Help needed for Joplin

Judy Laquidara is offering a wonderful quilt on her blog. She lives near Joplin in the USA that was devastated by a tornado last week.
For every $25 you get an entry for the quilt... etc Please read all about it and support her effort.

http://www.patchworktimes.com/help-joplin/

John Robert Glasspool

John [Jack] Robert Glasspool 3 Feb 1913 - 19 May 2011

My father in law sadly lost his earthly life yesterday. He was a wonderful man and at age 98 still managed to live on his own. His jest for life, whatever was thrown at him was an inspiration to us all. He will be greatly missed.

BSK Bedford day

Yesterday Penny, Clare and myself enjoyed a day at BSK Bedford. Because the project was so time consuming, we had two embroidery machines each, to make a large table mat. You can see in the picture my two machines, both busy sewing a quarter each of the outside lace edge. I love this design so much I already have another colour way sewing out on my own machine.

SunBonnet Sue is finished

Yesterday at Poppy Patch, a local Quilting & Patchwork shop that have a sit and sew day, I managed to finish the binding on Sun Bonnet Sue. I have made this into a wall hanging.. now all I need is a BIG wall! The other pictures are some of the ladies "Sit n Sewing" this is a very friendly group that I attend twice a month.

Abigail's Butterfly quilt

Yesterday I managed to finish the binding on Abigail's Butterfly quilt.

This was actually inspired by a pattern from Judy Laquidara. For the main part of the quilt I used the same multi-coloured fabric, with highlights of lavender, purple and gold. To make it a bit of fun for Abigail who is 7 years old I am adding 3D butterflies made on my embroidery machine.

Lotto Blocks

Having recently seen a link to Lotto Blocks [ see side bar link] I decided to join in the fun. The May challenge is to make one to nine blocks using white or WOW fabric for the squares and triangles, plus two grey and 2 gold in each block, the rest random colours.

I decided to make nine, and now have them ready for when I recieve the link to put them on the lotto blog site.

Not sure how this all works, but it was fun making the blocks.

Family Tree quilt

In response to a question about my family tree quilt and photos.
I decided years ago to make a family tree quilt but never got around to it, so when I thought "now is the time" I looked for photos of my immediate family.
I found I had pictures of all FOUR grandparents, plus to my amazement SIX of my Great Grandparents, this led me to search for the missing two GG's an Aunt said she had a painting of one of them so I hot footed it over to take a photo of the painting, and to my surprise she had found a photo of the eighth GG.
I also have a photo of a painting of my GGGrandfather, but that's as far as I can go.

Parents: Stanley SIMONS and Catherine ASHBY
GParents: William SIMONS m Ellen STEVENSON
John ASHBY m Annie PERCIVAL
GGParents: Joseph SIMONS m Emily CHENEY
Charles STEVENSON m Mary SNEATH
William ASHBY m Sarah ASHBY
George PERCIVAL m Hannah HICKERSON
GGGparent: William PERCIVAL born 1804

If you think you might be related to me I would love to hear from you.

Also I belong to the Guild of ONE NAME STUDIES, and have been researching GLASSPOOL's from around the world.

A lace pansy

I have finished my first piece of lace for ages.. it is great being back in the lace mood.

I have not decided what to make next, maybe another pansy in a different colour.

This pattern was designed by Eeva-Liisa Kortelahti, and I needed something easy to make at Lace Days.

Hamtune Evening

Last night was the evening meeting of Hamtune Quilters, Northampton.

We celebrated our 6 years with a beautiful cake, sit and sew and raising money for our nominated charity.

A 10% sales table was a big success, considering it was the first time we had done this. Plus what a great way to sell off your unwanted craft items. We raised £17.15.

Our occassional raffle brought in another £41, so a good start to this years gift to the Parkinson Society.

A new project, Family tree

Having wanted to make a family tree with fabric I have at last started it!

The print out of my ancestors and desendants has been copied onto fabric. Also I have managed to find photos of my parents, grandparents and even Great Grandparents to add along with snippets of other information, like newspaper cuttings and a birth register document.

I intend using a jelly roll to join the fabric pictures together, and will start by adding a 1 inch border to each photo, then attemp to join them altogether into a wall hanging.

Bournemouth weekend

On Thursday Chris came home from work and on the spur of the moment we decided to take a special offer Shearings self drive break the following day!

Friday was THE Royal wedding and I did not want to miss a minute of it, so up really early to shower and pack and then TV from 8am until they went into Buckingham Palace for the lunch. What a wonderful wedding and something only Britain and our Royal family seem to know how to do. The weather was fine and Kate Middleton and Prince William looked so at ease and happy.

After a quick lunch we were on our way and made a stop at Thatcham to see Chris's dad who is in hospital, at 97 years old he is just in for observation.

Finally arrive at the Majestic Hotel in time for dinner.

Saturday we took the chain link ferry at Poole and just enjoyed the wonderful weather and countryside. After dinner at the Hotel we enjoyed the company of a couple we met and watched the evening entertainment, an Elvis impersonator, he was brilliant!

Sunday it was off to the New Forest, where the donkeys roam the streets, and a mother duck was seen swimming with eleven babies. Again we enjoyed the evening entertainment a musical act. Monday after breakfast was the journey home feeling relaxed and having had a wonderful time.