Hurrah! the secret is finished!!

Well done to the stitching ladies of P. Children's Centre!! Your work is finished, a lovely master piece of team work and hard work. You should be very proud.

This was work in progress, still some spaces to fill.

A detail of the the finished piece, sorry the colours don't show up well, but I think you can see the detail and effort they all went to.
The colours show up better here and you can see the size. There are a few gaps for promised birds and rabbits and perhaps a monkey, we cannot remember! The staff at the Centre are very impressed with this and are inspired themselves. Good work.
Now for something completely different.....

M made great use of these trims for a bag for her daughter. The small crocheted flowers come from a hair scrunchie from Portugal. M used embroidery finger knitting to make the bag strap.
This is L's first project, I think it's too lovely for a pin cushion, but it suited the photo at the time. L is now working on a re-cycled quilt for her baby daughter, made form a collection of out grown clothes. I will take a picture this week i hope, please remind me L!

At last, the photo's in the right order.....

This small house deserves a re-run, S worked very hard to create this out of a washing powder box! She did most of it at home and only asked for a bit of advise from me and the group. It is difficult to plan exactly what is going to happen during such a project, so details were thought through and adapted.

This is just about finished. Lovely detail on the window box and the windows are now 'real' with plastic packaging glass so her daughter can peep through. Well done S, a tricky project and very neatly put together.
G was not sure whether she liked the course to begin with! I know!! However, we continued over the weeks and now she doesn't want to leave at the end of the session. Result.
G's stitching is very neat and the design is working well.
This is an update for the Patchwork girlies, K is beginning to stitch them together. I think it is a daunting task for them, I have suggested that they stitch groups of flowers together first and then stitch the flowers up later. They shouldn't get too bogged down with the overall design but still see the quilt growing. K said it looks better on a photo, you can see how many patches she has done. ( you can also see how much tea we drink in a class) :-)

where to begin...??

Over the last few weeks, I haven't been lazy, just so busy inspiring and reflecting (i am battling through an Adult Education teaching course), I haven't managed to 'blog' the lovely work you are all doing...so here it is......

S has found her creative voice again and is really enjoying stitching and creating. There is a list of ideas for most of her house and this is a good start for the lounge....

S started by making two bags for her small daughter's. They are too lovely to use, so they will hang on the wall with pride and come down for special occasions.

These pictures are in the wrong order (sorry, i never manage to get the hang of that)

S is working really well on this simple design. The base felt is some re-cycled from display boards from about 20 years ago! The detail is applied felt from KirstyFish lovely lady.

This is the detail:

Great use of simple stitching, very effective and a stunning composition.
This is the work so far.......

And this was the plan, Doh!!

Vintage quilts....in Redditch!

I dragged my poor family to a needle museum today in Redditch, Worcs. We were staying with my mom and dad in Bromsgrove and I fancied a bit of crafty culture! Anyway, I was truly moved by a collection of vintage quilts there for an exhibition. It is part of a collection by Jane Cobbett and is on until the end of June. In no particular order and I don't know everything about all of them because there was no guide to buy......:-(

Just a lovely mix of mad fabrics....

This one bought a tear or two to my eyes, not unusual some might say, but it really was a piece of someone's family history, somewhere in North Carolina I think?? Stitched in the 1930's and included a bit of everything from this family. All stitched on their own clothes and fabric from grain sacks!

Bees and rabbits....
Hand prints of all the family....
The farm where they lived....I do love the way the man and sheep are sitting just right on the 'hill of blue'.
This was the overall collage, lots of naive drawings, too many to photo and I was in danger of crying too much...silly woman. But I am inspired to try this one in a group project! any takers??!!
This one is a lovely shape, the pieces have small joins in them to make it easier to stitch.
Just lovely....quilting and patchwork...
A close up.....
This one, pass me a tissue, was stitched by a 9 year old boy in ( i think) the 1890's! Each patch is about the size of a 2p coin and the whole quilt was flamin' huge.....
This one, a bow tie pattern, was just lush too....
This exhibition is only on until the 28th of June but if you could spend a couple of hours driving to Redditch to see about 20 vintage quilts, I recommend it...there was a nice little shop and a cafe with swans milling about, and a good adventure area to keep the children happy....a very happy afternoon was spent, hurray! I might just have to venture to find more of this lovely collection....here!