The Bells of London

I bought a second embroidery kit when I visited Taylors bellfoundry last year, and had the noble intention of making it up as a gift for the bellringers at Stepney church (mentioned in the Oranges and Lemons rhyme). The band celebrated its 10th anniversary in May, and it would have been lovely to present their gift then - but it wasn't ready. Now it will be a New Year gift instead!

The design, by Chris Berry who works at the foundry, included pictures of four churches - I added a fifth (top right), representing the tower at Stepney.

Another one bites the dust!

My first attempt at English paper pieced patchwork was a very simple hexagon pattern which I started several years ago and left aside when I started to learn other techniques. This last week the wind has been too strong for me to be gardening, so I got it out and finally got it finished! Whether it will be of any use or not remains to be seen (too small for a bed but probably too big for a cot), but at least it's no longer a UFO...

A rare sight

This may not seem very special - but is in fact an incredibly rare sight! My desk is normally covered in piles of paper waiting to be actioned/scanned/filed/sorted and I have just dedicated two full days to clearing the backlog (which included at least one paper over ten years old). So clearing it definitely counts as having eliminated another UFO!

Just two thoughts spoil the current euphoria: firstly, that I have another home... with another desk... with other piles of paper; and secondly, doubt that this one will remain in such pristine condition for very long... 

My first quilt

It's been almost a year since I wrote anything here - not that there was nothing to say, just was too busy to get round to it! Whoever said retirement was the busiest time of their life, I agree...

Anyway, my biggest ever project (not the longest lasting, but the physically biggest) is now finally complete. This is my first (who knows, maybe also my last!) full (double bed) size patchwork quilt - based on Lynne Edwards' Sampler Quilt book.

The blocks and the border were made from scrap fabrics, though I did purchase fabrics for framing, joining and binding. The batting and backing fabrics too were "pre-loved" - the batting taken from curtain interlining and the backing from bedlinen. In this way I think I more or less used the original idea of making patchwork quilts.

Each block was quilted separately before being joined to its neighbours - I had decided on this after making a throw which I found extremely difficult to quilt using just a standard sewing machine. Only the final joins of the borders had the whole quilt on the sewing table.