Borders and Grids

It's Good Friday today, wet & the first day of the end of first term school holidays. Two weeks to go! We had a horrid storm yesterday with winds gusting from a direction that comes right into our property. Thank goodness it has calmed somewhat today.

Bearing in mind that the school hols were looming, finishing the border on the Mountmellick was foremost in the daytime schedule this week. Circles, circles and more circles...all 48 of them to be appliqued to the background. Now they are not perfect, I wanted the perfect circles template to arrive but it wasn't going to as it is on backorder so I forged ahead anyway with doing circles for the first time and so they are not perfectly symmetrical but then I am one of those people who are into quirky, handmade and natural shabby and imperfect pieces and so I can live with that. Anyway, when you look at the piece as a whole you don't notice and apart from a quilting expert I am the only one who will notice and I am not entering a competition anytime soon. I had fun with this piece and apart from a slight easement needed on the longer border pieces it all fitted as per the measurements given by Di.....WOO HOO...I was a little nervous about this as some blogs and the facebook groups I follow  had mentioned having issues with the measurements.
 

 

48 not so perfect circles all in rows

 

 

48 not so perfect circles on diamonds pieced with triangles and made into a shabby border

 

 

 
 

 

What a site to behold! Up to date and awaiting part III

 

Now my daytime stitching is to be directed towards couching the Gilt 1 1/2 twist around the Elizabethan style flowers on the mirror with doors. My thread supplies arrived and I made a teeny tiny start yesterday, late yesterday so I didn't get very far but it is underway.

 

So Sparkly

I have also been beavering away every night on my Ann Lawle sampler. It took simply ages to extract all those vertical and horizontal threads for the cutwork grid.

The Grid

Now I have started to 'strengthen' the vertical threads with Whip Stitch. Once that is done then the horizontal strengthening and the pattern. This is the absolute first time I have done anything like this and when you look at the project as a whole it can be quite terrifying but if you step back and just have the confidence and work through the steps you find that It is not so impossible after all.

Strengthening

 

Finally this week my Lone Elm Lane Shaker Box and the first part of the Shepherd's Bush series for 2014 'The Fold' arrived. I want to start this sampler which is designed to fit into the lid of the box. There will be several more parts over the year which will be needlework  accessories that fit into the box. It took ages to start as there were fabric and other delays but it is cool now it has arrived. One has to have a lot of faith and patience in the needlework world as threads/fabric can take quite some time to be produced due to the fact that a lot of materials are made by small artisans.

 

 

Last weekend the weather was beautiful so we decided to take the girls for a trip over to Waiheke Island for lunch. The ferry trip takes under an hour from Auckland City. We found a neat little restaurant which brews it's own beer. We sat outside in a couple of lounge chairs at a table made of beer crates and the girls sat in a seat that was made out of an old wooden dinghy and bean bags...cool idea! Food was unusual and also enjoyable.

 

 

Dinghy Seat

 

Happy Easter