Nautical Cushions and a Challenge

When I made some extra Dresden Fan blocks for the Craftsy BOM a couple of months ago, and asked for suggestions on what to do with them, several people mentioned the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild EZ Dresden Challenge. Naturally I was intrigued so checked it out and discovered that the Challenge would run the first week in September and had three categories for entries, one of which was Small Quilts.

So I got my thinking cap on and tossed around ideas but nothing seemed to stick until I came across a cross-stitch pattern for a lighthouse! Suddenly all thoughts of circles and spinning went right out of my head and in came pictures of lighthouses instead, those Dresden blade shapes took on a whole new form. Instead of a small quilt I decided to go for a cushion/pillow too, as that would be much more useful.

When I was back in the UK at the end of August, I took the opportunity to stock up with a Dotty Mini Wheel of fabric in Reds and Blues. When they met the EZ Dresden ruler and some linen this is the result.

I managed to incorporate some embroidery in the seagulls, light railings and grass tufts as well as a little bit of FM quilting! Our son's bedroom at home has a nautical theme so this will fit in perfectly.

I really enjoyed making this and although I initially started it because of the EZ Dresden Challenge, in the end the process of making this, planning the embroidery and even trying more FM quilting was just so much fun. So to have a nice cushion at the end and an entry for the challenge are bonuses.

Working on this though has meant that all other WIP's have fallen by the wayside!

To make a similar Lighthouse Cushion read on

Flea Market Finds

We visited the biannual Flea Market again at the weekend and this time we didn't have to leap over puddles or avoid large swathes of mud to see the stalls. Although we would have been able to see these items without any problem, mud and puddles or not!

Not really your average Sunday morning purchase.

Last time we visited there was a tank for sale but it wasn't there this time, presumably it had been sold in the meantime. The parking charges would be astronomical I would have thought, but maybe if you are driving a tank you don't need to worry about parking charges :)

I was momentarily tempted by these

Think how crisp my seams would be, but then I thought of my arms and thought better of it. I was even more tempted by this

Isn't it a beauty and only 10Ls, which is about £14? I took this photo intending to come back for it later but then my heart was stolen by this instead.

It is a working model, and although I have no idea what I will do with it, I am already envisioning many happy hours in the winter cleaning and polishing, well it will be a form of housework. It will certainly be handy in a power cut too! Although it is not exactly lightweight so my arms may get that workout after all.

Hope you have had a good weekend too.

Stitchery

The first of the month already, how did that happen?? The round-up of August projects will be very brief as the lure of a cool glass of crisp white by the pool was just too strong to resist.

Despite all the lazing around I did manage to;

• Make the Babushka backpack for the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop (still time to link up your projects if you haven't already!)

• Finish and send off my Bee blocks for the Star of Africa and Sunday Morning Quilts Bees

• Complete my pattern test for Sew Festive Handmade's Harry Potter themed embroidery pattern, which will eventually become the front of a keepsake box but that is for another month. Check out this pattern and the rest of the Rebecca's Potter-themed range here There is a 20% discount available until Monday 3rd. 

• And just scrape in under the wire with my August project for 12 WIP's in 2012

So the month wasn't entirely given over to the consumption of alcohol in the sunshine after all!

Whilst the men in the family were wearing themselves out hiking the hilliest section of Hadrian's Wall on the Bank Holiday weekend, I was treating myself to a Stitchery course at my  LQS. Given that it lashed rain all day it was not difficult to see who got the best of that bargain! In the morning we looked at various methods of interfacing fabric for stitching and drew our own patterns for the comparisons. As art is definitely not one of my strong points I went for a simple boat shape.

I liked the puffiness of the Pellon backed fabric and would probably use that again. I wrote down the number but needless to say cannot find it now!

We had the opportunity to look as well at different methods of transferring embroidery outlines including using a lightbox, which was a definite step up from my usual method of taping the image to the window :) I had brought along an embroidery magazine that I had bought in France the week before, so decided to use one of the iron-on transfer images for my project. Needless to say with so much chatting going on the actual sewing done was limited.

I originally intended to turn the finished embroidery into a cushion with the Eiffel Tower fabric, but my husband bought me a Kindle for my birthday so now I am thinking that I might use it instead for a Kindle cover. Either way I will have to finish the embroidery first!

So I have at least one project underway for September already. Hope you had a more productive month than I did.

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts