Preparation and Problems!

I have been busy sewing blocks for my Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt this week, but haven't had time to take photos and add them to my blog yet, I now have 25 blocks completed. The 'Heart Wreath' above is actually one of the UFO's that I was supposed to complete last month as part of Patchwork Times UFO challenge. I had completed all of the hearts, but still needed to add some of the bows and stitch them onto the wire frame. I had originally thought that the frame was too small (12" diameter) and had tried to purchase a larger one, without any luck. But I have now decided that it will do, so I stitched on the remaining bows and then the hearts on to the frame. It is now another completed UFO and another decoration for Christmas. I will probably give it to my daughter.

On Wednesday I went to the quilt shop Just Between Friends, with a couple of my friends. I managed to buy most of the fabric for my Christmas redwork quilt, the majority of the fabric being from the Moda range Rouenneries deux. A really lovely shop and such fantastic service. As I want to make the quilt quite scrappy I only wanted fat quarters of the fabric, not a problem they were all cut willingly. I have also bought a cream fabric also from Moda for the stitcheries. I now need to do a few test pieces to check that the recommended Anchor and DMC stranded threads really are colourfast. I would also like to try another red which is more of a wine shade, but that means another trip to Hobbycraft first.

I have been helping my daughter make the right hand bag from the pattern above. All of the squares have been stitched together and now need cutting out at an angle using a template given in the pattern. The problem is I'm not sure of the correct size, as the template given isn't quite square. I assumed that it should be 4" square, but that can't be right as the template is slightly too big. The centre square is correct in size, so the pieceing is accurate. I have tried to contact Monkey Button's but without luck. If anyone has made this bag, or knows someone who has, please could they let me know what size to cut.