Before and after

Time changes things and both time and light (along with usage) change quilts.

I made a Union Jack quilt way back in 2013. Here's the blog post and photos.

It still hangs on the wall in my daughter's home and this is what it now looks like. Some of the colours have faded with time (mainly the navy blues) but some have not. It has been washed and none of the blues or reds have bled. Yay for me!!! I have a Canadian flag that I should finish. The sides are done and I just have to find a really good sized maple leaf for the middle. I have one that's paper pieced but it's not the right size. I should also make an American flag but there are just so many things on my 'to do' list right now.

Sewing and knitting

...but no quilting - yet. 

I wanted to use up some yarn so I made this little stroller blanket.

I didn't realize when I bought these (just before the imposed self isolation) that they were for plastic canvas. I knew I was going to be doing some knitting and I wanted to make sure I had a big-eyed needle. These worked very well.

These are all the blankets I finished. I don't know if I could ever knit a bigger one than that pink one. It's about 26 inches square. It's supposed to be a lacy pattern and the instructions said to yarn over. Well, I did a yarn under and so it didn't come out as lacy as expected but I continued on a completed it. 

I also made a few hats. These were just to use up some leftover yarn.

And, as for sewing, I made some soother clips. I think I finished 36. Two were new ones for the twins and these are to sell. 

This has been my little work station while I did some sewing. The flannel in the foreground is a baby blanket that my daughter wanted me to cut up for spit-up cloths (burp cloths.) That's the sewing machine I used and I set it up at the kitchen table. It's now been packed away since I shall be leaving England and flying home soon.

Day ten

A very pleasant walk but not if it has rained. This path tends to get very muddy. Nice for little boys who love muddy puddles but not nice for dogs (who get dirty) and adults - because it gets worse up ahead and very slippery. River Medway is on the left. A farmer's field is on the right - behind the bushes.

Day nine

This was the second set of trees that I was asked to test.

I sent the six blocks to the Wollongong Modern Quilt Guild in Australia. They were collecting tree blocks to be put into quilts for those people who lost everything and were displaced during the horrendous fires late last year - before Covid 19 struck.

Day eight

I sometimes am a pattern tester for a couple of quilt designers. Cindy of Quilt Doodle Designs approached me earlier this year to see if I could test her instructions for a couple of different tree blocks. Even though I had a lot of other things to do, I said yes and found that her instructions were very clear and the measurements accurate. 

This was one set of trees.