Taking a Trip on the Scrappy Band Wagon

When I first started quilting, I signed up to make a trip around the world quilt top at my local adult ed. I bought meters of lovely pink fabrics and looked forward to the course. Just before the day, the course was cancelled. The fabrics were used for other quilts and time moved on.
I have always fancied making a trip around the world, the one that got away..... Now blog land is a dangerous place. One little blog post here then I discussed with various quilty friends and then another post here and so many lovely ones here. I just couldn't resist any longer.

I rummaged through all of my scraps, beautiful fabrics from my mum's trips to Canada and some wonderful ones from my favourite shop in Brugge Delander.


It is so simple you cut your fabric into 2.5" strips then sew them together in a row of six. It is suggested that you cut your strips 16" long I have made mine 17" just to make allowances for wonky seams.



Then you sew the first to the last making a tube, cutting this into 2.5" rings.


You then unpick the tubes at varying intervals so that your fabrics "step". I seem to struggle with this so keep having to sew my tubes back up but eventually you end up with pretty blocks. I am up to 10 blocks and I think you will have to agree they are looking pretty!

Till next time
Arianwen x

Joining Up The Dots

I have been a bit leary of connecting all of my social stuff up. Perhaps a little too much information out there. Maybe I should of used alias's when I started - it is too late now. But I really like the quick updates that I get from certain blogs on Facebook So another snow day and I have been having a real play with the other venues of expression that are out there. Ironically I have managed nothing crafty the blocks from the picture were made yesterday. HoweverI have joined the technical age, become a member of Pinterest and given my Blog a face book page. Yeah me! You can find links on the sidebar to both hope you like them:)
Arianwen xx

Ahhhhh Snow Days

Like pretty much all of the UK we have woken the last couple of days to a thick blanket of snow. Yesterday it did look like we might have school today but we were blessed with several more inches over night. Indeed the local college has closed for the second time in 40 years and of course the schools are closed so we are all home. I love snow days, the delicious silence. I guess it is the lack of cars and the stillness of everyone snuggled inside in the warm. Of course the silence doesn't continue as soon as I put food out for the birds the air fills with their grateful song.
Closely followed by children tramping outside to play.

Snowman have been built and the sled has been dragged around the neighbourhood looking for the best hills (not really a problem in yorkshire).

But the thing that I like best is the cosy crafts, when everyone has had enough of the cold and the wet.

I have finished the body of Oriel I was glad to get it off the needles as it was starting to get really heavy. Don't you just love the way the cables change direction at the waist? I have also started on the sleeves for my Crushed biscuit, now these I am a little bit worried about as I am making them up, the original doesn't have sleeves, and I am just hoping that I have made them wide enough!
But the best bits of the snow days have been that both Oriana and Inigo have been playing witht the sewing Machine. If you are wondering about all the lovely flowers on the window sill they are a combination of cyclmen and Orchids. I love orchids as they flower forever which definately makes them more eccomical than buying cut flowers. Anyway I digress, Inigo has been fiddling with freehand machine embroidery and applique for his cushion for school and Oriana has been busy with a project that she bought in Belgium over a year ago.

Can you tell what I am yet?


And here she is all finished! Her name is Snow in honor of lovely snow days.



Till next time
Arianwen

A Little Knitting Update

Hello
The first week back at the usual house routine and I have been knitting furiously away on Oriel, my Christmas cast on. I am now at the waist even though I have lengthened it by a couple of inches. I am hoping to have it finished for the end of the month as I would like to actually complete NaSweMoDo for 2013 ( I failed dismally in 2012) but I do have a couple of other surprise things that I need to cast on. I will let you know about those in the next couple of weeks.

I have also managed to finish the back of the sweater for my brother in law. I was a little worried as when I finished the piece the tension on each of the sections looked really different. In some places it was smooth and in others it looked distinctly screwed up. I dunked it in water and left it soaking - it took ages to wet completely and then just lay it flat for days on end whilst it dried. It now looks pretty good I think. The pattern really is very striking and as soon as I finish Oriel it is back on the needles!

Arianwen xx

My Pretties

Over a year ago a company called Accuquilt got in contact with me and asked me if I would like to do a piece on their clever gadget ( at the time I didn't know that it was clever) but I couldn't get onto their site so couldn't see what they did and decided to ignore their offer. Shame! Anyway a good friend of mine BlueADT decided to save her pennies up and she bought one. So this weekend when she gave me this

I couldn't resist asking if I could have a go.
Now I had never seen anything like these scrap bags before, probably just as well really as I have a inability to throw out fabric or yarn so I really am going to try and use up as many of these as possible. Moda Scrap bags are like pick and mix, fabric yum. This range is called Bliss and it really is my idea of Bliss, beautiful colours and great slightly retro prints. What do you think? The bags contain long 2-3" strips sometimes with the selvage. Lets face it, straightening strips and then cutting them into 2.5" squares can't be many people's idea of fun but the Accuquilt meant no straightening and easy enough for 11 year olds to cut the squares ( Oriana and Inigo tried it out). It also cut out the triangles!!

Seizing the moment I started rummaging through quilt books andI was initally inspired by a quilt from a Jelly roll quilt book. I started putting all of it together butit was too busy I couldn't see the stars. So I now have five star blocks and I am going to start saving my pennies so that there are some plain blocks in between. So that is the start of my pretties Quilt.
Till next time
Arianwen x

Restless

Well three days into the new year and I am restless. This is the start of my Christmas knitting it turns out that it is a very easy to remember pattern which means that I can only manage a couple of rows before I am ready to move onto something else. I can't seem to settle to anything.I have started cleaning out drawers and dusting but I don't seem to have the staying power.
Every year at this time I take a new look at my blog, I started it so that I would have a diary of my accomplishments. Other people reading it turned out to be a bonus:)I started it in blogger because that was the first blog host that I came to on a google search but I didn't do any research. But I can never get it to look the way that I want. I fiddle with colours and format it has changed about twenty times today alone.


Thought a pink might be nice but really Blogger@s violent puce wasn't really what I had in mind.


Usually I end up putting it back the way it was before. This also may happen this time. The photos are also often a problem my little box camera just can't cope with the poor indoor light. I also keep being told that comments are virtually impossible to leave I have taken off the word verification again. Though I have already had spam so this could be fun. So anyway it could all change again

Arianwen xxx

Happy New year.

Our end of year was tinged with sadness at the death of our dear little guinea pig, Sanka. He had been our friend for just under two years. We had a visit to our local pets at home to buy cat food and found Sanka in the rescue section and it was love at first sight. we came home with him and rang around friends to see if anyone had a cage. A chirring, purring, jumping climbing ( he hadn't read the books that said guinea pigs cant jump )bundle of fun. Who liked nothing more than a cuddle and a bananna. He died at in the early hours of the 29th at the vets. There were a lot of tears many of them mine. New Year's Eve was spent in good company and today travelling home was blue skies and sunshine. So here is hoping for a bright, happy new year.
Arianwen xxx