Clever Christmas Decoration idea and more stuff ~

Picked this up at a local charity shop, made by one of their volunteers.
Thought it was such a clever idea that you might like to see it.
The bow is wired centrally and the spike of wire is pushed down into the books spine.
The pages have been cut in a bell shape ~

Hilly cat has a new perch lol I moved my horses head up by the back door and it seems she likes it there. She was in full watery, winter sun but it had lowered in the sky by the time I got my camera.

Was in a charity shop yesterday and this has to take the biscuit surely!
Tattoos on a doll? - what are we doing to our daughters!!

I had been a bit down recently, probably just turning 65, the broken ribs and then Christmas looming, which has always been a lonely time for me. Silly I know.
Anyway my stitching mojo - had mooched off somewhere,
so I've been trying to get it back.
Made a new pin cushion and my first ever needle case.
How have I managed without a needle case!
The edges are straight its my photography angle that is skew whiff!

Did a bit more on the scrappy floral hexi top, but its not looking much bigger to me yet lol
At this rate I may make a lap quilt rather than a double bed cover!

It was our stitchy club meeting yesterday and this fantastic draught excluder was displayed, made by one of our members Brenda Sims.
Its clever in that its a triangular shape so will sit neatly against the door, I've never thought of making them like that.
Love the colourful felt she used and its 3" x 1" ish strips, simply rug prodded/hooked into hessian.

Another member Joan Drake gave the show n' talk at the meeting and she'd made some wonderful quilts.

There were some really fabulous nine patch quilts made after inspiration and techniques she'd found in the book '9 Patch Pizzaz'.

I had been looking at that book oddly enough at Harrogate

and even bought a sizzix dye so my patches

stood a chance at being cut correctly!

I've sent for the book now, since I really liked the method using

the nine patches, 12" and 6" blocks together,

so the blocks all sort of blur together.

Having seen Joan's versions, I feel brave enough to give it a go.

 

I enjoyed this talk the more because Joan wasn't just show casing quilts that she'd entered into this, that or the other quilt competition. We have had several well known speakers who have shown us stunning quilts, but its been like a CV list of their wins,

and whilst they certainly deserved to win, 

their talks were less interesting to me.

Joan Drake's quilts were just as good, but made to use or for wall hanging, rather than made as competitive art quilts.

These smaller ones really took my eye too ~

 

These cute little chicks were about 2" across and were EPP!

Joan likes the style of Angie Lewin's artwork and below is her interpretation of Angie's style. It was superb, I loved it.

 

for Angie Lewin see ~

  http://www.angielewin.co.uk/

One of our club members had sadly passed away during the summer and her stash must have been given to club, for us to sell off in aid of our club funds, which was very kind of her family, given their loss.

 

We always have a sales table which is very well stocked by our own donations of what we no longer want, but the addition of this lady's stash meant that last month, they took well over £300

on the sales table in the 3 hours of meeting! 

I had broken my ribs so hadn't gone but this month 

I picked up one or two bits to work on ( somewen!)

A quilt in the making

 

 

                                and couldn't resist this one either

 

  I mustn't start on these yet though, must crack on with my hexis!