Sometimes ......

life hits you in the solar plexus and you have to be strong and cope.

A few years ago The Young One's best friend, Magaly, lost her Mum. She committed suicide.

We were heart broken.

We then lost contact with our lovely Magaly.

About a year later Magaly re-entered our lives. After many moves of home and school she now lives in Libourne with her father, step-mother and two brothers, but Magaly is part of our family. She is a sister to TYO, another daughter to me and when she "comes home" for the holidays TYO and I are overjoyed.

For the first time she will be spending her birthday with us and I have been persuaded to make a "friendship quilt".

Friendship quilts are the ones I make for TYO's friends, like the one I made for Fanny last year.

This was whipped up in 3 days under secrecy.  Hidden on the design wall under the Amish quilt when it was being pieced and under the cutting mat when I was waiting to bind it!

I'd like to thank Tonya for the background fabric.  I hope you don't mind that I used some of it for this mini quilt.  I know you donated lots to Quilts 4 Leukaemia, but I thought you wouldn't mind me using just a little bit for this.

Magaly's birthday is on Friday and if you fancy wishing her a happy birthday you can find her through my family on FB.

Reset to Zero

I go off line for a week and come back to over 280 blog posts. Arrggghhh!

Reset to zero and carry on sewing.

But wait!  Is that sun?  Woohoo!

Sans Internet

Due to my Anti Virus program deciding that it needed the updated version, not once, but twice, I'm without internet until midnight on Monday next.  I'm typing this in the local internet café.

I hope by that time I'll have the top of my Liberated Amish partly done.

See you next week.

Busy Encore

and loving it.

Just needed to know when to stop.

Remember Emma 191B and how I found her?

Well she's working very very hard and she's purring like a good'un.  This is one good sewing machine.

Busy busy busy

and the sun has come out!  Woohoo!

Chaos Reigns Supreme

There is so much going on here at Worthy Towers that I'm having great difficulty in deciding what to do next.

I've finally finished the LiFE mini quilt for AAQI.

I've jettisoned the Love quilt I made and have given it to The Young One.  I cut myself badly while quilting it and got blood everywhere, then the binding was too short and I had to make a bridge between the beginning and the end, and I'm not happy about the quilting.  No photo as I'm not very proud of it.

Another block done for the Liberated Amish Get Together

and as you can see from the first photo, I'm still adding colours.

I'm hoping to get some more blocks done this afternoon.  It's so darn cold here that there is really nothing else to do.

Oh for some sun!

Home is Where Mum is

Home should be here in France, but to me home is where Mum lives.


Dearest sister, Sophie - her of Leukaemia fame - has posted on her blog about her flight in a Tiger Moth last summer and has uploaded some beautiful photos of home, not to mention lovely Tolly who I'm going to meet for the first time next May.

Hop over and take a look.

Makes me feel home sick.

A Letter

Some weeks ago I had the proverbial severely kicked by Tonya, picked up my pen keyboard and wrote to Gwen Marston, telling her about the Liberated Quilters web ring and the Yahoo! group.

I'm useless at writing letters and thought she'd take one look at this badly written letter and chuck it in the bin.

She didn't!

I got a reply on Wednesday.

 

She says she is "both surprised and happy to learn that there are so many Liberated quilters out there.  That is just great!!!!".

Keep an eye on her web site.  The web ring and group may just get a mention some day!

Wordless Wednesday

The First Block is the Hardest

It's so long since I "stitched and flipped" that I forgot how to do it.

But I did remember eventually and here is the first block.

The original colour plan has gone out the window.

Providing I end up with the blue in the centre and the purple at the ends, I don't really care what goes in between!

Merging Ideas

I've been thinking about how to liberated my choice - No. 60 Roman Stripes - as I think it is liberated enough.  Trust me to pick a liberated quilt to liberate!

Unable to sleep last night and getting excited by the colour combination I am hoping to use, at 2.00 am I could be found going through Liberated String Quilts and - bingo!  I'm going to use Gwen's Amish Rectangular String Quilt (page 67) as part of my inspiration and V's Waverunner as the inner border.

I've already cut 18 7 inch foundation squares from baking parchment (hope the machine can stand up to that) and am now cutting strips.

If I can't sleep tonight I shall be taking the sewing equipment downstairs to the kitchen so I don't keep The Old One awake.

Watch this space!

Decision Made

That's more like it!

(dreadful photo - sorry)

and I've found a way of quilting in a straight line.  You know what I'm like - can't cut or sew straight, even with a ruler.

Masking tape to the rescue!

Wordless Wednesday

Procrastinating

I'm very good at that.

Do I? Don't I?

Shall I? Shan't I?

Which is why sometimes I need a good kick up the proverbial to get me going.

I think I need one now.

Fabric for the Liberated Amish Get Together.

Option 1

 

The bright bright yellow is more of a sickly green which actually goes quite well.  However I may take it out and replace with a sort of beige colour.

Oh help!  Decisions.  Decisions.  Decisions.

Option 2

(the more I think about it, it is probably not an option)

Definitely not an option - yuk!

Note to self - give the batiks a rest!

I think perhaps Option I needs some fiddling about with.  Shall I bung in some red just for the heck of it?

Definitely procrastinating.

S is for Strings (or Stripes)

I've joined Tonya's Liberated Amish Get Together 2010.

We have to select a quilt from the Brown's Amish Quilt Collection, liberate the design in solids and throw some letters or numbers in for good measure.  Right up my street!  Easy Peasey Lemon Squeezy.  Not!

I couldn't make my mind up and none of the quilts in the Brown Collection spoke to me.  So I flicked through LQI and LQII for inspiration and decided on the star quilt on the opposite page to Gwenny's Variable Stars in LQI.  I think the quilt is called Matthew's Stars, but can't remember.

Wasn't really happy with that either so I got The Old One and The Young One to cast their votes.

The winner is Quilt No 60.  The Young One wants it either on her bed or on her wall so that is that.

Next task is to start pulling the fabrics, but I've got to clear the decks first.