I’m making good progress on my Seaside quilt, this is the quilt designed by Kathryn Whittingham, the same designer as my favourite Cottage Garden quilt. This one is a similar layout but with seaside themed blocks, it reminds me of happy holidays in Whitby with my kids when they were little.
When I last posted about this quilt three weeks ago I was just over half way…
So over the last couple of weeks I have been working on the remaining blocks of the middle row. The next square one which balances with the little row of cottages was of three seagulls. I think many people have a love hate relationship with these raucous birds, they are noisy, big and sometimes quite scary birds – they think nothing of taking a sandwich from your hand. They are also part of the seaside atmosphere and as such you couldn’t have a seaside quilt without them!
There’s a fair bit of embroidery in these bigger blocks, especially with all the french knots to give a bit of texture to the sand dunes and the waves. I used pistil stitch too for the waves as it just sort of lengthens the french knot .
There were two more 4.5″ blocks to embroider too, another beach hut and an anchor. I’d stitched the lollipop at the beginning of the quilt when I stitched the ice-cream block. The anchor and the rope were a bit fiddly to cut out and position as the rope is threaded through a little hole cut in the anchor, but once it was stitched down with blanket stitch it was really effective.
This is the forth of six beach hut blocks I’ve stitched for the quilt. I’m not sure how much beach huts are mainly a British institution, so here’s a photo my friend Nancy took of beach huts down on the south coast…
The beach huts in Whitby are more of a uniform set of primary colours, which look very cheerful, but there obviously isn’t the opportunity to personalise your hut, I love the pale blue one.
With all the blocks stitched I could choose some 2’5″ squares to add to them and start stitching them together. I’m trying to get a balance with the little squares, mixing nautical, floral and abstract fabrics and scattering the more dominant colours, I’m getting a bit quicker at this now there’s more quilt done. The middle row is now finished…
I love the cheerfulness of this quilt, it definitely shouts British Seaside to me. I carefully pinned the top row and the middle row together and stitched the long seam, it went together perfectly…
Just one more row to make and then I can choose some borders and then start hand quilting it. I’ve already got in my mind how I’m going to quilt it, hopefully it won’t take too long.
The designer of this quilt, Kathryn Whittingham of Patchwork Katy, kindly gave me a copy of this book, but the views and opinions are my own. The book is easily available from her website, together with the Cottage Garden Quilt book, I’ve really enjoyed making these quilts and the instructions are great, aimed at someone with no experience.
Hand Quilt Along Links
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Helen and I had a few days in the Lake District last week, staying in a lovely flat above the Wheatsheaf Inn in Lorton. Lorton is nicely situated in between Keswick and Buttermere, so all my favourite places to walk were within easy reach.
I spent lots of childhood holidays staying in Keswick, as a family we spent a fortnight each August in a guest house in Keswick, walking each day in the area. I first walked up Catbells under my own steam when I was four years old, bribed with squares of Kendal Mint Cake! In my late teens and early twenties I went up for a holiday each year with a friend of mine, spreading our wings a bit further to climb mountains like Great Gable and Helvellyn. Once I moved back to Yorkshire I could just about do it as a day trip with friends…Keswick and Derwentwater is my special place, it’s where I run to when things are bad, but also where I go to celebrate the good things!
Our first climb was Haystacks which is at the bottom end of Buttermere. It’s a great walk, it’s not big but it’s still quite a challenge. We planned to park in a little carpark at the end of the lake but when we got there there was a notice that it was closed for a couple of weeks. It turned out it was for a film crew, they were filming part of Mission Impossible there! Now I can’t say I’ve ever watched a Mission Impossible but we still waited a couple of minutes when we heard a helicopter coming in to land with Tom Cruise inside. Unfortunately they took off as soon as they landed, though he did wave through the window!
It’s a steady uphill climb to the top of Haystacks, a bit rocky but manageable. At the top it’s quite craggy, so it’s hands and feet time, I quite like that kind of scrambling. There’s about three small tarns on the top too. We found a spot with a good view for our lunch, the photo shows Buttermere in the foreground and Crummock Water behind…
On the other side was Great Gable, hiding behind a little cloud.
We descended down the other side, making a circular walk, a good walk though a bit of a challenge.
On Wednesday we spent the morning mooching round Keswick, walked through Hope Park so we could see the lovely statue of Max the springer spaniel. Max helped his owner Kerry through a really bad depression and eventually Kerry started sharing photos of Max and their walks on facebook and he has become quite a local celebrity. Kerry has three springers now, Max, Paddy and Harry and he shares his walks with the dogs on facebook, they love jetty jumping! He organises charity dog walks and has raised a lot of money and a lot of awareness of mental health issues.. The statue is lovely.
We sat on the benches overlooking the launch jetty for our lunch, Catbells is just behind the island, the one in the middle with a bobble on top is Causey Pike and the triangular one behind is Grisedale Pike.
We decided to walk up Catbells in the afternoon, I’ve been up many times, it’s very popular as it’s not too big but has amazing views. This also means that there’s a lot of erosion of the paths so every so often the National Park authority do some work to slightly re-route the zigzag up the fell. It may be my imagination (it’s about 5 years since I last climbed Catbells) but it felt a much more challenging route. There’s a lot of scrambling up craggy bits, but it’s so popular that the rocks have been polished smooth, so it was difficult to get a good grip or foot hole. We eventually climbed to the final section of the ascent, we saw a couple following a little path to the side which did look easier…at the beginning!
The path got narrower and narrower, but it also came over to the front of Catbells, rather than above the ridge, so if I looked down there was just a very steep hill drop to the bottom of the mountain and nothing to stop a fall! To add to my concerns, there was no firm rocks to hold onto, just grass and the path had little grip…it was one of those times when you don’t want to move forward but you know you have no choice as we couldn’t go backwards. Eventually I crawled over the final few rocks to the summit, very relieved to be able to sit on the top and eat my lunch.
The view from the top is amazing, I climbed up there in my younger days to watch the sunrise, it rose over Blencathra (to the right) as mist settled over the lake.
The walk down the other side was uneventful, in future I’ll have to go up and down the same way. I have to admit it has completely knocked my confidence at walking the Lakeland fells, I felt it was too much of a responsibility for my walking companions. It probably didn’t help that it was Catbells, which I’ve walked so many times and have a special little place for in my heart. I love walking in the lakes, it has a completely different feel to walking in the dales, I love that feeling of being on top of the world, but we’re thinking in future of using a mountain guide as they will know the more accessible routes.
On Thursday we did a much easier walk, we parked near Ashness Gate by Derwentwater and walked up the steep and winding road to Ashness bridge, stopping briefly at Surprise View…
The little packhorse bridge at Ashness is one of the most photographed views in the Lakes, with it’s backdrop of Derwentwater and Skiddaw. Unfortunately it was full of photographers standing in the way with their tripods and long lenses!!
We carried on walking along the hanging valley to Watendlath, a lovely little hamlet next to a tarn. We didn’t linger too much there either as there’s a hydro-electric pump being built so it wasn’t particularly peaceful! We continued over the fell and down to Rosthwaite in Borrowdale.
From there we could follow the Cumbrian Way path to Grange, where we had a very welcome cup of tea before walking across the duckboards to Lodore and back to the car. The weather was a bit moody but we didn’t need to put our waterproofs on all day. Despite our grumblings about the photographers etc we had a lovely walk, it was a great circular route without the scary craggy bits!
I was amazed to find we had walked nearly 11 miles. It’s the furthest I’ve walked since my operation and subsequent infection, so I was well chuffed with myself. Usually my friend and I find that however long the walk is, the last mile is hard work, but this time I still had some energy in reserve!
Of course we did manage to do a little fabric shopping! On the way home we stopped in Kendal to visit Cool Crafting – the home of Luna Lapin! It’s a lovely shop, much bigger than I expected, of course we couldn’t come away empty-handed, I bought a shirt length in a soft striped cotton – and I’ve already cut out a shirt!
It was lovely to have a few days with my daughter, I’ve managed to pass on my love of the Lakes as she has now set herself the challenge of walking all the Wainrights! I had a bit of a ‘woe is me’ day afterwards as sometimes it does feel like everything I enjoy doing is either bad for my neck or not safe due to my balance, I gave myself a good talking to, helped by my friend being keen to use the mountain guides too, and picked myself up again…I think it’s Ingleborough next 🙂
I spent a lovely few days last week in the Lake District with my daughter Helen. We walked during the day and as usual I had a little sewing with me to do in the evenings. I managed a bit of a catch up on my blackwork piece. This is a SAL by Peppermint Purple, mainly on her facebook page, each week for the whole year another square or rectangle of pattern is released. I’m adding to the complication by incorporating a picture of Catbells withing the design. Last time I shared it with you I was just over half way…
The bottom row in shades of grey is the start of the reflection of Catbells in Derwentwater. I find it easier to sort the colours out if I do a few tiles at a time, this time I’ve been mainly working on the right hand side, the tiles do vary alot in terms of how much concentration they require! I managed another five whilst we were away…
It’s also interesting to see how the darkness of a square is more to do with the density of the stitching than the actual shade of thread.
So Catbells is taking shape, though I still haven’t decided whether to back-stitch the outline of Catbells or leave it as it is. My feeling at the moment is that it needs an outline to make it a bit clearer, but I think I’ll wait until it’s finished before I decide. I’ve a lot of border still to do too!
If you fancy a go at blackwork, there’s lots of lovely designs on Peppermint Purple and usually several stitch-a-longs too.
These three week cycles seem to come round awfully quickly! Three weeks ago I’d just finished another section of this gorgeous stitch-a-long by Faby Reilly…
At the beginning of this SAL Faby explained that there would be two levels of stitching, intermediate and advanced, so I knew at some point there would be some stumpwork to try. I’ve done a little stumpwork over the years but not a lot, so I was looking forward to it. This next section has a beautiful stumpwork dragonfly, it was a bit of a challenge but I love it.
The changes in stitches happened from the beginning with the stems stitched using whipped back-stitch instead of just plain back-stitch. I thought it might make it look a bit bulky but it doesn’t, it seems to smooth it out and raise it off the background.
Once all the background cross-stitch was complete, there was the dragonfly’s eye to stitch, this is padded satin stitch using the cross-stitch underneath to pad it out to a lovely curved shape.
Next to stitch was the body / tail of the dragonfly. This is stitched using woven picot stitch. Basically a framework of three straight threads is made by looping thread round a pin or needle and the threads are then woven from top to bottom. The difficulty is keeping the width even as you progress down. My first attempt was too fat, my dragonfly didn’t look at all aerodynamic! I cut it off and started again. This time I put the tip of my needle in the loop next to the base threads as I was pulling my thread through. This meant I could pull the thread more firmly without distorting previous rows and keep a neater line. I also carefully moved the anchor pin a few milimetres further out once I’d woven about a third of the tail, this helped keep the base threads taut. It worked, I’m happy with my second tail, the end is anchored to the fabric with a couple of little stitches.
The final piece of stumpwork was the wing. This is stitched on organza incorporating wire to hold it’s shape. This again took two attempts, but that’s because I had a bit of a senior moment and didn’t follow the instructions properly!! I had a few days away in the Lakes this week with my daughter so I’d quickly packed a few needlework projects to do in the evening, including my dragonfly. I didn’t realise that I hadn’t packed all the instructions, the vital page with the outline for the wing was missing! In a moment (or several hours!!) of madness I thought Ooh, I’ll just use the outline from the cross-stitch pattern…of course that is printed at 10 to the inch, my stitching is 16 to the inch, so I now have a beautiful, large dragonfly wing, bigger than the whole dragonfly!! Once back home I found the correct size and made another one…the wire is shaped and then stitched to the organza with an overstitch or buttonhole. I found a lovely organza in my stash in lovely shades of blue and green, it works really well. I used buttonhole, the first time I’d used a single thread and it took forever! This time I used two threads and it did cover more easily..but it isn’t as delicate. I also used some of the metallic thread to add a few veins on the wing. Once it was stitched I applied a fine line of fraycheck on the edge before cutting it out right next to the stitching. The wires are then inserted through the linen and attached on the back. I’m pretty pleased with the wing, I think my double thread for the buttonhole has made it a bit bulky, but I didn’t fancy doing a third wing! Next time I’ll follow the instructions more carefully!!
By the time I post about my dragonfly again I’ll hopefully have finished the final section, then we just need to learn how to stitch it all together. If you fancy making this needle-case, just follow the link to Faby Reilly designs, she’s got lots of beautiful cross-stitch designs.
This stitch-a-long is organised by Avis from Stitching by the Sea, we all post our progress on our own choice of embroidery every three weeks, please follow the links to see what everyone else has been stitching.
I’m in a finishing sort of mood at the moment. I happened to look at the fabric folder where I keep quilt blocks waiting to be made up and embroideries waiting to be made into something and it’s bulging at the edges!!
I’ve taken two embroideries to be framed. I haven’t had anything framed recently, partly because I am seriously running out of wall space, but I’m so pleased with these that I felt they deserved to be framed.
The embroidery of my two children walking along the beach was a stitchclub challenge, it’s very simple but it works. It was made by tracing a photo onto tissue paper and then embroidering straight through. It’s being framed with a simple off white mount and a sort of denim blue frame.
The second piece is the Leafy Tree embroidery by Mary Corbett of Needle’n’thread. I love the colours and all the different stitches in this piece.
My stitchwheel was also waiting to be finished. I have an idea to have a display of hoop art above my cutting area. Sometime ago I ordered some pretty painted embroidery hoops from Etsy in several different sizes. Although I hadn’t yet used them I went back to the same Etsy Shop (Emma Astle Embroidery) and asked her to paint one in a dark purple. It goes perfectly with the greens and purples of my stitchwheel.
I didn’t fancy using glue to secure this piece of work in the hoop so I trimmed it and then laced the back. It wasn’t perfectly flat, but it was enough for me to stitch the felt on later.
On the back I wanted to have the names of all the stitches, I decided to write them on a cotton interfaced circle, which I could then iron onto felt. Of course despite writing it out in rough first I still missed one out, so there’s asterisks where that one is meant to be!! I used a silver gel pen and just wrote it as legibly as I could.
My original idea was to stitch the felt circle on with a neat buttonhole stitch but that proved too tricky so I just overstitched it on. I’m pleased with it, it looks neat from the front and I can identify the stitches on the back.
The last embroidery to be ‘finished’ is a little Rowandean kit I stitched a few months ago. I like the Rowandean designs, they’re simple to sew but very effective. I usually make a bee-line for their stand at the big Knitting and Stitching Show as they have a stitching table where for £5 you can stitch one of their designs, it’s a little oasis amid the hustle and bustle of a show.
I decided to use one of the smaller painted hoops, this one is a soft green with purple flowers on. I did glue this one and then glued a circle of card on the back to neaten it all off…
All I need now is to find the picture hooks and a hammer and start hanging them.
It’s National Balance Week this week, a week started by VeDA (Vestibular Disorders Association) to raise awareness of the issues those of us who have balance problems contend with. It covers a range of disorders from Meniere’s disease, vertigo and people like me who have bilateral vestibular failure.
It’s often a difficult concept to understand when someone says they have no balance. With me it means my ears do nothing towards my balance, so I only have my leg muscles and vision to help me stay upright. My brain also doesn’t compensate for head movements, so as I walk my field of vision wobbles, even sat still things are rarely still. This also means it’s difficult to recognise people or read signs when I’m walking as I can’t focus on a moving object. A couple of years ago I made a short video of life through my eyes, it’s on Youtube if you want to watch, only a couple of minutes long.
Having been like this for about 15 years, I’ve learnt to cope and I know my limitations, I’m best in a well lit, level environment, if I lose my visual cues from being in the dark (or bright sunlight even) or if the ground is uneven or soft, I’m a lot more likely to fall – I’m pretty good at falling, touch wood so far I’ve not hurt myself!
I find it easier if I have a third point of contact when I’m walking round anywhere that’s uneven, going down steps I always use the hand rail, round the garden I have strategically placed metal poles which I call my wobble sticks, just something to hold onto when I’m in the middle of a flower bed…
If I’m walking on the fells I always use two walking poles and my walking friend is well tuned in to what will cause me issues, we have quite a good routine now, if it’s a tricky accent she goes behind just to make sure I don’t topple backwards, if it’s a tricky descent she goes in front, not to stop my fall but because I find it easier with just a short distance to concentrate on. Sometimes just having a steep drop next to the path is enough to give me collywobbles, even if the path it’self is OK, it’s that thought of what if I wobble now!
The last couple of years has been a steep learning curve as I discovered the effects on the rest of my body of my coping mechanisms. If you’re more likely to fall over if you move your head, you avoid moving your head, if your vision bounces as you walk, you try and walk more smoothly, which is from the hips, not the abdominal muscles. Unfortunately this resulted in my neck losing it’s movement range, my whole spine stiffening up and my pelvis becoming tilted as my leg muscles tightened in all the wrong places…which then affected my knees! Lots of physio and pilates from Sue at Flexible Healing here in Otley and Wesley at the Valley Clinic in Ilkley and I’m moving much better, with just the side effect of falling down more! My physio looked somewhat shocked when I said I must be moving better as I’m falling over more 🙂
Lack of balance is another one of those invisible disabilities, there’s nothing to alert others that you have issues. So if you see me walking in a wobbly line at 11o’clock in the morning, I’m unlikely to be tipsy, so I really don’t appreciate someone shouting at me ‘can’t you walk in a straight line’ as has happened a couple of times recently. One day someone is going to catch me on a bad day and I might just lose it!
There’s much worse things to have go wrong than balance, it’s manageable…and it doesn’t stop me sewing! This week is just about raising awareness about the problems the go with having a balance problem.
I’ve started another mystery quilt-a-long…I know, I’ve enough QAL’s and SAL’s to sink a ship! There’s method in my madness though!
A couple of years ago I bought a Christmas fabric layer cake on one of the facebook destash pages. I liked it as it’s not the usual red and green, it’s in a soft blue, darker red and beige. It’s a Moda layer cake by Three Sisters called Holly Woods. For the non-quilters amongst you, a layer cake is a collection of about 42 different coordinated fabrics with just a 10″ square of each. The fabric requirements for this Christmas QAL was just one layer cake and some background fabric.
I went to the Harrogate Quilt Show on Saturday, it’s the first one I’ve been to since all the lock-downs started, it was lovely to be able to just wander round and see lots of fabric and lots of stunning quilts. I was pretty restrained on the fabric front with just two lengths of plain cotton for backgrounds…though we won’t mention the new to me sewing machine I wasn’t planning to buy!!!
Anyway, back to the QAL, it’s on the Fat Quarter Shop website, it’s called All the Trimmings. They use black for the background, making their traditional red and green fabric really pop. I bought some ivory in case my other plan didn’t work, but I also bought a sort of French navy and it works perfectly with the layer cake.
The pattern is a row by row quilt, the instructions for each row are released on a Tuesday. So yesterday I printed it off and made four holly leaf and berries blocks. They went together pretty easily and I’m pleased how the colours are working out so far. I have a best china set which these days just comes out on what I call high days and holy days, it’s a beautiful Royal Doulton design called Sherbrooke, it’s the same soft blue, so I’m thinking this will make a nice tablecloth for Christmas.
The next row pattern was been released on Tuesday, so I’ve four Christmas stockings to make. If you fancy stitching it too please follow the link above. If cross-stitch is more your thing there’s also a cross-stitch sampler version running at the same time…no I’m not doing that one as well, there are limits!
Each month I change the little display of cross-stitch smalls on the sideboard. Usually I choose things relative to that month, but in August I decided to do a bee theme – I have lots of smalls with bees on…
This month I decided to continue with a theme, so for September the theme is birds. Fortunately the September small I have from The Joyful World SAL has two barn owls on, so it fitted nicely. The autumn cross-stitch also has a blackbird on, though the Faby Reilly autumn leaf one doesn’t but the colours fitted beautifully…
I’ve stitched quite a few birds this year, they’re nearly all from Fido Stitch Studio on Etsy. I think they’re gorgeous designs and the kits are very reasonably priced, at around £9. There’s still a few I fancy making, but so far I’ve stitched the robin, kingfisher, wren, nuthatch and the kookaburra.
I’ve turned the two cross-stitched boxes round to their autumn side and I think all the colours work well together, there’s a definite autumn feel to the smalls this month. I think I’ll continue with a theme next month, maybe animals or flowers…
I bought this Vogue pattern earlier this year, it includes three different tops. OK one I wouldn’t wear but the other two look my kind of top, there’s a waistcoat style one and a sleeveless shirt sort of top.
I’ve been sorting out my stash a bit and I really need to get cracking and sew some clothes. Well if I’m honest I had a bit of a scare recently, we’ve just been trying to eradicate carpet moths from our bedroom, they’re nasty little critters who like eating wool and silk. All seemed to going well until I saw a moth or two in my sewing room! As you can imagine with my stash of beautiful wools this was panic time! I googled it and discovered that two weeks in the deep freeze is enough to kill them…it took some explaining to my OH why the freezer was suddenly full of fabric! I’ve bought several packs of sealable clothes bags from Lakeland and I’m going to keep my fabric in those, protect them from moths and dust.
Having removed all the wool lengths there’s still an awful lot of fabric in my cupboard so I decided to start choosing a length and a pattern and getting on with it.
I’ve had this fabric in my stash for several years, it’s one of those fabrics where you’re not sure why you like it or what on earth you can make from it, but you buy a metre anyway. It’s almost gone to fabric swops a few times but it’s always been saved at the last minute. It’s a colourful batik style cotton with lots of colourful chainstitched swirly lines on it on top of colourful splatters…it’s very colourful, there’s pinks, purples, greens, blues…!
I decided to make it up in the waistcoat pattern, on the grounds that if it was a complete disaster it wouldn’t be the end of the world as I still couldn’t decided whether the fabric was gorgeous or gaudy!! The embroidery makes it fairly bulky too, so a waistcoat would be perfect.
I’ve had a few fitting problems with recent makes being too tight so I re-measured myself (again!) and compared it to the pattern, both to the sizes on the envelope and the actual garment measurements, I cut it out to a 14 bust, grading up to a 16 at the waist and hips.
Being a Vogue pattern there were lots of pieces, for such a relatively simple top there were ten pieces! It’s fully lined with a fly button closing, I decided to use some cotton jam for the lining. This is a fabric I’ve only recently discovered from two on-line fabric sellers. Cotton jam is a mix of cotton and silk, I thought it would be very fine when I ordered some to try, thinking I might make some underwear with it, in fact its like a medium to light weight cotton, feels lovely but too heavy for undies, however it is perfect for lining summer tops and dresses. It would make lovely shirts and tops on it’s own too, but I decided the pale pink I had would work as a lining for my waistcoat top, although it doesn’t look it in the photos, the pink matches the pale pink in the batik!
The way the top was made it was difficult to really check the fit until it was more or less done…and it was huge! Fortunately Helen was around to pin alterations, altogether I took about half an inch on the side seams. It was also cut lower than I like under the arm, I took the should seams in by a similar amount. Luckily it’s made with the lining hand-stitched to a facing along the hem, so it was easy to undo this and reach the insides again.
It’s still not a brilliant fit but I think it’s wearable! I love the fabric now, I think this was an ideal pattern for it, I just need to sort the fit out on my makes. I think when Helen is up this weekend I’ll get her to take my measurements and we can work out where I’m going wrong.
I’ve made pretty good progress on my Seaside quilt over the last three weeks, this is the quilt from the book by Kathryn Whittingham, the same designer as my gorgeous Cottage Garden quilt.
I organised myself slightly differently this time and it’s worked really well. Basically, rather than preparing a picture with all the bondaweb applique and then embroidering it and then moving on to the next, this time I prepared several blocks and then put all the threads in my workbox downstairs so I could pick it up for short spells of embroidery here and there, like 15 minutes when I have my morning coffee.. I could then spend an afternoon making all the blocks up and then last night I stitched the blocks together.
Three weeks ago I was embroidering the cottages by the sea…
I love this block, it reminds me so much of holidays in Whitby. I finished the embroidery and added the borders. The only bit I have doubts over with this block is the stripy roof, I’ll wait until the quilt is a bit bigger to see if it disappears a bit, but if it still stands out I might colour it with some inktense pencils.
I fussy cut the centralblocks in to flying seagull blocks..,.well actually they’re flying geese but as Kathryn says, seagulls are a bit more apt!
The central block of the quilt is a red and white lighthouse. The coast of Yorkshire is pretty treacherous for boats with lots of cliffs and rocky bits, so there’s quite a few lighthouses along the coastline.
There’s quite a few seals, minky whales, porpoises and dolphins spotted along the coast too so they’ve been included both in the bigger pictures and little blocks too. This block is called a friendship star, there’s another one at the other side with a dolphin on…
So, last night I arranged the colours of the filler squares and started to stitch the blocks together. I’ve quite a few different seaside patterns, in fact I’ve probably got too many as it does need a few calmer prints to balance it out. This is the middle row so far…
…and this is the quilt so far…
I’m over half way now, with just one square block and another beach hut to embroider to finish this row. It does look bright and cheerful, I love it!
If you fancy stitching this quilt (or the cottage garden one) please follow the link to Patchwork Katy. Please note I was kindly gifted this book by the author (with no strings attached) but my views and opinions are my own.
Hand Quilt Along Links
This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
thecraftycreek 