Another baby quilt for the hospital

On Wednesday 16th of May we gave all the coverlets and little quilts made by the ladies from the Golden Lion Quilters to my friend Belinda L who works for the special care baby unit in our local hospital " The Great Western" in Swindon. We were so suprised there were 30 coverlets and 7 incubator covers. They were well received and are now on the beds of the babies who are getting ready to go home (fattening up very often, especially if they were born early).

 And this is my second addition to this good cause, an incubator cover. I used a fleece bought in Ikea for the back, but it wasn't as thick as the one I had for my pink quilt.
To make the pattern I was able to borrow a special ruler from my friend Kandy who blogs here (although not very much at the moment, she is busy with DGD).

I have used children or bright fabrics for this little quilt, and was very happy to find this batik blue in my stash. I made one long pleat and cut it in 3 portions plus some left over that I will use at some point I am sure. I think the cutting took the most time. The sewing was straight forward.

 These photos are to show you my exercises on the quilting. I used the design on the front to make the big feathers, then made some smaller ones freehand, and finally made one on each side with a double centre line. I think I prefer these best.
I use any excuse to practise quilting free motion.

And for the binding I had a yellow fat quarter, kept the selvedge on when I cut my 2" wide strips. My binding is double folded so the bit of selvedge is hidden inside. no problem.

And finally I put a label on the back with a bit of binding to frame it.

I hope the staff and children in the hospital will have some pleasure from having these quilts with them. It was a pleasure to make them.

Enjoy your sewing.

Pascale.

Just some news

My next post will be quilt related but this one is just about our visitors. These are the steps to come to our front door, and at the moment the ducks are coming there in the evenings and mornings. I like them except for the poo left. They are chasing the heat on the stones from the sun before it gets completely dark. We also see a fox sometimes, but that's later.

And these photos are about the Olympic Torch touring England. It came to Swindon last Wednesday and I went on my bike with DD2 who is on study leave for her exams. We saw it first in Old Town, under a scorching heat. We had to buy an ice cream later on , and sat on a bench in the park overlooking the town.

And then we went to Greenbridge's shopping area, took our time and heard people screaming as the torch was approaching round the corner, and I got this other photo. DD2 thought it was too much wait for little and had gone in the shop. 

All this was done on our bikes to spend the calories from the ice cream, and as you can see it was very hot, as it has been since.

Enjoy the weather wherever you are, and your sewing.

Pascale.

A finished cardigan

I have finally finished this cardigan.

I think I started it at Easter last year. It followed me on different holidays, and the knitting was finished in November.

But then we moved. I lost the liberty fabric bias I had found to finish it.

On Sunday I finally finished it and wore it proudly to church. 

I was even lucky enough to get a bit of sun in the garden to take a photo.

If you are not in England, I must tell you that we have had a record wet April, and May is not nice at all so far. Everybody is lamenting about it. The heating is still on  and we have to take umbrellas everywhere. It's not normal to have so much rain.

Here is a detail of the bias. It gives some shape to the top of the cardigan.

The thread is  by Fonty, Bambou 100%, the grey has a ref 448.
I know it could do with a little blocking for the bottom edge. Not sure it will happen.
The pattern is from an old "Marie Claire Idees " magazine, from the summer 2009, ref here.

Have fun doing some sewing, knitting, crochet, whatever makes you happy.

Pascale