Quaker squares and how to turn a blunder into an asset!

Ok, I have some photos of the finished squares for the Friends Meeting House in Keswick which was devastated by floods in November 2010. So hopefully these will be going up on the wall in the room we hire off them and another 10 sets of four squares from some of the other ladies too, all in different colours of the rainbow...............



Crazy patchwork with goldwork

So first up is one I was still working when I took the photo last night. I layed some sticky backed stabiliser down and just applied the fabric in sections until I was pleased with the result. The orangy coloured piece is actually some ribbon and then there was a piece of velvet and some brocade and silk with gold embellishments added. I worked a bit of free machine embroidery here and there and lastly of all you see my needle and gold thread as I attach a gold edge which I am carefully twisting with some Linton Tweed thread.



Machine embroidered flower with beadwork

This one was a lot of fun to do. I started with a background fabric which was beige so I overlaid it with a piece of brown gauze from an old scarf. It immediately turned the black flower design underneath to chocolate,  hmm just what I wanted.  I then picked out the central motif and did my silver thread machine embroidery on the top after I had placed the whole thing in a really tight embroidery hoop so I could drop the feed dogs.  I was after a passion flower look and wanted it kept simple. So I beaded the centre with yellow and red beads and then radiated out with silver long beads; then finally added the pinky red beads around the flower. I added the edge which was Linton Tweed thread again and stitched it down with the same silver thread I had used on the flower it's by Madeira and called Jewel.




Little applique hearts with buttons

Here we have a simple background which was stabilised with sticky stabiliser again and then I added the heart shapes and buttons. I did a bit of machine embroidery around the leaves which were part of the background silk fabric. I cut out some more and added them to balance the effect. Lastly I added the edge trim again using scraps of threads taken from Linton Tweed and stitched with Madeira Jewel in red.






My little trees

This photo won't enlarge unless it is huge so I am having to put up with it.......I really enjoyed making this square and I simply took some velvet and satin stitched the tree designs on. The little red one was part of the giveaway I won last month, I simply detached it from it's background embroidery and re used it...... Then added a gnarled stump from a bit of old jute string and twisted it a bit to look like a tree trunk. I added a few red beads to the first 2 trees so they looked as if they had berries on them and finished off with a lovely satin stitch border. Then I had a snag because the square had pulled out of shape a bit so I had the idea of disguising it with the edge which is taken from Linton Tweed again. Its a wonderful glittery sort of riot of sticky out bits of thread.....Take a closer look and you will see what I mean. This was the 2nd square I made and when I had added the edge I realised that it was a good idea to do the same on all subsequent squares. So that's why I had the idea, to disguise my very non square design,  hmmm.   Where there is a mistake always turn it to your advantage.

Day 6 Advent Challenge ''Visions of Yesterday"

That was the title of a book I bought when I was at Lancaster University reading history. The author was Jeffrey Richards and it was all about the history of film, as his course was the only one at the time doing the history of the cinema in the UK. Since those days it has become more popular.  Anyway, I digress because this posting is to show you some of the wonderful photos I took yesterday when we took Bella up Latrigg which is over to the left of this first photo. It is a small mountain not as big as the one you see in the middle distance which is Blencathra.  Anyway, the route goes via the old single track railway which was closed in 1971 by Beeching.  I actually must have been one of the last few people to make that journey that year because our DD had been born in the Spring and I took her in her carry cot on the train to stay with my DH's family. He took the car loaded with stuff and I had to get the train as there was no room left for us.  It has to be one of the most beautiful sections of line ever engineered and the railway ran from Penrith through to Keswick and beyond to Cockermouth. This is one of the bridges which crossed the River Greta and it is now just a lovely narrow footpath. There is a society who hope to restore it all as a railway track again and they raise some money, but I think it is a forlorn hope as it would cost millions to re open as the M6 motorway goes right through it......Best to keep it as a super walk for the folks in Keswick.

The day was very cold but the sun did manage to come out for a couple of hours and created lovely long shadows on the ground because it was so low in the sky. We passed a few folks on the way to the top and then we stopped to put on our crampons because we intended to come down a very steep section and knew it would be icy.

I was busy taking some photos of Bella because she had some ice on her chin and when I looked at them later discovered she was doing the very famous 'Border Terrier Nose Lick' on one of them. Did you know there is a site on the internet which is dedicated to the BT nose lick?  People are invited to submit photos of their terriers performing it.... Well done Bella, it's a good one.......

After this DH picked her up for another couple of photos and then decided to drop her back onto the snow. I was still snapping away and I found this photo when I got home, it's Bella about to get that sinking feeling..... I could not have taken this shot if I had tried to set it up, what superb colours and action.......



After this we walked back down into town because it was the Keswick Christmas Fair and we wanted to mooch about the stalls and take in the atmosphere.  But before we ended up in town we took a short cut across the park near the cricket pavilion and the mist had come down over the pitch. It was really pretty with this lovely white cloud of mist hugging the ground. DH took this shot of our local Museum in the background with Clough Head right behind it snug in it's snowy glory.



Well it is hard to believe that this is day 6, until tomorrow then.............