""Small Trumpet Fanfare""

A few days later than planned (my birthday got in the way of proceedings) I have pulled a name out of a hat for the "happy tree" give away. :)

.....said names

......said hat - famous in Milton Keynes I'll have you know.

......blurred name - I will email you Linda for your land address - hurray!!

......here is the little witness to my event.

It was interesting how many people either didn't look or take notice, mmmmm.

Even on Facebook, mmmmmm

I shall do another draw in aid of Market Research for Mother's day :)

Thanks to those who did notice, see you soon.

Jane.xxx

....come on sunshine and a birthday give away :)

It's still chilly here in MK, I don't take my hat off very often, but I have been willing spring on with some new ideas that have been sitting in my head for a while.

This bold brooch was inspired by one of my finds in my Nan's (grandmothers) old jewellery box when she went to the big charity shop in the clouds some 16 years ago.

Her house was stuffed full of 'treasure' I am so pleased I was able to keep much of it, my sister and mom just weren't into these eclectic pieces. Yippee for me!

So, back to the big bow brooch, it is a small silver 3d bow with 2 small scottie dogs hanging on leads. I don't think they were designed to be together but my Nan must have had a creative vision. I had a stall at a H&V fayre on Saturday and they were much admired.

So this one I have proudly listed on etsy here.

I have been making birds and clouds for a while as mobiles and the doggies got me thinking about clouds and birds flying......I was stitching one of these at 'the show' on saturday and sold it instantly, so that's a good sign for my Cloudy Day brooches. The lovely lady was looking for a squirrel - "the world needs more squirrels" she said. Another variation perhaps? Watch this space.

......oh, and then there's my new trees :) Stuffed full with Lavender and handstitched with lots of love and care, I really enjoyed putting together this small copse.

....and here comes the sun, glowing in early spring rays the trees came to life.

To celebrate that glimpse of sunshine and my birthday next week, I am delighted to be giving away one of my trees :)

My first giveaway, so If you would like to take part leave a comment below.

I will be drawing the lucky winner next friday the 25th of February between opening my cards and eating my cake :-)

Link this into your blog and I will put you into the draw twice.

See you soon

Jane.xx

Well it's about time I caught up with 2011

I have been dreaming of American Jane fabrics for a long time....you know how it is! They are often over the sea in quilt stores but rarely here in the UK and something tells me they should be bought here to save on shipping....is that my carbon footprint talking??

Then I thought - darn it, I need to stitch with some Punctuation and I splashed out on a jelly roll found here in the uk - yippee!

I had a plan to make the most use of it and have a go with only machine stitching and use mostly plain fabric to show off the prints and get more for my money....there were lots of '1sts' in this project and I did much of my thinking and planning while I was doing the ironing.

I then thought if I made the quilt as a gift, it would justify my rather last minute stitching obsession while I was supposed to be preparing for Christmas with tidying. Does that make sense?

So I set to work.....there are no photos of the process, I was always working in the evening when lighting was bad, but the good news is.......there is still 1/2 a jelly roll left so I can make another one and takes pics as I go :-)

I went to visit the quilt in it's new home after christmas and took these in the daylight, she is happy in her cottage in Norfolk.

So it was all machine quilted, I had a good go with my new walking foot, even completely attaching the binding on with it. The advise was " you will not win prizes for your quilts. but they will be so much quicker to make" that suited me.

Ok ok, I did have to hand stitch something, the little tufts in all the white squares. I had seen this detail in one of the vintage quilts at the V&A last year and needed to have a go.

NOTE TO SELF - COME BACK AND POST THE PROCESS OF THIS QUILT - not a resolution, just good practice.

Thanks for calling by, hope your year is creative and colourful.

xxx

will it snow?

with the festive season nearly upon us, there is a count down on Ebay if you forget!!

I have been busy stitching new decorations and delights.

A busy week ahead, stitching (when I can) for 2 fairs this weekend, planning some teaching and putting together a stitching workshop next week. Busy bee, thats me. Which reminds me, a lovely bee keeper has asked me to make her a bee brooch. I will add this to the list :-)

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I love these little button fella's bellow. A reindeer has been haunting me for best part of 30 years! When I was at 'Middle' school there was a book I remember borrowing from the library over and over again. A book on felt toys, sigh. It was in the days before the internet and our local craft shop didn't sell felt (I know!) so I would just dream of making the red and white reindeer. A couple of years ago, I found this said book on ebay and hey bingo, made my own variation of the deer. The original is very fiddly and uses wire to keep the legs strong - I haven't got time for wire!

Then Mr P. Olar bear came along to join Mrs R. Eindeer and their journey begins.....

So I am packing my delights and egg boxes for a Fair Trade Coffee Morning at St.James's Church in New Bradwell on Saturday 10.30-12.30 and then hot footing it to MaKe at the Madcap Theatre in Wolverton on Sunday 10-5

Might see you there, hope so!

Jane.x

A grand day out

Last Sunday I went to my first Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra palace in North London.

I've never managed to go before - husband away, busy with some family occasion, just not managed to organise it - you know the score!

Anyway, it all came together rather easily in the end. Just needed a very early start on a Sunday morning to get a coach which would take us to the door step and then bring us home again after a long day of "oohing and ahhing and the odd mmmm, perhaps not"

I have managed to take a few pictures, there were lots of signs saying 'No photo's please respect my work' which was fine. Some of the artists had postcards, but not they were not the ones I would have snapped anyway, hey ho.

There were some lovely quilts from the Quilters Guild, shaky hands got in the way a bit, but you get the gist of them I hope.

And then there was a lovely exhibit of paper art, they were happy for snaps too, 'just don't touch'!!

These were large collages of found paper by Peter Cook for the Holland Paper Biannale.

We walked out legs off, bustled with sturdy crafters who held onto their own space very well and spent a bit (!!) of money on lovely things, just to save on postage you understand. Next year, we will know what to do and where to go first and might even sign up for a workshop.

Great day out though, cannot wait to get stitching! xx

Summer Inspiration....

Aaahhh, all is well and good in the Charles family household. We have returned from various camping excursions around the country, covered many a mile and put the tent and down about 8 times in 20 days.....The weather? Mixed. From blazing sun to hale stones in the Highlands of Scotland and torrential rain and just that good old British Grey day.

The one thing that saved us and the children for the 2 weeks in Bonny Scotland was joining the NTS (National Trust for Scotland). It ticked all the family boxes, Chris and I enjoyed fantastic gardens and castles, the birthplace of JM Barrie and the amazing Robert Smails printworks. The children, while moaning a little, had to spot the muddy footprints of Gnasher from Dennis the Menice Comics. After finding all the foot prints in 6 properties on our travels they will be rewarded with copious amounts of Dennis 'stuff' - they were obsessed and we now have to wait until October to reap the rewards of this challenge......3 times over!

Back to inspiration- this was my favourite castle, Crathes - stunning, beautiful and a lovely sunny day out.

Now, I have to admit...... I broke the law of the NTS (shhhhh). You are now allowed to take photos and the children were mortified that I even attempted to. Mortified. Butter wouldn't melt of course, as we had to remind them. But I could not risk not being able to be inspired if the shop did not sell the specific post cards I needed, could I? So just in case.....

This was a snippet of a painted ceiling:

And this was a beautiful appliqued bed cover, which I continued to dream about and plan some work around. I was disappointed that there was no postcard, so it's a good job I was a bit naughty.......no body saw anyway.

Around the gardens I was allowed to snap away at the lovely flowers, no body minded.

Noah was amazed by the size of these daisies as you can see.

So here we are, standing in the gardens of Crathes, just lovely.....Happy Campers all round. The Gnasher trail was our saving grace and fantastic value for money spread over the year. Oh, and another thing....we can use our membership to visit UK National Trust Properties too!!

Yippee- do-dar, more lovely inspiration just waiting for a visit.

Etsy blow my trumpet (for a while at least)

I did miss the actual moment sadly, but just as we got back from the end of tern school concert, I picked up a link from two lovely ladies in Argentina who had picked one of my items from my Etsy shop :-) thanks girls!!

To commemorate the first landing on the moon some 41 years ago, they picked 'moon' linked objects and my Button Moon sewing tidy snuck in there - hurray for today.

I am very excited, I've just had my first 'Treasury listing' - whoo hoo. Shame I cannot work out how to link this button to my site, not my blog- it's too late to try now, maybe tomorrow....

nobody's watching now anyway :-)