Sunny Portugal and The New Bloggers Blog Hop

We have been on our travels from the UK to Portugal. The first part of the journey was to drive down to the south coast and catch a ferry from Portsmouth.  The ferry took 28 hrs and we arrived at Bilbao on the north coast of Spain. Then a 7 hr drive down to Central Portugal.

 

 

Hubby has started cutting the grass, there’s not a lot of green!!!

The house had been empty since April so the spiders had taken over and it took a couple of days to clean up . We have to work in the garden and some of the house could do with a lick of paint. Work takes place early in the morning as the temperature  gets into the mid 30’s by noon.

 

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The New Quilters Blog Hop

This post should  have posted on Monday so I apologise to the girls . Please go check out these great blogs and discover their stories.

Sharla

http://www.thistlethicketstudio.com/

Stephanie

https://quiltnparty.com/

Katrin

https://puppilalla.blogspot.de/

Jen

http://adreamandastitch.blogspot.com/

Many thanks to Stephanie, Yvonne and Cheryl for hosting , if you visit their blogs you still have a chance to win prizes and meet the other new bloggers.

http://latenightquilter.com/

http://quiltingjetgirl.com/

http://meadowmistdesigns.blogspot.pt/

I packed Daisy Do quilt and a quilt top I made about 12 yrs ago . Hope to get some sewing in as we will be here all summer.

Happy stitching

Blog Hop and Daisy Do update

 

The New Quilt Bloggers Hop is back this week after a short break.

 

Please go check out these great blogs from my group

Shannon

http://www.shannonfraserdesigns.ca/

Tami

http://sewmuchforfreetime.blogspot.co.uk/

Suzi

http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

Olusuyi

http://alicesamuelsquiltco.wordpress.com/

Kathy

https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Then visit our hosts, where you will find more new bloggers and prizes to be won

Yvonne

http://quiltingjetgirl.com/

Stephanie

http://latenightquilter.com/

Cheryl

http://meadowmistdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

Daisy Do update

Had hoped to have all the rows finished by the end of June, just ran out of time!

So now have set the finish date for the end of July.  Just 3 more rows to add and then the border.

Things are a little slow, sewing wise, over the summer. Will post when there is progress or news to share.

Have a great summer or if you are in colder climes keep warm.

Happy stitching

Welcome

2016 New Bloggers Blog Hop

Hi and welcome to my blog.

This is the place I keep track of my sewing adventures and share them with you.

How did my blog get its name?

My husband’s  name is Bri/an and mine is M/ary so take the start of his and the end of mine and you get Briary!

Part of my blog belongs to him as he is always supportive and on hand when I ask is this OK or does that sound right.

The beginning

When I was about 5yrs  old there was a very kind lady, who lived next door. Her husband was in the Navy and spent long periods at sea, they had no children. I used to spend many happy hours at her home learning to knit and sew  and there were always plenty of chocolate biscuits.

In my teenage years I altered and made clothes.

Then, when the family arrived, moving on to making things for the home.

About 15 years ago we lived in the Middle East and I belonged to the Kuwait Quilters , meeting  and learning from so many talented quilters  from all over the world.

Quilts made in the last year

Cozy Afternoon BOM

This was the first time I’d embroidered on a quilt and joined in  with a BOM . The pattern was by Jacquelynne Steves you can find her here

Christmas tree skirt

Had always wanted to make one of these and last year it was made in plenty of time for Christmas.

 

William’s quilt

Not sure which is the front and which is the back? The dinosaurs started as the front, however, the animals seem to be the favourite!

 

William’s birthday party

After dancing on the quilt, giving the lion a kiss, it was time for a nap.  I think he  liked his quilt.

What am I plotting for future adventures

Well, I also love embroidery so I have been mulling over doing a candlewick  quilt or adding mountmallick embroidery, but then again I’ve never done cathedral Windows, could add hand embroidery to that!!! Designing my own quilt is always  on the list.

Tips

When taking a free motion quilting class and things were not going well. The teacher said if you make the same mistake 3 times it’s a pattern ! Go with it!

With blogging, don’t give up , you will have one of those ” light bulb ” moments and wonder why you didn’t think of that before.

Big Thanks

              

Many thanks to our hosts for their support and a great group of girls who have been inspirational. Give our hosts a visit and there are prizes to be won!

Stephan               http://latenightquilter.com/

Yvonne         http://quiltingjetgirl.com/

Cheryl           http://meadowmistdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Then please check out the other girls introducing their blogs today from Hive Sewciety

Karen https://tunaquilts.wordpress.com/

Pamela https://sewcrazi.com/

Nicole https://handwroughtquilts.wordpress.com/

Happy stitching

 

An English garden

My garden this morning with the sun shining so bright.

An English garden in June has to be one of the best places to be for it is full of colour and some of my favourite flowers are bursting with blooms.

Have to leave the sewing machine for a short while just to take in their beauty and perfume.

Happy stitching

 

Daisy Do rows

The rows have now been completed lengthways and the next stage can start, feels good! I have set a date of July 1st to join the rows and add a border.

There are 77 flowers consisting of outer petal, inner petal and middle. I have tried to use a different fabric for each flower. For the centres I purchased a bag of 40 small scrap pieces  from e-bay and a layer cake was needed to complete the flowers.

Have a great weekend and happy stitching

 

 

 

 

 

Daisy Do rows

Advances are being made on the Daisy Do quilt and there are now 4 rows joined length ways. Will join all the rows length ways before joining them across and then there is the border to think about!

Quilt pattern by Jen Kingwell

Do you ever listen to podcasts ? I’m addicted to quilt programmes on iTunes and listen while sewing.

This week on “Quilt your heart out “there was an interesting discussion on templates and after my problems with Daisy Do templates ! my ears pricked up. They were also talking to Gerald Roy about his quilt exhibition. You can listen to his lecture on YouTube ” Quilts and Color / The Pilgrim ” talking about his quilt collection  and the use of colour, I found it really interesting.

http://quiltyourheartout.com/

Going back now to sewing those flowers !

Happy Stitching everybody

 

 

Back Home

We are back from our break in Portugal and I have managed to pick up a cough and cold, so feeling a bit under the weather.

Not felt much like sewing but there was one job that needed doing, sorting the scrap boxes!!!

How to sort ?

Ended up sorting one box suitable for Circa 2016

The larger pieces went into a bag and the smaller will be used to make the 120 half square triangles that will be needed.

The other box contains the rest of the scraps!!

I wonder what project these will be used on?

Then we are left with the recycling bag

It was so difficult to throw these out but at least with recycling they are not wasted.

Now my work table is all clear and far too tidy.

Hope you are able to get some stitching done this week.

I’m listening to an audio book The Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi  Cavavan . Have ten more hours to go after that I should be ready to pick up my needle and thread.

Happy stitching

 

 

Mystery quilt

 

Circa 2016

Time to catch up on the last couple of weeks for the mystery quilt before this weeks pattern arrives.

The yellow art nouveau fabric is left over scraps from a fat quarter bundle purchased in Calgary about 10 years ago. I have been hanging on to them just because I loved the fabric. The fat quarter bundle was turned into a bed runner which is still on my bed. Funny how you can love a fabric so much that you don’t want to use it.

Not so sure this block is a favourite , will just have to wait and see where it fits in.

With doing the photographic course I tried using a dark and light background . Think I like the dark as it seems to make the blocks stand out and gives extra texture.

Happy stitching

 

Photo 101 day 4

A little catching up to do as I missed day 2&3 so today trying to incorporate all the tips so far.
Using wide angle
Horizontal photo
Focal point
Using captions

 

 

We call this our pond, only tiny but it’s the home to a couple of goldfish.

In this photo wide screen was used and taken with the camera horizontally . Have a lot of shadow as picture was taken midday . Added a few of my hexies as sewing has to get in somewhere.

Day four is titled “bliss” and apart from my family the other love in my life is fabric.

 

In this photo the cup and saucer is the focal point and I hope the other items add interest and tell you a bit more about my hobby.

Then just needed to mess about in editing

This hexie frame seemed just right for the hexie pieces.

 

Used vignette to make the cup and saucer stand out .

 

Which do do you like best the before or after? Or any comments would be good.

Looking forward to checking out how others have been doing!

Happy snapping

Daisy Do flowers completed

All the flowers have been completed and now it’s a matter of cutting out the 266 pieces for the background. Trying to have the quilt put together by the end of June. Works out that I will need to sew at least 2 pieces a day. Think that will be possible ?

 

These are the half flowers for the edge of the quilt

 

Had a go at adding the joining pieces . The book gives instruction to do them in rows . Just wanted to see how the seams come together . All the measurements are fine just need to watch that the point of the background piece matches the point on the small petal.

 

 

 

 

The point of the joining piece is off centre.

 

Here is where the points needs to meet .

Didn’t get the piecing right first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pinned this piece and started sewing from the middle out and it seemed to work for me.

 

 

 

 

Happy stitching and enjoy your week.