Happy, happy post

Somedays I just love the postman. Today he brought me some fabric goodies, nothing makes me feel happier than coming home from work and finding fabric in my letterbox, so much better than bills!.

A while back I signed up for the Fat Quarter Shop, Designer Block of the Month. I have never done a BOM before but I really like the Bonnie and Camille Vintage Modern line and I wanted to try something that would make me get out of my confort zone. I also love the red and aqua colour scheme and thought it would work well in my almost entirely blue flat.

The finishing kit came so beautifully packaged up, I almost don't want to unwrap it.

The first block came with the finishing kit and included a cute little mini-charm pack of vintage modern fabric. I wonder what I can make from such tiny squares? Something with HSTs probably.



I can't wait to get started on this. Hope you get some happy mail this week too.

Sunday Sewing

I spent most of the day on Bee Blocks today. I love the Lone Star Bee but each of these blocks takes me about two hours to make and I need to make four blocks a month. I apologise if it seems like I am only posting pictures of these blocks and nothing else, it sure sometimes feels like these are all I am making!!!

First up was the second ombre block for Natalie

Next was a Christmas block for Sol, she wanted a non-traditional festive theme in the colours, red, green, pink and aqua. I have lots of pink and aqua fabrics but not much red or green. I used some cute polar bear fabric from Laurie Wisbrun that I got off spoonflower a while ago as it was the only vaguely festive thing I had and teamed it with other fabrics from my stash. I am really pleased with this block but I am not sure what Sol will think, it is not very festive, unless you count the christmas giraffes ;)

Next month is my turn so I have to make up a couple of sample blocks. I am going with a rainbow theme with bright, saturated colours, this is my inspiration mosaic

Here is my first sample block, I bought a charm pack of Pezzy Prints as I thought it would make a really fun block and this is how it turned out. I need to make one more rainbow block and am going to spend this evening looking for rainbow colours in small scale prints so I can indulge my love of fussy cutting. I can't wait to see what the ladies in the Bee come up with, they are seriously talented!

Have a great week!

Cupcakes for Connie

It is my friend's little girl's fifth birthday today. I couldn't resist the opportunity to make some cupcakes. The girlier the better with cupcakes as far as I am concerned. I went for a pink and yellow theme and found a lovely box to put them in too.

I'm pleased to report that the cupcakes were a success, the five year olds were hugely impressed with the edible glitter too.

 

Pretty Pleats Tote

This is my pleat free bag, made using the Pretty Pleats Tote from Michelle at I like Orange Too (the blog is mysteriously missing today so I can't link it).

I totally love this fabric and the bag. It's nice to make a bag rather than a quilt or a quilt block. I can't wait to take it out :)

Swoon Block 3

Not much time for sewing this week but I did manage to make block number 3 for my swoon quilt.

(I really don't know why this photo came out so dark, I took it in the sunlight)

This is how my blocks actually look

And this is how they look in mosaic maker which lets me pretend I have made more blocks than I really have

I am experimenting with layout ideas as I think the blocks with two patterned fabrics are a bit busy and I think I am going to make more blocks with the blue solid so the finished quilt will look something like this but with lots of different fabrics.

I am off for a LMQG meet up now, we are going to see our mini-quilts in John Lewis!

Have a great week everyone. 

Quilted!!!

Just a quick post from me today to show you my lovely string quilt that returned from the long arm quilters today. I am delighted with it!

Here is a close up of the quilting design. You can hardly see it on the front as the quilt is so colourful but it works really well on the back.

Because this quilt is so big I didn't want the expense of buying metres and metres of fabric so I combined some favourite prints I already had with some sale fabric. I was really pleased to see my faves on the back as I had completely forgotten I used them for this (in fact I was in a fabric shop on Saturday thinking "Do I already have some of that DS fabric? What happened to it???"). Next time I might do something more adventurous for backing but this one already has a furry seal of approval.

Bee Blocks

I completed a couple of Bee blocks this weekend. First up I made two blocks for Hollie over at Bee a Lone Star(burst). I made these already but used white fabric for the background instead of Ash so I did them again, can't have a quilt with non-matching blocks!

I love this unusual colour combo, aqua, tangerine and red, who would have thought it would look so good?

Next up was this block for Natalie who wanted ombre, she must totally have her finger on the fabric fashion pulse as I keep seeing ombre everywhere now - here, here, and here.

Finally I made this block for Miriam at Bee Europa, it was great fun working with these fabrics and a fun block to make.

Thanks for all the ideas for backing for my echo quilt. I can't get enough yardage to back it in any Lotta Jansdotter fabric and my scraps are too tiny for a scrappy back but I did see this over at Hawthorne threads. It is from the new Lotta Jansdotter collection - Bella and I think it would be ideal for the backing. I will just have to wait until August but I am sure I can wait that long.

So my plans for this week are another lone star block for Natalie, a lone star tutorial and then to make a bag for Purse Palooza . What are your sewing plans?

Have a great week everyone.

Echo Quilt top finished

I finished up the Echo quilt top today and I love it! I took photos of the quilt top on my bed.It was increadibly sunny today and really hard to take a photo without my shadow all over the quilt but I managed it although the angle of the photo is a bit wonky.

I'm not sure what fabric to use for the backing. I need 4 yards but it is pretty much impossible to get 4 yards of any of these fabrics. I'm thinking of using the same kona sage that I used for the sashing but I wonder if that would be too dull. Does anyone know of any fabrics that would work with these lovely Lotta Jansdotter prints? Any ideas would be appreciated :)

Echo Quilt in Progress

I have had this stash of gorgeous Echo fabrics for some time. I knew I wanted to make a quilt from them but I also knew that I didn't want to cut them up into tiny bits. For me one of the reasons why I make quilts is because I love the fabrics and want to keep them forever. I think Quilts have a forever quality that clothes and bags just don't have (although I admit to keeping clothes that are 20+ years old despite the fact that I will never wear them again).
I was looking for a quilt pattern that would make the most of the prints and frame them rather than anything that involved elaborate shapes and small pieces. I was delighted to find the the Modern Rose Garden Pattern from Carolina Patchworks while trawling flickr to find inpiration for another project. I knew immediately it was just what I had been looking for so I abandoned the other project, downloaded the pattern and began cutting and sewing. In less than 24 hours I have completed half the quilt, it is great to do some simple sewing for a change. I can't wait to finish it, hopefully it wont take too long.

Just in case you are wondering the sashing is Kona Sage from The Village Haberdashery it's a good match for the Echo fabric.

Have a great weekend everyone!

LMQG mini-quilts

Annie, from the London Modern Quilt Guild, organised a display of our mini-quilts in the Bistro at John Lewis, (my favourite department store) on Oxford Street. We have a date booked in to go and have lunch and admire our work but yesterday I had an appointment in town and couldn't resist sneaking in to check if they were on display and yes! they were up.

It was really exciting to see them on display. I tried to snap a few pics on my phone, surreptitiously going up and down the escalator (I know it is crazy but I felt too shy to go right on into the bistro without ordering anything and snap away) after six journeys on the escalator I realised I was being totally bonkers and was probably going to draw attention from the security team so I just went in and took photos - and guess what they were so much better than the escalator ones!!! (Doh!)

Escalator photo = NOT good

Photo from inside Bistro = SO much better (and saner!)

Don't they look great? It is really exciting to see our work on display. Charlotte made a quilted version of one of those scanable bar codes and if you scan it it links to the LMQG. You can see her quilt on the far left actng as a super-cool signpost to the LMQG website.

My mini-quilt is the (slightly out of focus) folded star on the bottom left.  I can't wait for all of us to go and have lunch a snap a group photo with all the quilts. Thanks Annie for organising this, you are awesome!

Fat Quarterly Retreat

Yesterday I went to the Fat Quarterly Retreat. Sadly finances would only allow for one day of the weekend but I had a great time, it was wonderful to meet people from the various virtual quilting bees I am in and increadible to be in a room full of so many amazingly talented people.

First up was a paper piecing workshop with tacha bruecher  I had tried doing paper pieced hexagons before but it was great to do a class and really learn how to do it properly. I can see how it could become completely addictive.

I will be working away on this to make a hexagon pillow - it may take some time!

Next up was an embroidery workshop with Aneela Hoey we made these sweet little robin embroideries

What was really great about this workshop was seeing all the robins come out with distinct little personalities. I love how embroidery always seems to contain so much of the person who made it. Look at all these fabulous little robins.

Other highlights included checking out all the fab handmade bags people brought with them and hanging out with the people from the LMQG, it really made the day for me, thanks LMQG!