Broken arm works a charm ...

Corny headline, I know! But very apt in the circumstances. I have a finish! Yay! Well - a finished top - you know it counts all the same. This was my low-volume charm square quilt without a border, which was coming up a bit small:

 

And here it is today - finished with a 5" border - it was a bit blowy in the garden - I got there eventually:

 

 

I think it will be a while before I can baste and quilt it - although the arm is getting stronger, I still only have about 40% range of movement in the shoulder and it hurts when I overdo things. Knowing me, as you do, that's quite a lot!

 

And how was our holiday in France? Amazing. Poignant. Breath-taking. Very moving. We packed a lot into our 5 days in the Somme region. It was lovely to get the chance to holiday with our friends and their wonderful girls. We visited lots of World  War 1 sights and also had some fun playing cards and bingo back at the Gites each night. Here are just a few photos:

 

 

And on Monday, we drove to Ypres in Belgium to hear the Last Post - played every night at 8pm at the Menin Gate - The memorial bears the names of 54,389 officers and men from United Kingdom and Commonwealth Forces (except New Zealand and Newfoundland) who fell in the Ypres Salient before 16^th August 1917 and who have no known grave:

 

 

If you ever get the chance to visit these countries ... do it. You won't be disappointed. But you will be sad. I'm thankful to be home and grateful for the world I get to live in because of their sacrifices. 

 

Linking up with Lorna, Amanda Jean and Sarah :)

  

 

A WIP and a finish ... not too shabby!

I have had a good few days. The movement in my arm is increasing daily and I am sure sewing helps! I still have to do some ironing with my left arm but the rotary cutting is getting easier ... though putting in a new blade at the weekend might also have helped there! 

I decided to add 2.5" sashings in plain cream to my low volume charm square quilt ... it's only taken it to 50" x 50" though, still a bit small for a lap quilt - hmmmm - maybe I should add a 5" border? What would you do?

And a little finish for the lovely Jasmine over at Quilt Kisses (what a pretty blog name) she's just finished a gorgeous quilt for the charity Hands 2 Help and does fabby feather quilting. I'm glad I popped in on Jasmine this morning as I really need to make another charity quilt ... can you fit one in? There's so many worthy causes, I know, it's good to help wherever you can :)

Jasmine's favourite colour is purple so I have made her a purple Pants Bag - love this colour - was able to use up some of my favourite scraps and buy some gorgeous lining fabric. I know she won't be able to resist peaking at this post so I won't photo the surprise I put in with it:

Linking up:

Lee:

Lorna:

Oops ... I did it again!

DH has officially banned me from eBay! I recently posted about by inability to gauge dimensions and how I am 'fooled' by photographs. To be fair, the dimensions for this chest were accurately depicted by the vendor but somehow in their picture:

... it looked bigger than in my picture:

I have got away with it though :) DH was worried it would be too big for our new snug room so is very pleased with my miscalculation on this occasion! And Nell has given it her approval:

So, from now on, I'll stick to what I know. Before Christmas, I took part in a low volume charm swap, receiving 56 x 5" squares. Having taken some advice previously, I decided to go with the green and cut up 32 squares:

I 'designed' a pattern - adding 2 more low volume squares from my stash ('design' sounds rather grand for my amateurish drawings on graph paper!):

And started sewing the 90 squares together:

Think it needs some borders and sashing though or it's going to be a very small quilt ... that's going to take some time - my (broken) arm is just about coping with an hour here and there, so this will be a slow WIP :(

Linking up:

Lorna:

And Lee:

What's on my table?

Lots of house viewings since last week and a good offer but no sale yet ... it has only been a week so we're not worried. I got a bit of sewing done over the weekend but certainly I'm feeling unproductive compared to my usual outputs :(

I have finally added a border to my soldier's quilt and made the back, so if DH and I can baste this this weekend, I may even get it quilted:

Next weekend I'm hosting a 'quilt retreat' for our Strip Bee quilters  - I have previously made Fran and Julie a Pants Bag so felt it was only right that the other three ladies had a Pants Bag too to transport their 'pants' in when they come to stay! Here's all three together:

For Maria (pinks and blues):

For Amy: (aqua and pale blue):

For Sarah: (pinks and purples):

They'll be in the post tomorrow, ladies! Very excited to host the weekend, promise to take lots of pictures of our weekend and the finished strip quilts.

And one more thing on my table - I participated in a low volume charm swap around Christmas. Here are the 56 x 5" squares I received:

But I just haven't been hit by the inspiration fairy to know what to do with them. So, yesterday, I laid them out with different fabric choices from my stash:

My thinking is to keep it simple, maybe  a 10 x 10 lap quilt using one extra colour ... or more than one? What would you do? All ideas gratefully received :)

Linking up with Lorna, Lee and Heather & Megan:

Speedy Scrappy Sunday :)

What a busy weekend! Friday night after work, DH and I had a fabby night out at the theatre seeing Shakespeare's finest comedy - A Midsummer Night's Dream. Starring the sublime David Walliams and Sheridan Smith, it was a very good play:

Yesterday, I free motion quilted Mandy's lap quilt and straight-line quilted dear niece's table runner and mats ... just some binding to hand sew on the runner and mats and Mandy's label to be attached and these will be finished:

The lovely Jennie over at Porch Swing Quilts (one of my loyal followers) and I have been emailing each other after she left this comment on my scraps post: 

The birdcage of pink scraps is perfection.

I'm hopeless with scraps. I know in my head I need to make a scrappy quilt, but I also can't wrap my brain around truly scrappy ones. I might force myself to do one or two or ten next year. My OCD little self will have to shush in order for that to happen!

We've decided to 'challenge' each other to use up our scraps and Jennie suggested an idea from Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts - please pop over and see her post from Friday. So this morning, I made a start on my blue scraps and decided it would be that scrappy that all I needed was my scraps, a pair of scissors and my finger (to press!):

This was so quick! Like Jennie, I could never relinquish control to complete randomness so I did give a little bit of thought to choosing the fabrics but I just kept adding and adding:

... until it was about a 7" square, then I pressed it and trimmed it down and voila:

Thirty minutes later, I had done three more! Am going to stop now ... I think my Sunday mornings will be my scrappy quilt time from now on as these blocks really do come together so quickly. And I have LOTS of scraps to use up :) I wonder what Jennie's blocks will look like? 

And to cap it all, I have signed up for a 'low volume charm swap' that Rachael over at The Floral Suitcase is organising. I haven't taken part in a swap before and I don't have any suitable low volume fabric ... I'll just have to go shopping ... YAY!!