Tweaking and Twiddling!

Tweaking and twiddling, that's what I was doing most of last weekend!  I took Friday off work and headed for Farncombe Estate where I'd booked a weekend course called Texture into Sudoku.

I've been to Farncombe before. Last year I stopped off on the way for a few hours in the quaint village of Broadway and decided to do the same this time.  The weather being wet and dreary, and the village being inundated with road works, I didn't see any point taking photos but you can see a few if you visit last years post, since the weather was much nicer then. I partook of a little luncheon in the same cafe as last year (the second cafe.... ahem!). If you've never tried peanut-butter, banana and honey sandwiches before - give them a go. Yum....my!



Saturday's weather wasn't much better but at least it'd stopped raining.

Jennie Rayment, who taught the course, is as good at teaching her craft as she is at doing it.  She travels the world teaching and I can understand why she's in demand.  She's funny and lively as well as having a teaching manner that doesn't make you feel like a complete idiot if you don't understand.

My progress after the first day.

'Sudoku' refers to the layout of the 9 different blocks, in Jennie's quilt below.  Each block design represents a number (1 - 9) and the blocks are put together in the layout of of a Sudoku puzzle.  Clever eh!!

Thanks go to Jennie for allowing me to use these photos!

There's even one block replaced by a question mark and extra blocks hanging from bottom, one of which is the correct one to fill the space.  I realised after I got home that we'd become so engrossed in our own projects that no-one had actually taken the time to work out the puzzle.

This is my progress at the end of the second day.  The two blank squares also had pieces ready to stitch on, so it was coming together.  I have a little more 'tweaking' left to do so will show the finished piece next time.

Sunday was a much nicer day weather-wise.  As I wandered the grounds in an after-breakfast stroll, the clear sound of church bells rang out from down in the village. Look at the photo above and imagine standing there listening to peals of chuch bells! 

We'd all come to the course armed with our sewing machines, equipment and fabric already cut out to the correct sizes.  Some ladies had used different colour combinations, while others, like me, had stuck to the suggested cream calico.  We were shown enough variations of each block (in colour and design), along with lots of extra hints and tips,  to keep us in ideas for a very long time.

Stitching progress since last time:

-Texture into Sudoku panel - nearly finished.

-Knitted cardigan - Second sleeve finished (but realised I'd made a mistake on first sleeve so un-run it to the armhole shaping and nearly finished re-knitting - need to check I haven't made the same mistake on the second sleeve before continuing)!!

-Scrappy pincushions - still flat and waiting to be stuffed!

Last but not least, if you said Roger Moore for the knitting patterm model in the last post - that's who I think it is too!! In fact, I'm 99% sure after doing a little googling. 

Bye for now

Teresa x