Kid Silk Haze Stripe gloves

Time for a bit of 'Show n Tell', at the beginning of December I posted a picture on Facebook of some Rowan Kid Silk Haze Stripe gloves that I was making .... well drum roll .... here are the finished items. I used a pattern called ' Johnstone Gloves' from 'A Season's Tale' book by Kim Hargreaves: very old, fabulous book, with classic patterns by Kim.............. I used 3mm needles and had the yarn working 2 as 1. You can get 3 gloves out of one ball - so you'll have to buy a second ball to get 3 sets of gloves. My first Kid Silk Haze project and I see what all the fuss is about!!

             

                        

A dress for the Festival of Quilts

I mentioned in my last post that I made a dress for the Rowan stand at the Festival of Quilts....well, this is the fabric by Dan Bennet and his designs are based on 'under the microscope'....

                               

And this is the end result.....making one for a friend already....

                             

 

So this is the front........and this is the back....

                          

I used the Butterick pattern B4790 which is a very easy pattern and I'm rather pleased with it!

Summer Quilt in a Day

Another 'Quilt in a Day' and another 5 lovely ladies and their Quilts - fortunately it was slightly cooler yesterday and today: so it was tolerable and it made a lovely start to the school summer holidays. 

Finished the dress for the Rowan stand @ the Festival of Quilts and one of the quilters has asked me to make one for her. Can't post a pic of the dress till the show...so here are the quilts from Saturday..

Sewing in the garden....

         

Too hot to sew indoors today so I've set up the machine outside, got Radcliffe and Maconie on 6 music, a cup of Grumpy Mule coffee and I am happy.com.... 

Knitting and sewing workshops

I have not blogged for ages because I have been so busy and something has to 'give' in the process....also, I have found it difficult to build a blog audience even though I feel to have gone the right way about it......I prefer blogging but it does take up more time, but I have had a better response to facebook.....so I think its going to be more facebook but still be doing a bit of blogging....

So why am I busy?  Well, quite a few things happening ....I have become a Rowan Consultant: which made sense as they are only up the road and I am pretty much flying the Rowan flag already....I'm doing more textile work in education for which I am trained for and have always been passionate about...and I am trying to do some designing for Ravelry and Etsy but struggling as I first and foremost have to earn a crust!

I have a range of workshops for Up Country in Holmfirth - Finishing Techniques, Knitting with Colour, How to knit socks, Quilt in a Day, A-line skirt masterclass. Check out my schedule (right), I shall also - hopefully - be posting other Rowan workshops I will be running in the future - so please, watch this space!!!

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everybody, hope the sun is shining in the sky today for you!

International Quilting Day

Last week I went to the 'The Third International Quilting Day' in Barnsley - I thought this was a 'big' title until I found out that in America on the third Saturday of March Quilters fundraise: hence the International bit.  The day was organised by Janet Bottomley of the Yorkshire Modern Quilt Guild, you had to pre-book and do a bit of prepping: but what a fantastic day!

Before we attended the day we were asked to design and make a block based on the colours of Black, White and Lime on no particular theme.  These were then to be exhibited, voted for and then raffled as a set to be made up as a quilt.  I produced 2 which I'm not even showing here - the quality of the work was so high I felt very inadequate!  And the 3 photos above show the exquisite work on display, unfortunately I've not got a photo of the winner: it was of a Panda - but not the panda in the first pic.
This was one of the quilts produced last year from the donated blocks....again, look at the quality!!!!!

There was 2 activitys during the day and this was our favourite - in fact we were beside ourselves with excitement doing it as my friend Ruth also happens to be a teacher and it was a great feeling having somebody teaching us!   We did a hand sewn block of foundation piecing to produce a 'half pineapple'.  We drew the block onto calico and then using 1" scraps we produced the block by hand sewing.  Here's some pics of the process ....

     

And this is the potential outcome - should you decide to produce more blocks.....

How fabulous are these....

After this activity we had a bit of lunch and listened to the 'Show and Tell' where quilters exhibited and talked about their quilts....

Very impressive!

And there was an ongoing raffle, a silent auction and we had been asked to donate unwanted fabric, books and any other 'crafty' stuff.......so I had a bit of retail therapy and bought these.....

It was a fantastic day with about 100 like minded women and we managed to raise over £1000 for Barnsley Hospice.  If you read this Janet thank you SO much and we are gearing up for 2014!

A week on the Isle of Mull

We have just had a week in Mull and stayed at the gorgeous Treshnish cottages in the North West of the island.  We had fabulous weather - 5 days of glorious sunshine... unbelievable at this time of year....  we walked and mountain biked most of the week and ate well, we were able to get lamb and beef off the farm....our cottage was gorgeous: just 2 cosy rooms.....and we were snuggly warm as it was really cold outside.....we spotted eagles, sea eagles and otters.....I took my sewing machine and ended up having to schedule an afternoons quilting - as we didn't have any bad weather to keep me in....hubby says I should always take a sewing machine now as it will guarantee fine weather....but also took my knitting and sewing....took too much: but hey ho...

So this was our gorgeous cottage 'Shieling'

And this was its interior

These are the 'Haunn' cottages which were a mile down the road - and equally as lovely....

Treshnish Farm had some very happy hens - there's no foxes on the island - that produced yummy 

blue eggs........

The Treshnish Isles which we looked out to - I thought they looked very Japanese like a pagoda....

and Ben More - the only 'Munro' on the island

And this was the local beach - Calgary Bay - on a very busy day...

And this was the local town ......Tobermory.....

and now we are back in Yorkshire and its very cold and very snowy...roll on Spring!

  

Bibs and bobs

Its a 'bibs and bobs' time as I feel to be going from one thing to another but not particularly getting ahead with anything: a feeling I hate!  Maybe this time next weekend I will feel entirely differently.....so lets see what box of delights I have in this post.....

I thought I'd let you see this...its by one of my knitting clubbers: for want of a better word! and I was so impressed when she showed me this.  She is very good at Crochet and a beginner knitter and this blanket is very 'her' - especially in the choice of colour.  I really liked the drape and weight of the blanket which was made in Rowan Wool Cotton and I was so impressed that I've decided to start work 

on my own Granny blanket - as I really need a project to keep me busy at Knitting Club....something that I can continually pick up and put down for a bit.

I bought this cook book last week.  If you've looked at my blog before you'll know that we love our food in the Fairislerona household and a few months ago I came across this ladies recipes - in the Sunday Times I think......anyway, we've had a go at quite a few of them and were suitably impressed and all in one pot - fab!  Georgina Fuggle is not a name you are likely to forget and I really recommend her cooking.....so today we are having the 'Pig's Cheeks in Cider' they've been gently bubbling away in the slow cooker...I was told that the 'Pig's Chaps' were the cheeks of the pig but they are so big I'm beginning to wonder which cheeks we are talking about....I'd rather not think about that one...but they do smell delicious !!!  

This is a bit of an insight into my next pattern / hooking project.  The colours look pretty retro and I really love this colour combination at the moment.  I sat looking at them the other day and wondered why I kept selecting them and I now realise why - they are the same shades as my settee which is upholstered in gorgeous Moon woven woollen fabric.  So this then led to the conclusion that I really do have to make that Granny blanket for my sitting room....

I kind of signed a pledge to myself at the start of Winter that I was not going to buy any more knitting yarn until I had used my current stash: how many knitters have said this to themselves....I made a Louisa Harding sweater in Rowan Creative Worsted but wasn't very happy with it as I felt really fat in it!  So, I'm planning to re-knit it again but this time in the very wonderful Kim Hargreaves design Onza - pictured above.  My mother knitted this for me about 10 years ago in a dark maroon Rowan Kid Classic and it is a classic sweater which I have worn and worn...so that's my next plan before I knit anything for Spring/Summer

Last, but by no means the least I had a little crafty goodie this week from Tweed Delights which I bought as a pressie for one of my friends.  Alison makes some lovely products using Harris Tweed and she is a lovely lady crafting up on the Isle of Lewis ...do take a look at her tweedying....have a good week everybody and hope we continue to get the gorgeous weather we have had the past few days for half term...

Learning to Crochet at Rowan 'Up Country'

Last weekend I ran a 'Learn to Crochet' workshop at Up Country - it was a busy day with 8 very enthusiastic ladies!  Some of the ladies were local, some from South Yorks and one lady travelled all the way from North Wales: it was lovely to meet you all. 

It was pretty intense concentration by everybody and they absolutely zoomed through the set projects - they were very quick in picking up the crochet skill and were soon planning their first projects.....this makes me very happy as I know that they 'got it' and that they are 'hooked'.

I taught them the basic skills, how to read a pattern and then we did a bit of 'grannying', a bit of 'hearting' and a bit of 'flowering'.....told you they were keen!   We stopped for a grand lunch from 

Nick's Kitchen and then tucked into home made Marmalade Cake.

Hope to see you sometime again ladies and for those who still want to 'Learn to Crochet' the next class is on Saturday April 20th and also Wednesday May 1st - book early to avoid disappointment.