Stars And Scraps Quilt Top

I have finished making all the blocks for the Stars and Scraps Quilt. I was forced to keep it at this size as I ran out of the flowery fabric which I was using in each star block and couldn't get hold of any more. It is a large lap blanket size, so good for snuggling on the sofa. Here is the quilt top laid out in my design space (the lounge floor!), planning the final layout before I sewed it together.

Here it is all sewn together and ready for the lovely spotty backing fabric I bought.

 

 

I'm afraid I did make a slight error when sewing these blocks together. I'd forgotten to reduce the stitch length after doing the quilting on my Stripey Quilt. This meant that the blocks were splitting quite badly at the seams. Not good. You can see this most clearly in the white block on the top right. I ended up re-sewing some of the seams to secure them properly. Oh well, it's all a learning curve!

 

 

Actually, do you remember me talking about my friend in Japan, Matsuo San? Well I have decided that this quilt will be a gift for her. I hope she likes it!

Socks!

I have knitted my first pair socks. I must confess it has taken an age because after finishing one I kind of lost interest halfway through the second! I suppose that is what happens when you have mahoosive feet like mine! Anyway, they are complete now and keeping my tootsies lovely and snuggly as I type this.

I know, swit swoo!

 

These socks are 'Toe-Up Traditional Socks'. The pattern is available in the pattern book 'Knitting 24/7' by Veronik Avery and features some stunning patterns and photography. Happily, this book was a Christmas present from last year - I am a lucky lady, thank you Angharad!

The wool I used was Regia Color 4-ply (a sock yarn). The multi-colour was wonderful to knit with as each stitch came out a different colour. I think the finished effect is like a Monet painting. Beautiful.

Fireplacetastic!

Our reclaimed fireplace has finally been fitted and it's wonderful. I am thrilled with how it has turned out (and the money we have saved by going reclaimed). It is fab to have a working fire again because it has recently turned really cold in York, we even had a bit of snow yesterday. Brrr.

Anyway Ta Dah!

We used slate polish on the hearth and grate polish on the cast iron section so the whole thing is really sparkling. It is actually hard to believe that this is the same fireplace as the transformation is so complete. Here is a quick reminder of its original appearance. Haha!

 

 

I can't leave you with that hideous image, so here's one more photo of the finished article. So thrilled.

 

 



 



Super Spotty Backing Fabric

I've found the most gorgeous fabric for the back of my Stars and Scraps quilt. It's a fab spotty print and the colours look like they were made to go with my quilt. It's perfect. Oh Yeah!

If you love it too (and how could you not) it's called Bake Spot, by Makower UK. I bought 2m from 

John Lewis.

Stained Glass Sneak Peek

Here's a sneaky look at my stained glass window. Ooh!

 

Only a few hundred more pieces to cut. Wish me luck it's horribly nerve wracking!

Stars and Scraps quilt

I am feeling so inspired with the quilting. I just love my Stripey Quilt and I really want more around the house. Luckily, I've got loads of fabric left over as I'd seriously over estimated how much I'd need. Anyway Cluck Cluck Sew (I LOVE her blog - so gorgeous) has come to my rescue again with her beautiful Star Blocks tutorial. I've already made a good start and the blocks come together really quickly. The ironing is a bit of a pain though!

I've set myself a design rule to tie it all together. Each star block will have one random bright portion, one of the flowery fabric (Buddy Bears by Fabri-Quilt) and a white. The bright colours and the flowery fabric are just what I have in my leftovers. Yay!

Stained Glass Window

Well, I've already shown you the glass I'm using for my project in the stained glass evening class, but I haven't yet shared my design. I'm hoping to replace a glass panel in my lounge - it's basically a side panel to the door. Until last week we actually has a glass door too, but we've finally replaced it with a reclaimed oak panel door and it looks so much nicer. I can't wait to replace the side panel, the striped safety glass is awful. I'm focussing on just the top pane at the moment as it's quite large (110cm x 39cm). Maybe I'll attempt the bottom pane in the future if this one goes well.

My design is quite simple but hopefully will look good in glass. Circles and squares.

What do you think? I'll be tackling it this evening so wish me luck!

Quilting Is Catching!

My younger sister (Minnie Loves...) asked that I show her how to quilt. We made a start this weekend. She has decided on a half square triangles (hst) pattern. I must say her cutting was not the most accurate I have ever seen. Somehow none of the pieces seemed to fit together! Here she is hard at work.

As she loves anything vintage she has been collecting old fabrics for a while. She has got some gorgeous, retro, 1970s prints. Yeah!

She decided to use plain white to contrast with the prints so each block will be half 70s print and half white. I think it's going to be lovely. Good Luck Anna!

Beautiful Glass

I've bought some gorgeous glass for my main stained glass project. It was really good fun going to a stained glass shop for the first time and picking out lovely glass colours. I went to Kansa as its fairly close to Sheffield (my hometown) and I was there anyway for a wedding. I must admit I'd been after something totally different colourwise (yellows, reds, blues and greens), but when I looked at these colours together in the shop they looked a bit too garish - too many primary colours. In the end I went for all blues, greens and clears!

Gorgeous aren't they? Hopefully my final design will look as beautiful as these glass pieces do. Ooh I can't wait to get glass cutting this Wednesday evening.

Birthday Cake

It was Mum's 60th birthday recently so a serious celebration cake was required. I made flower paste roses in a delicate pink and yellow. I love working with flower paste but be warned it can be very time consuming. If you want to have a go yourself, there are loads of tutorials available on YouTube.

Here are the flower paste roses drying on tissue paper in an egg box, I suspect this is not how the profesionals do it. They look a bit bright at this stage but they do fade slightly as they dry to give a more subtle colour. I mixed two varying shades of both the pink and the yellow to give a more authentic rose look - the inner petals are a slightly darker shade than the outer petals. Ingenious.

 

This is the finished article, a Victoria Sponge covered in marzipan and roll-out icing. It was honestly one of the hottest days of the year so working with the roll-out icing was a nightmare. And yes, I am making excuses for the dint in the icing!

 

 

Yum yum, love you Mum.

xxx



The Best Laid Plans

We've had a bit of an incident. First I'll show you the good part. We finally got the new tiles into the cast iron insert. It was a bit of a challenge as the screws holding the old tiles in had corroded quite badly.

The new tiles look fab don't they?

BUT not 10 seconds after I'd taken this picture, a tile broke whilst we were trying to secure them.

Poop! Boo Hoo! The only solution was to hot-foot it over to Harrogate and buy two more of the cream spacer tiles from Fired Earth. It was a huffy drive over let me tell you!

The final fireplace won't be quite as fab, but needs must. I'll update again when it's finally fitted!

Fireplace Tiles

Back to the eBay fireplace that I originally posted about here and here. Further progress has been made. I really love the cast iron insert (it actually turns out to be a Stovax Art Nouveaux) but the existing tiles just HAVE to go! To that end I've been on the look out for some reclaimed tiles and I finally saw the perfect ones. I'm not sure if they're repro or actually old but either way I'm happy as they are simply stunning, such a beautiful colour and pattern.

Lovely aren't they?

As there were only 6 reclaimed tiles, I needed 4 others to tie-in (10 total - 5 each side). Actually a little tip here - the fact that there were only 6 tiles made them far cheaper than if there had been the full complement of 10 tiles, so if you are happy to find something that works as a spacer tile you can save quite a bit of cash.

Fired Earth sell some beautiful tiles and I managed to get some cream 6" x 6" crackled cream tiles that look wonderful (called Iron Bridge Verdigris) and are a perfect match colour wise to the cream portion of the reclaimed tile. They also have the crackle glaze that gives them an antique look.

It's all starting to come together! I just can't wait to have a working fireplace once more.

Stripey Quilt Finished!

Well I have done it, my first quilt is complete. It didn't find it too difficult to do and I really am out of practice with the sewing machine. If you're tempted to try quilting yourself I say get to it! I really really like the colours and texture and can't wait to get snuggling. In fact, I think it will live on my sofa especially for that purpose. Well it is nearly Winter.

I kept the quilting very simple and just 'stitched in the ditch' (where the seams are). When trying to decide which fabric to use for the back of the quilt there was really no contest. It had to be my favourite flowery one - Buddy Bears by Fabri-Quilt. Actually, I think it is supposed to be a childrens' fabric but never mind.

Choosing the binding was difficult as I'd already used so many colours in the quilt. In the end, I used a simple black and white stripe bought locally at Fletchers Fabrics. It really seems to create a nice frame for the quilt and sets off the bright colours.

Finally, here is the quilt in use! The husband had man flu. A terrible affliction...

Pah!

Fireplace Surround

Do you remember this monstrosity? Lets focus on the wooden surround. The dark varnish, the LIONS CLAWS for goodness sake. Just no.

Something needed to be done, but what? I am certainly no DIY expert and didn't have a clue where to start. Luckily I have a friend who is a joiner and he has done a wonderful job in reworking the surround. First he stripped the varnish to reveal the actual wood (it turns out to be a good quality pine), removed the hideous lions feet embellishments and added a simplified trim (trying for more of an arts & crafts look). Finally he waxed the wood to give it a lovely natural finish.

I think it's wonderful. I cannot believe it's the same surround, can you?

Cake Cake Cake

Well the Christmas cake baking continues apace and the house smell delicious.
First I prepare the dry ingredients. As I have a conveyor belt approach to making the cakes, I tend to weigh out the dried fruit and then leave them overnight. A glug of brandy helps moisten them up. You are sensing a theme - non?

The cake batter mix comes next. Sorry it's not the most delicious looking picture!

 

The cake mix and fruit are combined, but you'll have to take my word for it as I forgot to take a photo!

 

Finally the cakes are baked for 2.5 hours. Don't you just love the brown paper coverings? It's supposed to protect the cakes in the oven.

 

After allowing the cakes to fully cool, they are fed with brandy (ha!), turned upside down, wrapped in tin foil and stored in an air tight tub. I tend to feed them every few weeks to really enhance the flavour. Oh yum, roll on Christmas.



Stripey Quilt

Well my first quilt top is finished and I am so pleased with it. It doesn't quite look like the original design, but I didn't have quite enough width in my fabric as I'd bought fat quarters. Oops. The colours are wonderful though.

The next steps are to add the backing, wadding and a binding. I'll be following these fab instructions - the Beginning Quilting Series from Diary of a Quilter.

Christmas Starts Here!

It's that time if year again when thoughts turn to Christmas in the Evans household. Every year I bake six traditional fruit cakes for my friends and family. They need to be prepared early so that they can be liberally fed with brandy. Mine are boozy little numbers make no mistake.

You'll notice the massive bottle of brandy. My husband Tim informs me it evaporates. Hmmm.

Lovely Gifts or Omiyage

About a year after leaving University me and my sister Vicky went on an adventure and lived and worked in Japan for a year. Japan is a wonderful country - we had a fantastic time and met some lovely people. Matsuo san (Mrs Matsuo) ran a lovely sake shop which we passed walking into work meaning we bumped into her most days. She would regularly give us food parcels as I think she worried about us wasting away (no such luck!). She really looked after us and we've written regularly since our return to the UK - it has been eight years since we last met.

I'd love to see her again.

Occasionally she surprises us with a lovely gift. This is the latest, I think the artist is a local friend of hers.

The writing on them both says 'thank you'. I think I owe Matsuo san a big thank you, don't you?

Stained Glass Star Finished!

I've just got back from my stained glass course and couldn't wait to share this with you. My finished stained glass star. Ta dah!

 

If I'm honest the soldering could have gone better so please don't look too closely. There is a hanging loop made from copper wire attached to the top point - I'll get a nice ribbon to loop through. You will notice I added beads to each point of the star. It's pretty nutty. Reflective of its maker perhaps?

 

Roll on Christmas, I can't wait to decorate my tree!

Lovely Little Lady

I actually knitted this cardigan a while ago, it was only the second thing I ever knitted (I took a beginners knitting evening class last year). I made it for my niece whilst my sister was still pregnant with her. Looking back I think I must have known she was having a girl because everything I knitted was totally girlie! Maybe?!

Anyway the reason I'm posting about it today is that it finally fits and doesn't she look as cute as a button?

Oh I could just eat her up!

The pattern was a freebie from Ravelry. If you are a member of Ravelry the pattern is Tulip Yoke Baby Cardigan, by Jennifer Little. I used Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino which comes in lots of colours. It was really lovely to knit with, very soft, which is good as I cannot stand itchy wool. Yuck. Anyway I am certainly no expert knitter but this pattern was fairly straightforward - whenever I get stuck I just look on YouTube, somebody has always done a tutorial.

Quilting

I'm feeling inspired to try a bit of quilting, since reading this tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew. Isn't it gorgeous? I actually haven't used a sewing machine since finishing my GCSE in textiles 15 years ago (Eep!). Anyway, I've been given my Mum's sewing machine on long term loan - so I'm good to go.
I've bought some lovely fabrics from The Viking Loom in York and cut them into 2" strips. What do you think? My favourite is the flowery one on the left, it's so pretty.

 

Now I just need to get the sewing machine threaded and I'm good to go.

Stained Glass Star(t)

I'm very excited to have started an evening stained glass class. I've already had two lessons and I'm loving it. My first project is a small copperfoil star for my Christmas tree.

 

Cute!

Holes in Walls

I am in desperate need of a new fireplace. We (the lovely Tim and I) have had a hideous gas fire and back boiler for the last 5 years. I wish I'd taken a photo of it for you, though I think I'd be too embarrassed to share it! We finally got a brand new boiler (yay!) but it has left us with a gaping hole in the living room (boo!).

 

We decided to be thrifty and bought this reclaimed little beauty from ebay for £156.

 

 

 Yes, I know it's hideous but bear with me - more to follow.

Simple Pleasures

This makes me so happy! There are no excuses now for pins getting lost in the lounge carpet. Phew.