Kittens

I had a wonderful cat, Millie, for 11 years.

She died suddenly in February after a short illness, which was a huge shock and I decided not to get another cat. For a while I fostered Mum cats with kittens for a rescue organisation and, while I enjoyed it, it was not the same as having my own cat. So last week I decided to get two kittens.

Let me introduce you to Honey and Tess. They are delightful and making themselves right at home. I am glad I got two kittens as they have a whale of a time playing with each other. Luckily they also like fabric and quilting

 and knitting. I think we are going to get on well : )

All Heart Appeal

My Bee friend Caroline, over at Sew Bee Blissful, has launched an appeal for heart blocks for a charity quilt she is making to raise money for Cancer Research. I made a couple of blocks for her as it is such a good cause. I used up some red backing fabric from the quilt I made for my nephew, some red scraps and some trusty bondaweb and appliqued these hearts onto the fabric.

I really hope they help to raise much needed funds for Cancer Research.

4 x 5 Bee

This week I have been busily making blocks for the 4 x 5 Bee. In this Bee people in each hive request certain colours then we send out 5 blocks 4 times a year using our own fabrics. Yellow, Aqua and Orange were the most requested colours and my stash was sadly lacking which was an ideal opportunity to splash out on the new and fabulous Joel Dewberry Heirloom fabrics. These are the fabrics I pulled for the blocks.

I used this tutorial to make the blocks. It was a fun block to make and I was suprised at how different each block looked with the different colour schemes.

Scrappy Rainbow

Aqua, yellow and white

Snow, aqua and tangerine

Aqua, yellow and orange

Aqua, citron and white



I loved putting these blocks together and it really reminded me that I should make more use of my scraps rather than always buying new fabric.

Well now I have finished all my Bee commitments for August I am going to get started on a few of my own outstanding projects that have been cluttering up my craft room for way too long.

Bee Blocks

I am in a couple of virtual quilting bees over on flickr which are a lot of fun. In the Sew Modern quilt bee we use modern fabrics and make funky, modern blocks. This month it is Becky's turn to be Queen Bee and she designed and wrote a tutorial for us for to make these blocks.

She sent lots of fabrics in purple, green and blue. I put all the purples together to make the first block which was really easy and quick to make. However when I got to the second block I missed out a step in the instructions and ended up with a tiny block so I had to unpick it all and start again. Unfortunately I had cut some of the fabric and could not use it as it was too small so I had to pick new fabrics to use. In the end the block turned out pretty well and it was good to step out of my comfort zone and put fabrics together that I would not normally have used. I really hope Becky likes them.

Zac's Quilt

I have been working on this quilt for my nephew's fourth birthday for about a year. My lovely quilting friends over at Bee a Little Bit Japanese all made two blocks. One an Eight Point Star Block using japanese fabrics with a transport theme and the second an improvised transport theme block. They all came up with totally amazing blocks and I put them together into this quilt.

I backed it with some fun transport fabric from IKEA and some embroidered panels that I used in the centre of log cabin blocks.

Not really sure about this layout for the backing but I was really rushing to finish it all up and get it off to the longarm quilters so I could post it in time for his birthday.

I'm really hoping he will love it but fear he might just be a bit mystified by this present as it is not a toy or a book!

Sunday Cheer

I needed cheering up on Sunday so I made myself this Spring Violets pincushion using a tutorial from Heather Bailey

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out, it's so pretty I feel like I have a lovely present on my sewing table.

I love Heather Bailey's website, she also has a great pattern for a wrist pincushion with the same violets on it. I think I would be tempted to wear it out if I made it!