What's in your workbox?

Well, this is what's in the tin that sits next to my sewing machine -

I was looking for the little gadget to thread elastic or ribbon - didn't find it, but found all this plus  a layer of dust.
Don't you love that little Swiss army knife [top left] which is also a key ring; the scissors are dinky.  Lots of little brushes for cleaning the machines, not sure about the eye shadow bud, handy to have a pencil sharpener, but pegs and paper clips?  I think the eyedrops are from a symposium, and the hand cream - and those neat looking brass screws are out of the cardboard to hold curtain samples.  I am sure I will find a use for them someday - but when was the last time I put in a zip? and six pincushions?  This reminds me of the game where "all girls together" take out their handbags and see whose holds the most!!

Remember the lovely flowers I got to housesit for my friend ?-

They really were beautiful but are now down to just this -

Close up like that, it makes me think of Jaws or some other horror show!

Have you ever been to a class that disappointed you?  Oh dear, as a teacher maybe I am unwise to ask that question, however we can all improve so I will continue.  This was several years ago and one of the local clubs had some spare money so they brought in an overseas tutor - no names, no packdrill - isn't that the expression?

This person was advertised as the expert in strip piecing and I had been a fan of this type of patchwork since I started.   I had made a couple of quilts and some aprons  to try out changing direction I was really excited about being able to learn more.

I decided to use plain fabric for a change - at the class we were told to cut strips of various widths which took us until morning tea time, then we had to join them with a straight seam into long, long strips - that took us to lunchtime.

After lunch we started joining the various widths to make a piece of fabric - understandably this required a lot of ironing - where was the Gofer?  Oh my, she had set up her machine and was joining in..........

By afternoon tea time we still didn't have a useable piece of fabric and I was not in a good mood........ at the end of the class we were given a few photocopied patterns - spider web etc. etc. and told to use these to make templates using our 'new' fabric.

When I got home I tossed everything into the back of the cupboard with a few well chosen but unrepeatable words and forgot all about them.

Then I learned that Margaret Millar was coming over to teach at the Wellington 1993 symposium - I did say it was some time ago, didn't I?  I was interested so bought her book, resurrected the strips, finished them off and made some blocks using Margaret's basic techniques

This is my "Jungle of Delight" - and wasn't I lucky to have that border fabric in the stash I think it came from Evans - actually the colours are not quite right, the quilt is much more red/purple than blue - the bits left over went into the back -

Which I like very much, it reminds me of a 'modern' painting.

More recently a shop donated some fabric for us to use in the prison, in the carton was a large piece of bargello which none of the girls was keen to try to use, so one of my stitching group unpicked a seam to make two smaller units and I had great fun finding matching type fabrics from my stash and making two lap quilts ready to donate to one of the retirement homes around -

And this one

I hope you have been able to enjoy the milder, sunny weather over the weekend.

My thought for the day which clearly explains the number of UFOs around, - "The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture." Seneca


Thanks for stopping by
We'll talk again soon

June