressing them onto the dark side of the fabric. Sandra also taught me how to sew strips of fabric together and then cut across instead of cutting out individual squares like I had been doing!!

My basket was full of fat quarters and five squares made from nine smaller squares. My homework from the course was to stitch triangles onto the sides to create bigger squares. Here are two completed squares. They are not perfect and still need trimming but I am impressed with my efforts (even though I got a bit frustrated!).

These squares will (fingers crossed) be part of the quilt that I will make over the course of the ten week course. It is only a small quilt but I can't wait to complete it.

My basket is now full of completed squares to take to the course on Wednesday.

See www.plainnavy.co.uk for details of the course.

Anyone else been crafting this weekend?

Thanks for reading.

Rachel xx

Home is where the heart is

After a comment made by one of my friends, I realised that I'm a bit of a heart lover. On a quick glance around my living room I could count nine heart inspired items. I have a knitted dress covered in hearts tights with hearts on numerous necklaces with a heart as the pendant and a jumper with a red heart on it - amongst many other items in my wardrobe! I'm not suite sure why I like the motif so much. The only thing that springs to mind is the fact that it represents love and is a happy symbol.

Here are a few pics (badly taken I know) of some heart items from my home.

Dining room curtain fabric.

Jug (mainly used as a vase) with a sweet little red heart.

A large wooden heart which hangs in my entrance porch.

Another hanging heart. This time it hangs from a mirror.

A handmade picture with a heart print fabric as the background.

Candle holders on the fireplace in the living room.

A hand stitched heart above the fireplace.

I will post some more heart inspired items in the future. Has anyone else got a fetish for hearts? Or a love for a different emblem?

Thanks for reading.

Rachel xx

Craft Workshop

I don't know about you but even though I am crafty myself, I really enjoy going to a workshop to learn things and to meet new people. Sometime crafting on your own can be a little lonely and it's always great to get together with like-minded people who can teach you something new and give you information about crafty places and stockists. However, living in the North East of England, finding good workshops can be difficult, but I have been lucky enough to find a couple of really good ones recently!

My favourite was a rosette workshop by Little A Designs. I found Marna's (the artist and owner of the company) page on Facebook and was chuffed when I discovered she was fairly local to where I lived. I booked onto the rosette course and my Mum decided to join me.

We were nervous about going to he house of someone we only knew through Facebook, but Marna was brilliant at welcoming us into her pretty home and we felt comfortable more or less straight away. I cannot praise Marna enough, she was kind and generous with all of her materials and hadn't just chosen a small selection that we could chose from, but let us loose in her workroom so we could pick anything we wanted! She even provided us with drinks and snacks.

Although Mum and I could already sew, it was brilliant to have Marna's advice on material selection and how to put them together to create something quite unique.

Here is what we made.

Here is where you can find Marna.
www.littleadesigns.com
 http://www.facebook.com/#!/littleadesigns
She makes gorgeous things (I want to buy them all). If you ever get chance to go on one of her workshops, go for it!

Anyone else got some good experiences of workshops?

Thanks for reading.
Love Rachel x