Friday finish amongst friends

Welcome to TGIFF, the link party that celebrates that great feeling you get when the last stitch in a project is sewn and all that is left is to stand back and admire!


My Friday finish has not only been a long time in the making, but has also involved several lovely quilters in the process, the (virtual) Neighbourhood quilt.

The blocks all came my way as part of the Star of Africa Bee and have been joined up since November patiently waiting for me to knuckle down and get them basted and quilted. I have to admit that basting is absolutely my least favourite part of making a quilt, so I always put it off!

Being the arch procrastinator that I am, I should really have been basting the Up, up and Away quilt that I have said that I will finish as part of my 100 Day Challenge but, as you can see I put that off by quilting this instead. There is a logic there somewhere :)

I flexed my (underused!) FMQ muscles and quilted a crazy paving-like pattern in the solid sashing and then a meandering leaf in the tree borders. I did not want to detract at all from the blocks so have simply echo quilted around the block borders, time will tell whether that was a wise decision or not.

The backing fabric is a vintage find by Karen and I had just enough to back the quilt. I used a toning thread in the bobbin for the quilting on the back. Although I am pleased with the look of the quilting on the back, it did mean that where I have hesitated (!) in quilting the meandering leaf with the white thread you can sometimes see a tiny dot of the darker bobbin thread. The answer to that is probably not to hesitate but then I run the risk of passing out through lack of oxygen :)

Thanks Benta, Irene, Janine, Jen, May, Nicky, Patti and Veena I couldn't have done this without you!

That's my Friday finish now it is your turn to show and tell :) 

Check out the other linkers too, a little bit of applause is always welcome and add the TGIFF link/button (on the sidebar) to your post and spread the celebrations!

An InLinkz Link-up

Sights and sewing - New to Me in March

Welcome to the March New to Me Link Party.

The monthly celebration of trying all things new.

My New to Me's are a mixed bag as ever.

This month I have visited a New to Me island, Arran off the West Coast of Scotland.

We enjoyed some gorgeous weather and stunning views, so will definitely be adding it to our "must go back to" destinations.

I have enjoyed the very New to Me experience of seeing Scotland win a rugby game at Murrayfield :) Sadly I wasn't able to repeat the experience last weekend in Dublin !

And of course, the biggest thrill of all, completing my first ever piece of embroidery for inclusion

Hardhome Embroidery

in this amazing banner created by the Embroiderers Guild and others for the launch of HBO's Game of Thrones Season 5 DVD boxset!

It has been an interesting month :)

Now it's your turn to show and tell what you have tried for the first time this month. As ever please help to spread the word by linking back to this post in your post and/or adding the blog button to your sidebar.




Check out the other links too and, maybe, leave an encouraging comment along the way. The emphasis of this link party is to celebrate the trying so a little encouragement here and there would not go amiss! 

The link will remain open until 23.59GMT on March 31st, so you have some time yet to try something new and link up and join the party :)




If your New to Me involves some Christmas or Holiday crafting don't forget to link it up to this month's Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew Link Party too over at Pesky Life.

These lovely sewing charms are up for grabs for two lucky linkers!

Looking forward to seeing your New to Me's in March.

An InLinkz Link-up

The Hardhome Embroidery

So far you have only seen this

and then this

and this

but at last I can show you what I have been working on!

A family crest as part of the Hardhome Embroidery created by the Embroiderers Guild in partnership with Royal School of Needlework, Hand & Lock and Fine Cell Work for the launch of Game of Thrones Series 5 boxset this month!

The request for participants from the Embroiderers Guild dropped in to my inbox at the end of last year and well, being a huge Game of Thrones fan, how could I resist?? Of course then I began to worry about whether I was up to the challenge, and continued to worry about that throughout the whole process I might add!

 

https://embroiderersguild.com/index.php?page_no=869

As you can see the final piece is huge, 5m (nearly 17') long by 4m (13.6') high so my contribution is just a tiny part of that, but no less thrilling all the same. (second down from the top left hand corner in case you are wondering!) The timescale for the project was very tight given that the completed embroideries had to be returned to the organisers by March 2nd at the latest. My poor fingers didn't quite know what had hit them :)

My adult sons are hugely impressed that Mum now has a connection (however tenuous!) with Game of Thrones so it was worth the sore fingers for that alone!

The Hardhome Embroidery will go on tour in the coming months so I am hoping that it ventures far enough North for me to get a chance to go and see the complete banner and maybe mention in passing that I was involved in its production :)

Of course if you get a chance to see it too I would love to hear what you think of it, the descriptions that I have seen of the different elements of the panel sound amazing so I am sure that they will be worth seeing.

You can see some of the progress shots here and a list of contributors to the project here.

One of my three projects for the 100 Day challenge done and dusted!

Linking up to