Fabric postcards again . . .

Something quick and easy I've done this week. Apart from the middle one in this first pic, which is hand appliquéd and quilted, they are all machine stitched.

TAST update

There's a mischmasch here of the last 2 stitches, plus some infilling. This panel will be finished shortly.

Assorted curiosities along the beach . . .

There's a bird there somewhere, honestly. Whoever did this, and when?

Action shot - I'm proud of this one, I usually miss the moment.

And whyever were these people walking the length of the shore carrying these beautiful flags?!

. . . . no prizes for attempts at answers, sorry.

Textures in the sand

I think I need to try and turn some of these into stitch.

The last beach hut day . . .

Ooops, no, this isn't it! This is the holiday cottage. (Actually it isn't that either, it is just some millionaire's home along the beach at Sandbanks.)

This is more like it. Retired pair sip coffee and read the newspaper in the sun with a view of . . .
. . . Old Harry Rocks across Poole Bay on the last Tuesday in September.

TAST latest

This week's double buttonhole is nice, though again I'm having trouble thinking creatively with it. An inadvertant variation is on the left. I tried doing the stitch without reference to the instructions and didn't remember it right. So I was doing the second loop along the bar next to the first loop instead of in it. Looks quite nice I think. The right hand line will be finished today. There is a piece of painted nappy liner laid over the fabric as it got dirty!!There's cable chain here, then rice stitch . . . . . . and the rods a friend has turned for me to make up my sample strips into scrolls eventually at the end of the challenge.

P & Q

There's a patchwork and quilting group meets monthly in the village hall up the road and I have joined it. It is the Crooked Boro' Quilters, of Wimborne. I remember years ago when I was first getting into quilting going to their exhibitions in Wimborne and being very impressed. The group is smaller now, but very open and welcoming. A Rebecca Collins pattern for a bag is being worked on currently, so I joined in: It has a big pocket on the front (above) behind the pieced block, and another big one on the back (below) with 2 smaller ones. Don't quite know why the fastening flap is on the back??? I'm sure I followed the instructions!

Death of a dragonfly . . .

. . .on a fork handle in our garden. We caught sight of this lovely creature in this rather odd place one evening last week. Next day it was still there, and slowly it died. Rather sad, it is a bit magnificent when you come to look at it closely. Strangely enough DH had been reading about them not long before and discovered they only live a few weeks in this stage of their life. Seems a bit of a waste of so much splendour!

Sumptuous Surfaces - finished piece

Finished stitching the first piece from Sharon B's Sumptuous Surfaces course and made it up into a postcard. Funny, looking at the actual piece the leaf shape (horse chestnut) doesn't show up so clearly, but in the photo the contrast between the emptier paler leaf and the closely textured darker background is very marked. Although the leaf part with the long stitches was worked in a hoop the threads have pulled the fabric up a bit. Maybe they do need a bit of couching. But I want the smooth lines really.I was finding the textured bit easier as I did more of it, but still don't feel I quite have grasped how to organise it, it is still a bit of a muddle to me. Sharon's course is lovely and has so much in it. I need to read through the lessons again and then get stuck into the second part of it, a similar project but using colours.

Birthday book . . .

. . . Janet Edmonds: Beginner's Guide to Embroidered Boxes, Search Press, was a present from a daughter back in July. So in spite of other pressing tasks I had to try something out and came up with this small variation on the first one in the book. I've done it 4-sided instead of 5.

It is made with felt, pelmet vilene and bits and pieces fabric with sheer overlays. Free machine stitched. I think it is rather cute and will have to make some of the other shapes in the book eventually. I can handle this sort of 'soft' box but not the sort where you have to lace fabric over stiff card, though I do admire those when I see them.

Days out . . .

. . . at the beach, using a beach hut some friends are renting for September. The Barfleur, Poole - Cherbourg ferry coming past Old Harry rocks towards the harbour entrance. A view from Evening Hill, inside the harbour, of the most expensive piece of real estate in the country - the Sandbanks peninsula, with the Purbeck hills beyond.

. . . and to West Bay, near Bridport - a corner of the harbour with a bit of history . . .

. . . situated at the western end of Chesil Beach. The pebbles here are tiny, the ones at the other end, Portland, are huge, and in between they grade themselves with extraordinary accuracy.

The end of the pier , like the ends of piers everywhere . . .

Local fishing boats look like toy ones.

Well, he has been talking about buying another boat, but he's not having this one!

CQ Journal Quilts again

May - colours from a week in Caithness this month. Sky, sea, peat bogs, pasture, lochans, rocks, gorse. June - the week we moved, adapted from a page in my homemade diary, where I was crossing off the days and decided to embellish them a bit.July - colours in the garden at our new house, and the pathways, the new possibilities ahead of us now.
August - well we have come back to the seaside, so something had to be done about that! This is painted papers, backed with iron-on interfacing and stitched on. I think the horizon is sloping!!!!! (It shows up in this view.)

Birthday book making . .

. . . at eldest granddaughter's 12th birthday party. She and 6 friends coloured paper with wax crayons and oil pastels washed over with metallic paints. They then stuck the paper (ably hairdryered by Dad and Grandad) to corn flakes packet card (her dad eats a lot of them) covers and stitched two signatures inside.

Sumptuous Surfaces latest

I've not done much more, but I am working at it, and trying to figure out why it hasn't grabbed me as I thought it would. There is something that hasn't quite 'clicked' yet about the whole process. But I'm sure it will in time. Meanwhile it looks a little strange.