Monday 27 February 2012

It was on a starry night...

I've just returned from a weekend away with my Guides in the middle of Northumberland with no phone signal or Internet or anything and it was fun!
We did activities based on traditional guiding, we did some archery with the village archery club (and I won the line contest although I didn't count according to the guides. Lol) and we had a campfire outside.
I think one of the things that amazed my guides the most all weekend though was when they went outside on the first night to look for cardboard rabbits and bats which we'd scattered around and stuck reflective 'eyes' on and my sister told then to look up. The girls are all from in a city and we've never really taken them anywhere that it's so dark and remote (at least while there's been clear skies) so they were all amazed at the number of stars up there, and the shooting stars they could see, and being able to see the milky way (even if faintly). I suspect if we'd still been up there this week we would have been able to see the northern lights and that would blow their minds! Every night some of them took their hot chocolates and just went outside to look at the stars in wonder.
I guess we often forget to take pleasure in the simple things like seeing the stars (or for me the peace and quiet and being cut off from everything, well once the girls finally went to sleep anyway).


But on the topic of different stars I've made some progress with the bright starry quilt for my friend. I'm about half way there with the big blocks but still have a few small ones to get started on.


My favourite blocks are the pink and purple and the green and grey. My sister is very drawn to the blue and blue block.

Thursday 9 February 2012

Cup of tea anyone?

I've managed to achieve something already in 2012. A finished quilt! Granted its actually a tiny coaster (or mug rug to Americans) but its made and quilted none the same so counts as a quilt in my world.
It was actually an experiment. I just got a Dresden ruler and I'm rather keen on making a full Dresden plate quilt so this was a good trial of using that and it was also a chance to test out the new sewing machine at appliqué! I think the tiny blanket stitch I used looks rather fab and much better then when I made cushions for my grandparents on my old sewing machine. Being able to limit the speed and keep the needle down really helps.
In use

yes, my sewing area is that dark!


I've also finally received all the fabric I need for my friends quilt so I can finally start making it. Just need to pluck up the courage to cut into the nice fabric. Oh dear.

Don't worry - I actually have rather a lot more of the cream since it's the background colour

Let's see how far I get in the next few days.