At the beginning of May I went to a quilt show in Morden (Sorry I no longer show quilt show pictures on my blog because of Pinterest - even though I ask people not to pin them, they still do. I feel it is wrong, because it is not my work. It is a shame because there were some amazing quilts! And great ideas - a couple of quilt tops were dyed after piecing to make the fabric more coordinated - a great way to use mismatched scraps - I see this one in my future.) There are a couple of photos on the Barnswallow website here.
As usual at quilt shows I met some lovely people, and bought some much needed items!
This piece of hand embroidery was made by a woman in South Africa as part of Tambani - each piece comes with a card with a photo of the woman that made it. The pieces represent folk tales. Be sure to check out the link, it is such a great job creation project - you can also buy them from Canada (shipping to the US too) and Europe).
I turned the piece of embroidery into a little wall hanging - 14.5" x 16.5" (the piece of embroidery is 7" x 8"). I machine quilted in the ditch and around the embroidered figures, but thought that hand stitching would look better than machine quilting, and so I used black pearl cotton for the "big stitch" quilting. I also added some beads.
Each piece also comes with the a pamphlet of the folk tale - this one is The Rejected Wife - a story about how a woman and her five sons overcame adversity and triumphed (Alex Anderson reads the story here).
Since I now spend much less time on the computer, I have more time for other things -
I have been making jewelry.
Spinning is going well. This is 100g silk and merino from SweetGeorgia, in the colour way 'Maple'. It is about a sock weight yarn.
I divided the fibre in half, and spun one half with all the colours randomly (the bobbin on the right), and for the other half I spun all the brown, then all the red and finally all the yellow (the bobbin on the left). Now that it is plied, you can still see the long colour change. I plan on making a shawl with this skein.
I am also trying my first pair of toe-up socks (this is some self-stripping yarn I had). While buying the piece of embroidery, I met Clara (from South Africa, a volunteer with Tambani), who was knitting two at a time, toe-up socks and she kindly sent me the link for the pattern she was using (here is a link to part one). I like socks as a "take-along" project, since it is easy knitting.
My sweater is also coming along, I am up to the hip shaping increases. I have to knit about 7" on the body and then the long sleeves.
It is so nice to see the leaves on the trees after six months! Time to get outside and work in the yard.
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥