Fantastic Giveaway

I have stumbled across this blog "I'm just a guy who quilts"which is having a great giveaway. You can win this calender and some suprise quilt related items, just pop over and follow Ryan's clear instrutions. He also gives a link to a web site from which you can view other barn quilts that people have painted. I really enjoy reading new blogs and can while away lots of time doing this, go visit Ryan. You have until December 22nd.

Birthday Goodies

Why when the house is quiet and peaceful do I still wake at 6am? It has been a peaceful weekend with youngest DS in respite and oldest at his friends house. Time to finish making some Christmas presents, I can't show photos in case anyone who they are intended for peeks! I forgot to say that I had a birthday this week and was lucky enough to get these crafty goodies along with smellies and a fab necklace. Thank you Sarah for the handmade sock knitting bag and hand dyed yarn.

Biggest thank you goes to DH for a large bottle of this -
I had a nice day as DH had the day off as well so although I dragged him round some shops we had a nice lunch together.

Coming back down to earth with a bump I am helping out at the Scout jumble sale today. Lots of my challenges are about recycling next year and my stash of recycled fabrics is dwindling. I tried to buy a mans cotton shirt in a charity shop last week and they wanted £5.50. Whilst is was a great shirt to wear, it seemed a little pricey just to cut up (it was a small so not much fabric, nice buttons though). If I get anything I will show later!

No Cook Fudge

Nothing whatsoever to do with stitching but this has been the most popular recipe with my learners. Its very sweet, go on you know you just want to make some.

Ingredients
200g icing sugar
85g butter
95g condensed milk
(for chocolate fudge use 50g cocoa and 15og icing sugar)

Method

Put butter into a bowl and cream with a wooden spoon until soft.

Mix the condensed milk with the butter. Try not to have too many lumps.

Add about half the icing sugar and mix in with the spoon. use your hands to mix in the rest of the sugar until it is like a dough and will be able to be kneaded. If it is too wet still add more icing sugar.

Roll out onto a surface dusted with icing sugar. Cut into approx. 1.5cm cubes. Leave in a fridge overnight to harden.

This fudge will keep for about a week. You can alter the basic mixture by dipping it in chocolate, putting in some dried fruit

Catching Up

It seems like ages since my last post but I have been teaching several Christmas workshops and even some Christmas cookery along side my normal adult cooking courses! This last one is a bit of a joke with those who know me well as I hate cooking. Unfortunatley I didn't have my camera with me for these workshops but these were some the children did in York. Its not a great photo though but you can just about make them out alongside the butterflies.
When I put my Christmas tree up today I just can't believe that it is eleven years since this hung on the tree for the first time, where does the time go? It has become a tradition to make a new tree decoration each year -
I have also managed to get some work done for my City and Guilds diploma, the most worrying thing about this is that I seem to be enjoying working with plastic more and more. This is a page from my sketchbook
I am really happy with this folded patchwork sample
After folding a square I then covered it with fabric paint and used the folds to insert old lace and fabric. I also covered some cotton wadding with the same fabric paint. I used an idea from Tina, folded the backing to the front and stitched down with big stitches so you could also see the wadding. No plastic on this though.

Chrismas Decorations

I'm gearing up to teaching some Christmas workshops both locally and up in York. Today I was preparing samples and my youngest decided he wanted to make a tree decoration. He concentrated for about an hour and did everything by himself. The only thing I did was to cut around the heart shape inside. The inside was done on the embellisher machine and then trapped between red felt. I was really impressed with his determination to sew on the green beads all by himself as well. As for me, well I am struggling with a robin's legs at the moment!!

Fabric Fusion

This is the finished piece for my friend I have been working on. It's now with the proud owner and hanging on her wall. I'm not sure if I said before but one of the workshops I teach is a six day course covering different dyeing techniques, printing, stamping, paint sticks etc etc. At the end some students decided to trade work so the fabric has been "created" by lots of different ladies. The owner of this is just about to go and have a major back op so I have made it as a kind of gift. Her brief was to make it look like it had been thrown at the wall, nothing too formal. This photo doesn't show up all the detail but I used hand and machine stitching with different binding techniques.

These beads were from some curtain fringing.

Blanket stitch with beads attached.

Seals, fabric cuffs and fireworks

Yesterday we all managed to get up and out early so that we could go and see these amazing seals. We are lucky enough to live quite near a nature reserve, Donner Nook in North Lincolnshire which grey seals go to each year to breed. It is really well "policed" with volunteers from the Wildlife trust making sure that the public don't disrupt the seals, we are also contained behind a strong fence. In the past week there were 134 babies born (according to the statistics in the information shed).
Having never been before I was surprised at just how close to the fence some of the seals where. You can see the shadows of people behind the fence on this baby and mum -

I couldn't resist a close up of mums face, nor the baby below.

Once home I received these in the post -
I now belong to Fibre Arts Trading Group and this was the first trade I took part in. Thank you so much to Trees and Laura if you read this post, I can't wait to wear them. I am a bit worried though as I sent off my cuffs over a week ago and my trade partners haven't received them yet. These were the cuffs I made, I have fingers and toes crossed that they arrive safely.

The day finished with us going to a fireworks display, I discovered that my digital camera has a firework setting so I wanted to play with that
I'm going to use some of the images and print them onto fabric for my November journal quilt.