22 Aug

Helping Rachelle and Jack move home.  Leaving the Sheffield City Centre studio apartment and moving to the outskirts.  This is the old place, no pics of the new one - too tired by the time we got there, but it's lovely and quiet, very spacious and surrounded by lots of green.

Day out in Sheffield

Went on the train to meet Rachelle at Meadowhall.  First time Scooby and I have done this journey on our own but no problems.  Takes two hours but apart from the heat we had a good journey.

Did some shopping, lunch in Ed's Diner and coffee in Costa before we came home.  Nice having Rachelle here for a couple of days.

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Rachelle's Ice Cream

One of the things Santa brought for Rachelle is an ice cream maker - here is her first batch of very delicious low fat version.  Next on the list is something richer with eggs and double cream - cant wait !!!

Update - no photo but fresh raspbery ice cream is to die for..........  Rachelle's second batch had double cream and a large quantity of frozen raspberries.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!

Rachelle's creation inspired by Kat Von D

Here's the video which inspired Rachelle's remodelled T Shirt.  This is a picture of the HIM T shirt before Rach started.

And this is the finished result.....

Not bad eh?

Well Done Rachelle!

Well done Rachelle - fabulous results including 5As and 3Bs  1C and a Merit.  All that hard work paid off and we are all very proud of you.  Enjoy 6th Form!

New School Bag

Rachelle's Ramones bag has had to have a repair, the strain of school books and files has been too much for it.  Only a seam had come undone so it was easy to put right, but she has decided not to use it any more for school and make herself another.  We bought black canvas and polyester webbing and she has printed a photo of her favourite pop group onto inkjet fabric.  We are awaiting a large consignment of zips to arrive from Ebay and there will be one or two zipped pockets sewn inside the bag.

We've worked together on the design but Rachelle is doing the construction, she had a quick run through the instructions for the Horizon and picked that up easily, she's a very competent machinist.

Big Drum Roll

We have a local Agricultural Show in our town, been running over 100 years and is the largest one day agricultural show in the country - so it's quite famous in its own right.  School children are allowed the day off school to go, but that doesn't stretch to the staff so most years I miss out, no different this year.  Anyway a bit of a brag - my daughter's teacher entered Rachelle's GCSE textiles project unbeknown to Rachelle and it won FIRST PRIZE so we're both very proud.

This is the only photo we have of the wall hanging, Rachelle took it with her phone before rushing it to school in time for the moderation.  Hopefully when it comes back home I'll be able to take a better one.

Well Done Rachelle!

Rachelle's GCSE Textile Project

Here is Rachelle's GCSE project.  I am really disappointed that I didn't get a better photo before it was handed in.  Anyway, both of us are delighted how it turned out and it is predicted an A - so fingers crossed.

Can You Make me a TuTu? Now!

I forgot to mention............a couple of weeks ago I came home from work with a throbbing headache, sore throat, potential cold etc. All I needed was a Lemsip and a lie down. What I got was an overpowering welcome from my daughter and an announcement that she and her friend had bought 4 yards of flourescent pink netting, a yard of elastic and could I make her a tutu.............now. Everyone was expected to be wearing one at a friend's 16th birthday party on Saturday night.

OK, so I'm supermum - it took me an hour........then I had the Lemsip and the lie down!!

Great Northern Quilt Show, Harrogate

Super day at the show. I went with Jenny and Rachelle and the first workshop we went to was Maggie Davies Exploring Machine Quilting - there was no charge for this workshop but a decent sleeve of handouts, photos and pattern were supplied and we had a go at designing a border, followed by a demonstration by Maggie. Unfortunately her Bernina was playing up and there were large nests of thread forming behind her work, but we got the general idea. By the time she demoed to the second group all was working well. I loved the piece she was working on - a needlefelted picture of poppies. It was a project she had featured in this month's Fabrications magazine - more on that later.

The second workshop we did was Sashiko with Susan Briscoe I've always like the look of this but never got round to trying it. Susan talked us through what Sashiko was, transferring the design to fabric, the thread, needle etc and that only left a little time to start stitching, however I managed a couple of inches and I'll enjoy finishing it off at home. It will look well as a cushion centre or a central panel on a bag.



That was it for workshops for us, so admiring the exhibited quilts and shopping was next. As usual, beautiful quilts and wall hangings with fabulous designs and colouways. Instant inspiration everywhere!

Super day - I've lots of new ideas to try out now - what a shame it's back to work next week after seven weeks summer holidays.

What I bought - no, not a new sewing machine - that's my sewing desk behind

• Gutermann Sulky machine embroidery threads for £1 each!
• This month's Fabrications magazine and a couple of back issues
• From Dream to Reality by Janet Cook - How I convert ideas to quilts
• Packet of soya crayons for colouring fabric
• A Clover YoYo maker
• Packet of Hobbs Thermore wadding
• 5 absolutely gorgeous red/black/gold theme fat quarters
• some gold cord

Towards the end of the day when everything had quietened down I called at the Direct Knit and Sew stand and had a test drive of the new Inspira Imperial Quilting Frame What a great piece of kit - I would love one of these, it would open a whole new world for the finishing of my quilts. I could go on and on about how easy it was to use, how smoothly it moved and how even my stitches were - but I won't. It's something else added to the list of what we will buy when we win the Lotto!!!

Rachelle's Sewing

Rachelle needed a new school bag and decided to make one. She has chosen Textiles as a GCSE option from September, and currently doing textiles in her DT lessons. The latest project is a cushion cover using various techniques - one of which was "cut away". Rachelle used this to create her bag design with denim and batik. The bag stood up to a day at school yesterday so it's a winner.

This could be a great way of using up my stash - obviously to make way for newer fabric!

Hope she starts another project soon - she works really carefully and neatly and is very confident with a sewing machine.