OneGuyFromBarlick

It's a shame I couldn't do the shoes

I'll bet you could if you really tried! You'll have to go on course....

Ha ha

That's wonderful Sue and so quick! (This woman has a full range of skills, muck-shifting to dressmaking!)
I shall be doing the usual things plus defrosting the freezer as I have almost finished eating the Mutton. I need another old ewe!

Preferably not at the same time Stanley.

Today is art followed by lunch at Delph with two university friends. We meet once a year and Delph is 25 minutes drive for all of us. Tonight is a rare night in . I think we will be packing, we go on a 5 day cruise to Norway on Saturday.

Sally has been busy this last week as well. 1940's style dresses for each of the girls plus three summer tops for each and two pairs of shorts each. She made our Finlay two pairs of shorts and a tester short sleeved shirt for him to get the pattern and sizing right. Isla and Fin are going to Italy in the summer so she is kitting them out with light stuff for general wear and on the beach.

I feel for Sally, Ian. Last year I was mass producing stuff for the girls. This year I am toning it down, one outfit each as I am busy making my own outfit for a wedding in August. That is also a 1940s look, copied by me. Hopefully successfully

Nice picture Sue, she looks very happy with it. Likewise I'm sure your dress will turn out OK.

Sally has made a number of different outfits for our 40's events over the years. She has been sewing since she was 16 (not continuously of course) but she has done various sewing related and creative jobs, she quilts and hand sews as well. Half our attic is a machine shop! I have an alcove for my Amateur Radio.

I am jealous, although I do have a room of my own for sewing and my art and craft stuff.I taught myself to sew at 18 and have sewn ever since. I attended a sewing club for 12 years but the teacher died last year. We broke the group up when she was first taken ill three years previously. She was 90 when she died. The group still meet for lunch once a month but I am the only one who still sews.From last January I have taken private lessons in pattern drafting. I am a novice at this and so far have had limited success, however this 40s dress is showing promise. I love making childrens clothes.

Sally will have a go at anything really, she has no formal skills in pattern making but she will copy and have a go at altering to suit. She treated herself to a free standing three quarter length adjustable manikin last year which has made fitting clothes she makes for herself a lot easier.

Yes I agree, I bought one off eBay. Until last year I , too, had no formal training. My sewing club was lead by a tailored cum teacher. She used to help with fitting and gave advice on matching fabric to patterns. Mainly we were a group of like minded people who used to sit and natter and sew together. I made a couple of coats, trouser suits and once a cocktail dress and jacket where the material cost more than anything I had ever bought to wear in my life.

Sally's best quilt is a king size, all hand stitched, made from 1" sided hexagons. Lots of the hexagons were made from recycled cotton clothing that she had made for the kids when they were little. It was stitched over about 10 years mainly through the winter evenings. When its on the bed we can see bits of our Carla's dresses and Dan and Jacks shirts. I think she did around 20 stitches on each hexagon side and I think there are about 2,500 hexagons in the design. After loop tied quilting she hand embroidered all our names and dates of birth on the back. It was a labour of love really, we put it on our bed when it's warm enough to ditch the duvet.

She makes a lot of bespoke cot and pram quilts for the new generations of babies now being produced by our kids and their friends. She makes these up on the machine but always hand embroiders the name of the child, D.O.B. and a dedication.

Best put a comment back on topic here:

Today I have mainly been invigilating Chemistry Unit 1 and tomorrow it will be Physical Education for me. That will complete the first full week of the main GCSE exams, although I did do Data Handling and the 2 day Art exam earlier in the month.

I have only ever done a baby quilt. I tried to do a quilt from mums and dads bedding after we cleared the house but found it too difficult to handle on the machine. I have , however done quilted pictures using our daughters and granddaughters clothing. Nothing so adventurous as a kingsize quilt, hand done too. I am very impressed. I recently hand quilted 4 cushion covers that I batik printed from a watercolour I had painted. That took me nearly 4 years. But 10, my admiration is unsurmoutable.

It was on and off Sue, started, put down, picked back up. The hexes were cut cut using a larger cardboard template then stitch tacked to the 1" sided hex cards. She would do them in batches as she came across suitable cottons, then have a session of extending the quilt when she had a box full. I'll put a picture up the next time we have it out.

Seeing as it's butcher's day I shall be shopping and getting all my bits tidied up and then into the shed. Steam engines are like quilts..... they take a lot of making!

My daughter started a quilt like that but never finished it. It's the traditional method.its the backing that is so difficult to handle. It gets very heavy

I think that's why she quilted it by knotting, you can lay it flat on the floor and work from one end. It's done at the corners of squares with about 4" spacing, Sewn with embroidery silks, hand stitched, looped through the bottom, tied at the top then trimmed leaving small tails

Ah I see, I understand, but there are still the edges to do. Phew, had work

No other way really Sue as it would not fit on the machine. I seem to remember the wadding was cut over sized as was the cotton backing. Once all the knotting was done and the wadding secured it was trimmed back to the finished size along with the backing. All three layers then tacked around the periphery so the outer seams could be stitched. It's a while ago now but I think that was the method used. Sally used it as therapy during her chemo and finished it off after her treatment finished so its over 20 years ago now.

That all makes sense. Some people send the final quilt away to edged. Special quilting machines have a wider throat. I did a quilt for my grand daughters cot. It was a nightmare managing it on the machine. I vowed I would never do it again. I researched all the various ways of sewing it on the machine. None worked, I came up with my own method.

I have quilted many quilts on my sewing machine, including 2 Queen-sized quilts. It's just a domestic machine with a walking foot. And I love edging quilts.
I take a lot of time folding and arranging the bulk of the quilt for each "run" under the machine, and generally throw the bulk of the weight over my shoulder, or set chairs up alongside to take the bulk.
I also have a frame for hand quilting ( large oval hoop on a stand).

I have got to the stage where I have enough quilts, so I can't see myself making any more...( I shan't be getting any grandkids, but I did one each for hubby's grandkids when they were little, but never saw the quilts again so I don't know if they were used.)

Apart from the usual tasks and the shed, I am expecting my cleaners to come and give me a blow through and there could be a visit from Wendy which often means a bunch of goodies from her garden.....

It's a bit too early in the year for goodies from my garden, though I can manage a stick or two of rhubarb and as many eggs as you can eat!

She delivered..... I shall be in the shed again today..... Col is now equipped for old fashioned iron pipe threading and tap valve seat re-facing. He looks well, evidently thrives under the current management structure.