WIP Wednesday & New York Day 3

I have finally managed some sewing!!! After browsing various blogs and websites last night I saw a couple of projects that took my fancy so thought rather than just put them on my to do list I would make a start and luckily enough I had the required amounts of fabric already in my stash :) Here is one of the projects at www.canoeridgecreations.com the design is called 'Flying Together' I have made it slightly smaller as I have a pillow insert to fit my revised size.

I am linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday. I will quilt it and make it up into a cushion tomorrow evening or over the weekend.

This time last week we had another full on day of exploring New York. We hit the subway and headed off to Battery Park to get the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. It was freezing, when we came out of the museum in the pedestal of the statue it was very sleety and grey. Thankfully the weather soon lifted as you can see from the photo below.

This was taken from Ellis Island, where all the immigrants were processed before it was decided if they were allowed to enter the US or if they were to be returned to where they had arrived from.

After a bite to eat and a quick trip down Wall Street, photos to follow later as I can't find them at the moment, we headed off to Ground Zero.

This is the South Pool, built in the footprint of the original South tower. There are bronze panels around both pools which are inscribed with the names of all who perished. A white rose is placed in a persons name on their birthday. 

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum is due to open in May so we were unable to see it but did manage a glimpse inside part of it.

Once the Museum opens visitors will be able to go down into the vast spaces of the original foundations alongside a remnant of Survivors Staircase which was used by hundreds to escape. 

This photo shows the Survivor tree, a Callery pear tree that was found in the remains of the towers. It was taken off site, nurtured back to health and returned in 2010.

Thats its for today. Back for the final instalment tomorrow. 

New York - Day 2

Day 2 started with a trip down Fifth Avenue

and a visit to Grand Central Station - what an amazing place!

It was massive, spotlessly clean and so warm.

Just learnt how to use the panorama option on my iPhone :) 

We took a carriage ride round part of Central Park, then walked round it for some time trying hard not to slip over. We seemed to be walking for ages but we didn't seem to cover much of the park when we looked at the map later.

Another pano shot....

Beautiful fountain all iced up!

Dusk at the Top of the Rock

Beautiful sunset

A bit darker

and darker again. Such a change in about 20 minutes.

Thats it for today. back with more pics tomorrow.

Good night all x

New York New York so good they named it twice!!

I've been a bit quiet on the crafting front lately and that is because I have been busy planning and then away on a short break to New York. 

My family and close friends know that this is a place I have long wanted to visit and I wasn't disappointed. I guess it is a place you either love or loathe, but I loved it.

After an early start we arrived at 6pm local time, 11pm UK time and took a walk to Times Square. 

It was bitterly cold so we had to find somewhere to warm up - luckily we found a great Irish bar to have a few drinks.

Before the trip I had looked up several quilt shops in the city although I didn't want everybody's days to be arranged around these shops so one of the first stops the next day was a trip down Fifth Avenue. One of the shops we all wanted to visit was the Apple store which is open 24/7 365 days a year - can you believe it? The shop is underground, huge and absolutely heaving!

In my crafty past I have done some beading - I still do a little, usually at Christmas but my main interest these days is patchwork and quilting. We were obviously in the beading district as there were so many bead shops it was unbelievable, if only there were as many quilt shops! I just had to have a photo taken outside one of them to show my Mum the size of the shop. I daren't go inside otherwise I would have been tempted to buy and I could have been in there quite some time!

I will be back with the next instalment tomorrow, off to familiarise myself with my MacBook Air and then to catch up on some sleep.

Good night all x

Happy Valentines Day

Here is a little project I have been working on tonight. I would have been finished earlier but one of my friends has been over and we have been planning our New York trip - just a little excited - I have wanted to go here for such a long time.

Anyhow back to the sewing, I discovered this great post to make this super cute little bag the other day and decided to give it a go - well a girl can never have too many little bags!!

Better go and tidy up now as the place looks like a bomb has gone off and I need to start writing my fabric shopping list!! 

Hope you have a Happy Valentines Day xxx

A bit more fabric and a quilt top finish!!

Here is the rest of the fabric I mentioned in my previous post

I have been busy cutting hexagon templates and even put fabric on about 6 of them! 

I have also finished a quilt top - finally, although I love the middle section I think there needs to be another thin border between the two outer borders. The pattern I am following had quite different shades of fabric so there was quite a difference but mine are quite pale. I have had a scour of the internet but so far not been able to track down any of the red fabric.

I had planned to put a aqua binding on this quilt, but i think this is going to be too pale so again I think I need more red, what do you think? 

Here is a photo of the design I am making, although I am not adding the circles as they all need hand stitching :( now I love sewing on binding but am not too keen on sewing on 100 circles.

 Can you see what I mean about the borders? I need to get the backing fabric too then I can finally finish this quilt. 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday

A little stash building....

I haven't managed any sewing over the last few days as I am so shattered when I get in from work. I have been browsing lots of lovely blogs so I have a 'things I would like to make' list as long as my arm!

While I was paying for an eBay purchase for my son,  I had to have a little shop myself and this gorgeous jelly roll dropped into my basket.... The colours remind of me sugared almonds.

I have bought some other fabrics to make hexies with, discovered http://thehexieblog.blogspot.co.uk and www.moxyideas.com where they have sheets of hexie templates. Maybe I can get cracking with some hand sewing as it is just too much effort to get off the sofa and to the sewing machine at the moment! 

I have also finished a baby cardigan for a colleague.

I rarely knit first sizes but think on this occasion I should have done as when they bought the baby recently I realised just how large it was. It's amazing what effect a newborn has, lots of broody ladies despite a lot of us being past our sell by date!