Christmas Party and Show N Tell

Le Club Artisanat had their Christmas party on Tuesday, Dec 3. It was a lot of fun and a little sad since we lost three members this year. (Some of the ladies are well into their 80's and they still participate. I'll be happy to be half that smart at their age.)

Cue in the pictures.

 Lots of people came this year. We were 74 members present. We have almost 100 members all together.

The show and tell tables. 

We also take in gifts for children in needs and items for the food bank too. These people are so generous.

This is our funny Julie. During the "meeting" part of the evening, she had the responsibility to talk about the origin of the "Christmas Tree". She decided to dress up for the occasion.

She took her responsibility very seriously. But the things she said; we were all in stitches. 

Finally came the time for the show and tell. This is Lise, our treasurer, who doesn't like the camera, so she was showing the items very rapidly in the hope that I wouldn't take a picture. Got to love a girl like that.  (Note the giant star or snowflake behind her. You will see it again in other pictures.)

 This afghan was knitted and I thought it was just magnificent. WOW!

Then came Sylvie's quilt. She is a master at quilting.

Look at this red block. In the plaid, the red lines are all lined up to meet with the red line from the next piece. Isn't that something? She is just awesome! She quilted it on her long arm.

Three little knitted gnomes. The red one kind of fell over a little bit (a little bit too much beer.) I thought they were so cute.

Again, here's Lise trying to avoid the camera once more. She is showing bags but they are hard to see with all the gifts behind. Yep, we all get a gift. Every one present gets a present. 

The next few pictures are tops. Lots of time we bring in the top as it is less heavy for our two "Vanna White".

 This one was huge!

There were quite a few quilts made from this design in different colorways.

The next two are quilted. 

This is a weaved afghan. It was so incredibly soft.

Another weaved afghan. 

Someone knitted this cradle with a blanket and the baby had a pajamas too. So cute.

I tried really hard to take a good picture of this one as it had real lights in it. Unfortunately there was always someone in front of it so ... I snapped a picture anyway. Sorry, Françoise. I'm chopping your head off.

Now that wonderful star or snowflake you saw on the wall mesmerized me all evening long. Then I found out it is my good friend Lucie, sitting right next to me, who had made it. So I asked her pointers for making one for me and voilà ... 

... got my very own star made out of plastic cloth hangers. White tie-wrap are holding it together. It measures 36 inches across. It took 10 minutes to whip this together and I asked DH to get a set of lights to add to it. It will be giving to my In-laws sometime this week. DH will hang in up outside their house for them.




We will now return to our regular programming ... on another post.



Cheers! \_/

;^)

Productive vacation

A few weeks back, I took a few days off work and started working on a new project; an afghan on the loom.

I graduated to the big loom. Here, the ladies are loading it up.

Fifteen threads per section.

Here are the sections, each containing the 15 threads. It is a cream colored thread so we can choose any colors for our afghans.

The counter to make sure the threads in each sections are the same length. Can you image the problems if they weren't?

The very high-end 21st Century technology gadget that assures the threads aren't tangled; a comb. :^D  Hey, it works like a charm. You can see the sections better in this picture.

Now I can't remember how many sections were used to make it to 50 inches wide. Afghans are usually made 75 inches long. To me, that sounded like a time-consuming project, like 3-4 days long. So that's why I took a few days off work.  Before starting on the project, one has to fill up the big wooden shuttles with the wool (which I forgot to take a picture of). There's many shuttles to be fill to make an afghan. The motion of rolling the yarn around the shuttles tired my arms pretty quickly. I thought this project would never get finished if my arms were already tired and it hasn't even started yet. :^(
So we sat, my teacher and I, and started to weave at around 10 am.

And we weaved and talked and weaved and ... then we were done!! Yes, we were done. It was 1:25 pm. It went by so fast that I forgot to take pictures of the process. (Sorry!) My teacher was laughing, saying: What are you going to do with the rest of your vacation?  "Don't worry, I'm sure I can brew more troubles before the day is done, ha!"

So, here's my afghan, all weaved, wrapped on the back of the loom.

For the final touch, a fringe needs to be added at both ends. Each little length of yarn needs a knot at each end otherwise, it will look like a woolly mess in a few months. After, I use a regular crochet to pull the yarn through, then I slip the ends through the loop. It's a slow process but a much needed one as it hides the not-so-pretty beginning and ending of the cream colored threads. You can see it in the previous photo.

Click on pictures to enlarge.



Joining Kathy today for a Slow Sunday Stitching.

Until next time...

;^)

Trying to finish something

On this glorious afternoon, I am trying to finish something. I haven't used my weaved tea towel yet because they are "tied" or "embroidered" as some people say.

It's not exactly embroidery as it consist of a series of knots but this is what I am working on. 

The ideal way of starting or finishing off a project it's while it is still attached to the loom. I didn't do it then and I was told that "you can't do the embroidery finish after the project is cut off the loom". To me, that  sounded like a dare ... and I am up to it. 

So, this afternoon, I taped the towel to the glass of the patio table and 

started the tying session. 

Ok, it is a little bit easier on the loom, but this is working better than I thought it would. Kind of hard to see here do the color of the thread. I'll snap more pictures when I get to work with a  better color than chocolate. 

Joining Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching. Come and visit us. 

Until next time ... 

;^) 

Hello! Remember me?

Boy! It has been awhile since I was here. I think I fell off the face of Blogland but I am back. It's the last Blue Saturday of the year and I haven't done any. So, this morning I tried to get my sewing mojo going by taking care of the 365 Challenge quilt.


Remember this?

That was when I couldn't finish the corner because I was missing one block. Last week I hunted down the missing block. Apparently, it wasn't missing. It has never been made as only 71 blocks were and not 72. But on the 3rd of July, there's the pattern for the Temple Court block.

So I made one this morning and ... oops, it's sideways. Anywho! I was able to finish the corner.


Ta-dah!

So there's my blue story for July. I still have a lot of yellow blocks for June and now July too needs more blocks made. Cheese!! Anyone out there has a day or two too many that I could buy off? Anyone?  Really! No one? Darn!



Until next time .... yes, yes, eventually I will show you why I am not spending a lot of time in my sewing room, beside the garden. It does involve this

and a new toy!

;^)



Joining RSC's queen Angela at Soscrappy.

Slow Lunch Breaks

I haven't been sewing much this past week, but I have been slow stitching during my lunch breaks at work. :^D

Since I can't bring the old quilt at work to work on, I brought something much more portable. My MIL table runner. Yep, finally working on this one. I kind of resurrected this one and started working on the appliques.

Sorry if the pictures aren't the best, they were taken with my phone.  Click to enlarge.

I started in the middle of the vine and I'm slowly working my way to the edge. I will pull some fabric out to be used for prepping of the leaves ... hopefully this afternoon.

Don't know if this count as slow stitching ....

but I have been working on some more towels. It uses a very big "needle" to shuttle the thread from one side to the other, hehehe! Don't mind the hot pink piece of rag in there. It is where the piece will be cut, to separate my work from the previous lady's work. The red row you see is my edging. It's the first time I do it this way. It's a little bit like embroidery. It finishes the towel so nicely. My stitches are not very even yet. You can see her beautiful blue edging at the bottom of the picture. I'll show you more of mine next time.

Joining Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching where there's lots of wonderful project made by hand to be seen.


Until next time ...

;^)

Whatever Wednesday: A new love

I have found a new lover ... ummm ... I mean a new love. Yes, a new love. No, I didn't get a cat but ... it is something I've been wanting for a long time.

I have learned a new craft!! It is a lot of fun!!

It's weaving. Like in weaving on a loom. I love it.

I did four dishcloths as my first project. Yes, I know there's only three in the picture; no, I don't know why. Ha! Maybe you can see the mistakes in there. Maybe they aren't that easy to spot. Anywho! You don't become an expert on your first try, right? Good! Cause neither have I! :^D

Have I mentioned that I joined a group of craft oriented group? There's quilters, knitters, crochet, embroidery, paintings and even some do dried flowers arrangements. A lady does birthday cards with embroidery. (Shown here) Well, in this group there is also some weavers and I wanted to learn so they taught me. Yay!

Care to take a little tour? Okay.  (click image to enlarge)

This is the view as you walk into the loom room. It's in the basement at a church so don't mind the floor. You can see the rear of the three looms.

This is the front of the three looms.  The bench has a compartment on each side so you can put your thread, shuttles, spare bobbins, etc. Pretty cool.

In the other corner, sits the Big Loom. It makes afghans so it is really long.

A lady is making an aqua and taupe afghan. The yarn is textured so it makes it very interesting.

The lady next to me is working on a shawl. This is the back of her machine. There is about three inches of thread all rolled up and ready to go. We should be able to make a lot of shawls with that. I hope I'll be able to make one too because it is so gorgeous. Just look at her work. Awwwwesome.

But first I need the learn the basic. So this is my station for now and I am working on tea towels.

They are done in brown, beige and yellow.  The red ones, matching the dishcloths, were all done. Oh well, that's fine if they don't match. I'm still having fun making them. It is a smaller work place compare to the shawl but it is still a lot of work. I get to use some muscles that have been resting way too long.  :^D  I'll share more pictures once they are done and bound.  When I am done with these, I'll ask if I may make some pink and blue tea towels. You can see that set up in the foreground of the first and second pictures of the looms.

Now, you can understand why I haven't been quilting much lately. More on that later.


I will link with Sarah for Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? on Friday.

Until next time ...

;^)