flossyblossy

It's been COLD where we are.

2012-02-10T23:25:00.000-08:00

I longed for snow so i could take little J out. Last year when it snowed bucket loads he wasn't with us and was barely walking so i knew it would be a pretty exciting first for all of us. We didn't get a ton of snow and it didn't last very long but thankfully it fell over a weekend when Curly Boy was home and there was enough to make a snowman. Little J helped by patting handfuls of snow onto him and had a whale of time.

On our walk back home there were some pretty decent puddles so Little J had a good splash around. Pity you can't also hear the giggles!

Sewing has been going pretty well but most of it is FQ related or secret projects so i can't show you anything yet, but i can show you this.

This is in Issue 8 of Fat Quarterly available here.I used in total about 18 yards of scraps, strings and fabrics that i wanted out of my stash. Can you believe i didn't use it all?

Bbbrrrr....

2011-12-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

You can tell that it is now winter as the kitties are finding the strangest places to curl up and have a nap. Pile of sweaters, on the floor wedged under radiators, stretched out along the landing exactly where the hot water pipes run under the floorboards, a pile of strings on the sofa.

I guess i finally have to accept that it's just not summer anymore *sigh*.

FQ - Issue 7

2011-11-14T13:51:00.001-08:00

It would seem that there has been no sewing at all going on since the little man came. Granted it has been a bit hit and miss but there has been some lil FQ projects going on!The pattern for this Crossroads and Roundabouts quilt is available in Issue 7 of Fat Quarterly out on 15th November here. As usual it's chocka block with fabulous patterns so make sure you bag your copy!!!!

What a year!!!

2011-11-09T05:12:00.000-08:00

The bad stuff:

2 bad bouts of teething, 4 colds, a febrile convulsion, 2 chest infections, conjunctivitis and a broken ankle

....and that's just the little man.

For us two there has been Curly Boy losing his job for the 2nd time this year, a burglary, my Mum being pretty poorly and been in hospital for a week or 2, 2 bouts of gastroenteritis, flu, chest/sinus infection and 5 colds

But the wonderful news is that....

The little man has now settled beautifully, has had a ton of fun, met some lovely new people and found some little friends, has grown 2 1/2 inches and gained a kilo, had his 2nd birthday and has finally started saying a few words.

Best of all, we have now got to know and love the loveliest little boy ever. He's bright, lively, mischievous, funny, handsome, sweet and affectionate.
We love you little man!

How time flies!

2011-02-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

There has been a ton of stuff going on that i couldn't or didn't want to talk about, and that as that was all taking up just about every waking thought then there didn't seem to be anything left to tell. I can and want to share some of it now, and wanted to tell you about our exciting news.

We are finally going to be parents! Yes, us!!! :-)

We were approved to adopt in September last year (after a gruelling 6 months of weekly 2 to 3 hour visits from the Social Worker!) and just before Christmas we were matched with a little boy who is now just 18 months old. The week before last it the match was finally approved by the Matching Panel and last week finally signed of by the Head of Children's services. So it's finally all official now :-)

Tomorrow we finally get to meet him and i just can't tell you how excited we are. Our road to parenthood has been one hell of an emotional roller coaster and we still have to pinch ourselves to remind ourselves that it really IS happening! Although there are plenty of reminders around the house....

Our guest bedroom (which is no longer a guest bedroom!) that Curly Boy has done an amazing job with...

The Dr Suess quilt still hanging over the door waiting to be finished...

And last but most definitely not least, the beautiful things that dear friends have been making...

I think we are going to gibbering wrecks tomorrow - but in a good way of course. Wish us luck!!!

Thanks so much for your help!!

2010-12-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

Thank you all so much for your heart warming donations and participation in our first { Modern } Relief fundraiser in support of World Vision’s efforts to end hunger!

We have now collected an amazing $5700.00!!

Tonight at 12:00pm PST (12/1/10) we will officially close this raffle, however you can locate information regarding World Vision efforts and how you can continue to support their mission throughout the entire year through their website at http://www.worldvision.org/.

We will be announcing the winners and Grand Total of the Raffle within the next 2 weeks!

Thanks again!

Modern Relief.

2010-11-22T01:07:00.000-08:00

{ Modern } Relief is a simple concept. We are Modern Quilters uniting through the holiday season by bringing the warmth of our quilts and the warmth of your hearts together for others in need. This season, 2010, we will be supporting World Vision. We hope YOU will join us in taking a stand against hunger by participating in our fundraising raffle. Please let me introduce to you World Vision.

World Vision is leading the effort to end hunger.

In the next seven seconds, another hungry child will die.

World Vision is on the front lines of the fight against hunger. Today — and every day — we’ll distribute nearly 600 metric tons of emergency food aid, nourishing the hungry. We’ll give local farmers the seeds, tools, and training they need to grow their own food and feed their own communities. And we will plead the cause of the hungry in halls of power all over the world.

Please join us in creating a world without hunger — a world in which no child dies for want of nutritious food. This site offers in-depth information on hunger, its causes, and how it can be stopped. You can learn more about key hunger-related issues and share what you discover with friends and family. Use this link to begin your journey.

Please meet the members of this season’s event and view their donations that they have generously provided to this fundraiser raffle.

Heather from { House } of A La Mode

Amy from Amy's Creative Side

Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson!

Nettie from a quilt is nice

Aneela from Comfortstitching

Brioni from Flossyblossy

John from Quilt Dad

Kate from One Flew Over

Ashley from Film in the Fridge

Katy from i'm a ginger monkey

Tacha from Hanies

Amanda from Sasikirana Handmade

Jennifer & Jessica from Twin Fibers

Nova from a cuppa and a catch up

Ryan from I'm Just A Guy Who Quilts

Julie from Jaybird Quilts Jacquie from Tallgrass Prairie Studio

Alissa from Handmade by Alissa

The Guidelines:

- To enter this raffle please click on the PayPal button, this will bring you to the { Modern } Relief PayPal account.
- The cost to enter this Raffle is $10.00 per entry.
- Entries are unlimited, so please feel free to give till your heart’s content.
- Winners of the raffle will be chosen by a random generator on December 1st, 2010.
- Each { Modern } Relief Quilter participating in this event will post the entire list of winners for the donated quilts on their blogs during the second week of December and the grand total of our contributions to this cause.
- Additionally, they will also contact their personal winners at that time too.

We THANK you!

2010-10-17T02:43:00.001-07:00

Wow - i wasn't expecting to be AWOL as long as it turned out to be.

I have got so much to share so i think I'm just going keep everything short so that the post doesn't get so long that you fall asleep halfway through, and i can get up to date quickly!
This is what has been keeping me occupied.

Fat Quarterly.

The tree skirt was made for the FQ Holiday Issue/All about Christmas Swap. Tree skirts aren't that common in the UK so i jumped at the chance of making one. I am pretty chuffed with it and it now resides with Kendra, and thankfully she loves it.

If you fancy making your own, want some inspiration for cute things to decorate your home for the Holidays, or wanting ideas for Christmas gifts, the Holiday Special Issue has gone on sale today and is available here.

Doll Quilt Swap 9.

The first pic is the doll quilt i sent to Cherri and the second pic is what i received from Upstatelisa. I LOVE it and squealed quite a lot when it arrived, and have spent many an hour stroking it. Thanks Lisa!

Urban Home Goods Swap.

Again, the first pic is what i sent to Isa and the second pic is what i received! My partner Kellie lives in New Zealand and made these wonderful things for me during the earthquakes. Thank you so much Kellie!

Birthday Trip

It was my birthday in early October and we spent 2 days in the most beautiful part of England, Northumberland. We spent Friday at my 1st favourite place in the world (Lindisfarne Castle) and Saturday at my 2nd favourite place in the world (Cragside).

We stayed at an absolutely beautiful B&B and spent the evening with my oldest friend and her husband and their 7 month old Airedale terrier called Connie (the doggy in the picture), eating fish and chips straight out the box in front of the log fire. Doesn't get much better than that!

Another thank you...and a winner!!

2010-08-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all the lovely and generous comments. They made my heart sing. You all know how to make a girl feel loved and for that, i love you all back!!!
I really wish i had a pile of fabric for all of you.

Anyhow, the random number generator has picked a winner...

...and that winner is Reinojacheguei!!

Thank you for taking the time to comment and I will e-mail you for your address so i can get the fabrics in the post to you!

Giveaway and Thank You!

2010-08-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

Fancy some fabric?

My 1 year blogaversary (how do you spell that???) passed without affair as I’m not one who celebrates anniversaries in a big way.

I started my blog and joined Flickr just over a year ago, and what a year! I’ve had a really rough few years and i think i can say that the last year has probably been the best year i have ever had (Well, except if I’d have won the lottery or something!).

Being part of the online community has been the most amazing experience for me. Quilting (certainly in the UK) is a fairly solitary hobby and I think we now take the Internet for granted, but to inspire and be inspired by quilters all over the world is just the most amazing thing ever. I have met people how i never would have got the opportunity to meet otherwise, joined a ton of online quilting bees, co-founded Fat Quarterly, and the confidence i have gained from the wonderfully sweet and funny comments both here and on Flickr has been immense and made me realise that actually I’m not too bad at this quilting malarkey!

So rather than celebrating an anniversary i would prefer to say Thank You, and what better way to do that than with fabric.
There’s nothing especially fancy in the pile, i just picked a few FQs from my local fabric shop. There’s a bit of Anna Maria Horner, Alexander Henry, a bit of what i think might be Tanya Whelan, some other random fabrics that played nicely with them, and the bottom ones are long quarters of Tilda fabric.

If you fancy this little pile then just leave me a lil note saying whatever you fancy by the end of the 14th August, and I’ll randomly pick a winner on Sunday 15th August.
If you fancy a 2nd entry, sign up to follow my blog or add it to your blog reader then leave me anther comment to tell me.
Those of you who have already left comments previously, you will automatically get an extra entry – as an extra thank you goes to you!!!!

My favourite quilts.

2010-07-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

1. My first quilt ever - re-bound, 2. My Cathedral window, 3. Grandmothers flower garden, 4. Triple Irish Chain with flowers 2, 5. Hand pieced hexagon pinwheel, 6. Orange and teal log cabin - done!, 7. Doll quilt so far..., 8. Triple Irish Chain with flowers 2, 9. Dresden cropped, 10. Josephs coat quilt top, 11. String X quilt top, 12. PP flowers on Kona snow

There is all sorts of things I wanted to blog about but they all went out of the window when I got sidetracked by the release of Issue 2 of Fat Quarterly (go have a look, as in my humble opinion it’s a good one!) and a blog post I read a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember for the life of me where i read it (I suspect it was a link, from another link, from another link) but it got me thinking.

The lady said something along the lines of, her not understanding the current trend towards quick and easy quilts. It got me thinking a whole lot.

Now I do understand that quick and easy is good for the times that you need to make a quilt as a gift and you need something that doesn’t take 3 years to make, or you need a utility quilt, but on the whole i would absolutely say that I’m with her all the way.

In the 5 years ish since I started quilting I have made (or in the process of) around 45 quilts and I would say that they are pretty evenly spread between quick and easy, fairly easy but there was something slightly challenging about them, and difficult and time consuming. I’ve come to the conclusion probably it comes down to 2 things:

Are a ‘process’ or a ‘product’ quilter. Why do you quilt? Do you quilt because you find something very satisfying about the process or is the process a means to an end – the end being a finished quilt? Also, how confident are you about your abilities?

I already have more quilts that I know what to do with (and I’m sure that having them piled around the house must most definitely be fire hazard) and as I can’t stop making them, for me it is probably about the process. The maths, choosing the fabric, pressing it ready for cutting, cutting it into smaller pieces and then very carefully sewing the pieces back together. I guess for some the repetition would make them want to poke themselves in the eyes with a sharp stick but I love the repetition, the project being all consuming, and the meditative benefits. I am also pretty fortunate that i am not intimidated by very much (only curved seams!!!), I think because I am naive enough to think that i can actually pull just about anything off if I work hard enough at it.

Much more importantly though, the quilts that are my absolute favourites (and the ones I would grab and save if my house was on fire!) are the ones that have taken hours in the planning, the ones that i have painstakingly hand stitched or have challenged me in some way. Those are the ‘special’ ones that will be treasured forever.

2010-07-12T23:18:00.000-07:00

It feels pretty good to finally be back on my feet after not feeling very well for the last 3 weeks or so - culminating in the mother of all viruses last week. I’ve spent much of the last 7 days laid on the sofa either sleeping, or watching the Crime and Investigation channel (just in case you’re wondering, i am a frustrated forensic scientist not an axe murderer!!!).
I had 6 days completely sewing free. 6 days! So you can appreciate just how bad i felt if fabric pursuits held zero interest!

Curly Boy has also had a bad bad dose of chicken pox and i can tell you that never in my life have i seen anyone with as many spots as he had! I think i was about 7 when i had it and do remember feeling quite crappy and having that chicken pox itching for days, but either the last 30 years have dulled the memories or he had a particularly bad dose!! Poor bugger. I have a picture of him covered in spots but i think he'll kill me if i show you!

Both us felt pretty good on Sunday so it was time to tidy up some the stuff that has just been dumped on the flat surfaces, fold and put away 2 weeks of laundry, boil wash the bedding (or maybe napalm might have been a better idea?), scrub the red cross off the door and do some bits of jobs related to some chimney work that’s been going on – namely remove the big pile of soot out of the dining room fireplace (including a poor dead bird that had dropped down) and clean the soot off the removed chimney pots stood in the back garden, as a lovely clean white cat....

Plus one sooty chimney pot....

Equals.....

Some finishes!

2010-06-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

I was too busy being all proud of myself for last post being within a week of the one before, that i forget to come back!

The sun was shining today so i took full advantage and took a couple of recent finishes on an outing. I only went to the local park but at least it's further than most quilts get to go!

First up is the string X quilt. My Euro Bee buddies made a few blocks for this and i attacked the rest like a woman possessed. I've managed to use just about all my small scraps and strips on this so the only fabric i had to buy was the brown. I love scrap quilts.
Actually this has been finished for about a month but there isn't enough light to photograph it when i get home from work and sods law that either the weather is dreary on a weekend, or it's sunny and I'm busy.

Edited to add: I got the tutorial here!

The second one is the Josephs coat quilt. This has been a real labour of love and sometimes i didn't feel as if i was ever going to get there. Every time i counted the blocks i still had 5 to do. I'd count them a week later and they'd still be 5 left to do. Strange.
I started this what seems like eons ago for the quiltalong with Kellie.
I used a pile of Mendocine FQs and a pile of AMH Good folks with a few coordinating scraps chucked in. I love it more than life itself!

I've added them to the humongous pile of tops to be quilted and i estimate it will be 2014 by the time i get to these!!

I'm back.

2010-05-27T06:10:00.000-07:00

Are you impressed? And in around a week? I certainly am.

I needed to come back and show you what arrived ½ hour before i left on my holiday.
I didn’t have time to do anything with it before i left apart so i just shoved it in the car and it came on the grand tour with us!

Drum roll please. Here’s what i got for the Urban Home Goods Swap from Sheridan.

Now i know that i am very easily pleased as i love just about anything that involves sewing or fabric but just look at it!! It’s all the things that make me happy. Dresden, pillow, food (ok i know i can’t eat the pear but it is kinda food!), red, orange....but mostly....PINK!!!
Man i love pink.

The fab thing is that it even matches the DQS8 i got from Louise.

I have no idea whether Sheridan planned it that way, whether both girls KNOW me, or whether we were infact triplets separated at birth!

All i know is that I’m happy.

Nous sommes revenus de nos vacances en France!!

2010-05-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

Title edited. Thanks to Sylvie :-)

For anyone who’s French that probably means "i have hairy legs" or something but to me it means “We are back from our holiday in France”.
(Well actually, i know it means that as i cheated and translated it in Google translator)

We’ve debated about going to France for a while but i don’t do ferries. I won’t go into detail as the reason i don’t do ferries as it might put you all off your dinner, but i don’t do them. The thought of it even makes me queasy!
Thanks to some friends who we went with who don’t do ferries either, we got to go on the Euro tunnel – yay!! I didn’t think that driving your car onto a train could be THAT cool but maybe we’re very easily pleased.

It’s really cool cos:

When you drive the ticket booth it already knows who you are by your car registration number. The screens said ‘Hello M. Greenberg’ (I’m not ‘M’ Greenberg but i assume the M was Monsieur as curly boy had done the booking)

You actually drive onto the train. It’s just like driving into a multi story car park!!

You sit in your car for the whole journey which means i didn’t have to pack up the big pile of papers and bits of fabric off my lap.

It only takes 35 minutes and then you’re are back out the other end!

We stayed at a gorgeous guest house the first night about an hour away from Calais

Stayed at the most wonderful cottage for 3 nights

Drove over this fab bridge

Ate fab French food, although there are no pics. I was too busy stuffing my face to pause to take a pic!

Went to Utah Beach where Curly Boys Granddad landed on D-Day and we also collected some sandy from Utah beach to send home to his rellies in the US.

.....and went to the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Coleville Sur Mere.

Wow. I can honestly say that i don’t think i have ever felt the way i felt when i turned the corner and all those crosses (and the occasional Star of David dotted amongst them) were in front of us, laid out in perfectly aligned rows. I felt like i had been punched in the chest and for what seemed like an eternity i couldn’t get my breath.

When you hear stories of D-Day it is more often that told from the perspective of military strategy and for those of us that didn’t lose loved ones on that day it is easy to forget about the individuals. The sons, fathers, brothers etc. Each one of those men laid in the cemetery meant something to someone and their lives would be forever changed by the loss.

People talk and poets write about the futility of the war. I don’t think that there was anything futile about what all those men did on D-Day. They were fighting to protect the freedom of the British people and to liberate those who were already under occupation. I don’t pretend to know all the ins and out of WWII but i think that as a result of the D-Day landings they ultimately secured that freedom. That doesn’t sound futile to me.

WWII finished when my parents were still babies and 27 years before i was born but i think it is still very much ingrained in the psyche of Brits. Like the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’ .....and bizarrely a tendency to hoard tinned food! When a friends granddad died in the early 90’s his cellar was absolutely full of tinned food. Much of which had gone out of date in the mid 60's!!

There are so many things to see and do in Normandy that unfortunately we ran out of time before we’d even scratch the surface. We’ll definitely be going back soon though.

I’ll be back here soon too, although i use the word ‘soon' in the loosest of senses! I want to tell what else we got up to on holiday, show you the loot i got and the wonderful contents of a package i received ½ hour before leaving for the holiday!!

...and breathhhhhhh...

2010-05-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

As you will already know, Fat Quarterly launched on the 27th April and we have been astounded and thrilled with just how wonderfully it has been received. Thank you to all of you from the bottom of our hearts!!

None of us are world renowned quilters nor do we think by any stretch of the imagination that we are experts. We are just normal gals and guy trying to make pretty things and to share how we go about it. Your comments – good are bad – are really valuable so if have any comments or suggestions just nip over to the website or the Flickr page and let us know what you think.

I have been snatching some time here and there and have got more to show you than i thought but i haven’t snapped any pics of some things so you’ll have to make do with what i was up to this weekend!

The deadline for the Urban Home Goods swap is looming so i dedicated this weekend to that. I had cut out everything i needed for it but for the last month it’s been pinned to the Moroccan rug wall hung on the wall in the hallway. Again i was given a partner with a very different style to me that really pushed me out of my comfort zone. After the initial obligatory “whatma-gonna-do” panic, i Googled ‘plant shapes’ and ‘organic shapes’ and found some inspiration almost immediately. No dithering for a change.

So, this weekend I’ve been quilting....and quilting....and quilting. Quilting the stem and around the circles in brown, and then little swirls all over the background. I couldn’t stop running my hands over it as dense quilting feels soooo cool!!

I believe that sewing machines are like hunting animals – they sense your free motion quilting fear!! I find that the more confidently i approach it more successful the outcome.

Many of the tips i have found on the web suggest going very slowly. This doesn’t work for me as i find it more difficult to get my ‘groove’ and my shapes end up looking a bit jerky. So, I just set the machine to a medium speed, took a deep breath, and dived in head first!

I hope my partner likes her table runner/wall hanging. I think she might but i can’t tell you why or that will give the game away :-)

By the way....my friend Melanie has just made the big leap into blogland. She hasn't been sewing very long but judging by her productivity she's well and truly hooked! I'm sure she'd love it if you popped by and said 'Hi'.

To the rescue!

2010-04-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

I am Curly Boy, Flossy's hubby. She's been soooooo busy lately with other things she just hasn't had time to update her blog.I don't have a white horse but I thought I'd come to the rescue anyway. You're now probably wondering what she's actually been doing. The biggest project is the quilt that Jimmy has claimed for his own.

This quilt pattern is available in Fat Quarterly issue 1 which finally launches on Tuesday the 27th. You'll have to make your own since Jimmy doesn't seem likely to give up this one!

She's also been making lots of Bee blocks. She really loves doing these! She's like a kid on Christmas morning when the postie pops another batch of fabric through the door. I can't tell you who they were for since I don't really know. I DO know that the second pair are spiderwebs and the single one is based on Mondrian. The first two use her favorite thing to make... half square triangles! The blocks were a good warm up for the FQ quilt since that took almost 400 of them! If you want any more detail you'll have to link through to her Flickr page.

Some of you may be wondering what happens to all of these huge quilts after Flossy is done with them. She has given the odd one away as a pressie, like the one for my Mum and our friends Sam and Vikki, but most we keep. The problem of course is that we can't use them all at the same time. We DID have 4 on the bed at the same time during the dead of winter but any more than that and we wouldn't have been able to breathe! When not in use they go to the spare bedroom on top of the boiler cupboard. This keeps them warm for emergencies. You'll need the pass word though, you REALLY don't want to mess with Mr. Bunny!

Flossy is down in London this weekend at the V&A to see the quilt exhibition with her friends Katy, Tacha, and Aneela. Hopefully she'll have time to do another post after the launch on Tuesday. I'm sure they are taking lots of pictures to share!

You DO know that .....

2010-04-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

FQ is coming soon, don't you??

I've been slacking on my blog posts...

2010-04-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

...but not in real life!

I've been working on a ton of stuff. Honestly.

There's been this baby quilt for my close friend Tracey's 1st grandchild...

An awful LOT of this!!

396 of them in fact, and for a REALLY exciting new project!! (and before you ask it's not a quilt to match my ironing board cover :-) )

All will revealed soon!

Josephs Coat quilt along.

2010-03-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve been plodding along with my Josephs coat – not as quickly i would have liked as i got sidetracked by the dresden plate.

Dresden pate blocks are now complete so i can get back to my josephs coat.

I have 14 blocks joined together

another 23 blocks finished, 3 blocks pinned and ready to sew and the rest of petals all prepared and ready.

Now I’m back to it and have no other hand sewing underway i get stuck in again (assuming i don’t get all appliquéd out!!) i should be able to make some decent progress.
I sew these on the train so and from work the train and on the sofa when i can’t be bothered to peel my butt off the sofa to do anything. I like hand stitching as it’s a good justification for sitting around and watching telly!

I had FQ bundle each of Heather Ross’ Mendocino and Anna Maria Horner Good folks that the colours went really well together, and i threw some Anna Maria Horner Chocolate Lollipop, some Flea Market Fancy, and a few coordinating scraps in for good measure.

I’m loving how the colours are looking together and this quilt is going to ALL MINE when it’s done. Yet another to add to the growing pile of quilts.

The auction is now over!!!

2010-03-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

.....and the winner is Melanie Kemp who has the winning bid of a storming $310!

Thank you sssoooo much Melanie - i will mail you shortly!
You are now the proud new owner of this gorgeous 9 patch quilt.....and the fabulous scotty dog pillow made by Katy.

Katy and I want to thank everyone has placed a bid, and to everyone who has stood on the sidelines and cheered us on, but mostly thank you Melanie for your generosity!

I will also be taking full advantage of the 'Gifts Matching scheme' at work.
The Company will match dollar for dollar any funds raised by an employee - so the grand total raised for Doctors Without Borders for their work in Chile and Haiti, is a whopping $620.

I'm THRILLED!!

P.S. I would have added some pics rather than linking to them but Blogger appears to be misbehaving...again!

Let the auction begin!!

2010-03-12T03:41:00.000-08:00

I know...i know...

I was going to show you the pillow i received in The Pillow Talk Swap but instead i went AWOL. Another time though, as it there’s something WAY more important i want to show you first!

Katy and I had already decided to make a charity quilt around the time the earthquake hit Haiti. Then before we’d got the quilt finished Chile also suffered an earthquake and tsunami.

We both have a good friend whose husband is from Chile - with many family members and friends living there - so we wanted to try and do something to help both causes.
Given that we have no skills in search and rescue or medicine, a quilt auction seemed like the most obvious choice!

There are a million and one wonderful charities that are helping the survivors of both these terrible disasters but the one we’ve decided to donate the proceeds to is Doctors Without Borders.

So.... we had a couple of sewing evenings at my house drinking tea, laughing like drains and making 9 patches.
We delved down to the darkest depth of our overflowing scraps boxes (and survived!) to make it as lovely and scrappy as possible, and then sashed the blocks with pure white cotton.
I quilted it with my most favourite-in-the-whole-wide-world method of quilting (swirly loops) and Katy has bound (binded?) it in white cotton to create a tiny white border around the edge.

If we do say so ourselves, the result it pretty gorgeous!!

The quilt is 64" x 80" (160cms x 200cms in new money!).
It is made with 100% cotton fabrics with Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 (cotton/poly) wadding.

So, the bidding starts right NOW this minute so here’s what you need to do:

Please add a comment to this post with your bid (obviously higher than the last) in US dollars*.
Also, include your e-mail address so i can contact you should you win.

(*Sorry - i know that might be a bit of a pain for those of you that don’t live in the US but it will make it easy for everyone if they know at a glance what the last bid was. It would also be difficult to tell what the exchange rate was at the time you all placed your bids so i could get messy if it fluctuates quite a lot in the next week. Current exchange rates are available here)

Bidding will close at 9am (GMT) on Saturday 20th March and whoever has placed the highest bid wins (Times zones are available here)

Once the winner has sent confirmation of the donation to Doctors Without Borders then this beauty will be sent to them. Easy?

So without further ado, lets get started.

On your marks........

get set......

GGGGGGGOOOOO!!!!!

2010-02-28T10:52:00.000-08:00

It's MY sewing machine!

I said....GGGEERRRRROOOOFFFFF....it's MINE!

Drifting through in my own little world.

2010-02-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve not been feeling especially chatty or sociable but I guess it’s the time of year and a throw back to when we used to hibernate (as I’m sure we must have done at some point).

My Feb to-do list has been fairly hefty with bees and such-like that my own projects have been on the back burner. I’m having a lovely time as there’s nothing like a few little projects and bee blocks to keep the creative juices from stagnating without that sometimes daunting feeling of commitment. I joined Sewing Olymics 2010 with Laura J which was the rocket up my bum that i needed to get moving!!

First up - just because it's the most recently finished is my pillow for The Pillow Talk Swap made from little improvy flowers.

Edited to add: For those of you who would like a pattern, there is one by Jan Mullen. You can buy it at her website at: www.stargazey.com/products.php?cat=186

With a checkerboard back.

This REALLY pushed me out of my comfort zone. I made a really cracking start on a idea and got half way through and realised that it just wasn’t right for my partner.
I had incorporated all the elements in her favourites on Flickr, but none from her Inspiration mosaic. Obviously i can’t show you that cos then you’d all know who my partner is!!

My partner likes a simple style (a style i just don’t have in my genes so don't find very easy!), a lot of white (i never use white) and blues/greens (not my colours).
I floundered for about 2 weeks before the eureka moment arrived.
I kept it as simple as I could, but with complicated enough blocks to keep me interested and challenged. I even hand quilted it. Get me!

Oh, hand quilting how i love thee. It takes an age, makes my fingers REALLY sore, hurts my neck after sitting in the same position for so long, but i love doing it and adore how it looks so it is well worth the hassle.

I've also been at House blocks for Dallas

Square in square blocks for Mari

High contrast blocks for Brenis

String blocks for Aneela

and last but not least an Around the world bee block for Tanya

My Pillow Talk Swap pillow arrived in the post yesterday too *squeal*.
I am so in love with it that it deserves a post of it's very own - so i'll show you that later!

Due to popular demand...

2010-02-07T01:57:00.001-08:00

...I was going to post a pic of my obscene pile of fabric, but Blogger's not letting me upload pics for some strange reason. You'll have to nip over here to see it instead.

I'm pleased to report that i haven't bought any in the last week or so. Yay me!

Has it really being two weeks?

2010-01-30T01:11:00.001-08:00

I've had my head down with work and sewing projects and time just seems to be flying by at a scary speed. Where did January go?

The definite highlight of the last 2 weeks has been the pressies - yay!!

Last week my prize from the Joy in the New Year arrived from Krista.
A thread catcher/pincusion combo that I'm not sure how i coped without! I sits on the table next to where i sit on the sofa and is very handy for my bits of thread, and...erm....sweet wrappers.

And this week I got this adorable needle book from the lovely Tacha. She's so good to me.

I was the recipient of Tacha's wonderful pillow for the Pillowtalk swap on Flickr - that I'm not sure i ever showed you. She made it to match my wonderland quilt (that i STILL need to get around to quilting!)

I also received pressies to myself in the form of fabric but i won't show you the pile as it's actually (if i admit it to myself) quite an obscene amount. I tell myself (and anyone else who needs convincing) that i NEED it. Yeah....right!

DQS8

2010-01-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have finished chewing the first bone and my DQS8 quilt is finished.

I think i started pulling fabrics out late last Thursday before bed and other than work on Friday i did not leave it alone until i finished sewing the binding on at about 6.30pm on Saturday.
I had no plans on Friday night and Saturday during the day so, i just beavered away – only pausing to make a cuppa or powder my nose.

It’s partly obsession but partly panic. I worry that if i don’t get on with things and get them finished them i will go off the boil and not want to do it, or I’ll forget completely.
I also didn’t know whether i would like this idea so i wanted to give myself oodles of time to make a second one (like i did for DQS7)

The real joy of making this was how the ideas developed as i went along rather than me planning it all before i started. At one point I wasn’t really sure where the green wedges were taking me but as i reached the end of one bit the next step seemed almost obvious. I love it when that happens.

My inspiration was the Dotty For Dresden pattern from the Material Obsession 1 (this is the source of my current Dresden obsession and the reason why i had a wedge ruler in the first place), and the Seasons quilt from Material Obsession 2. The flowers are from this book

I am really happy with it and I just need to make sure i don’t lose it (anything is possible in my tip of a house!) between now and the beginning of March when i can get it in the post to my swap partner.

I wasn’t planning on making a second but i have been fiddling around with some tiny dresdens so I’ll see how they turn out!

Dog with a bone

2010-01-16T05:07:00.000-08:00

I really should be obsessed with tidying the house, my ironing pile that's threatening to take over the world and my UFOs but instead I'm like a dog with a bone and completely obsessed with these:

My Spiderweb Bee quilt. More ramblings about it here.

My DQS8 that's in progress. I wasn't sure i was diggin' the bright green but i've made a fair bit of progress since these pics and i'm pretty happy now. These are soooooo not my colours but i think they are my swap partners cup of tea. I hope so anyway!

My Dresden plate quilt. Katy and I are quilting along together. Check out her drool-worthy blocks. The navy Bella solid for the background and more Amy Butler Love for the centre circles has arrived so i can get stuck in again!

My Josephs coat quilt. 14 blocks now joined together thanks to a stinking cold last weekend.

And finally this pile that came this morning. Well, my lovely hubby trekked out this morning to collect them from the post office! Drool, drool.

No pain no gain.

2010-01-12T04:44:00.000-08:00

My head is chocka block with DQS8 that I can’t think of much else at the moment.

I can’t even think much about all the snow we’ve had and how I’m going to manage to get to my Osteopath appointment tomorrow if i can’t get my car off the street.
No, WAY more important things to think about than that!

I guess I’m not alone in wanting to make THE perfect quilt but as last time, i get stuck on the same questions.

Do i make something that is vey ‘me? Or do i make something that isn’t very me but that i know my partner will like?

Maybe i haven’t quite stalked my partner enough yet.
I know I’ve got plenty of time so i think i just need to let it sit in my sub-conscious and I’m sure something will pop up.

In the meantime I’ve been working on my Josephs coat quilt for the Quilt-a-long. 14 blocks joined together – yay!!

I suspect if i laid off these and spent less time with my butt parked on the aofa hunched over this then i probably wouldn't even have needed to get the Osteopath in the first place! But, no pain no gain, right?

Happy new Year and i hope 2010 is good one for you all!

2010-01-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

I didn’t actually mean to go AWOL over Christmas but blogging was soon replaced by eating Fruit and nut Toblerone and guzzling advocaat!

I broke up from work on Christmas Eve and i was really ready for a few days of pottering around and just doing a bit of what i fancied, when i fancied. It was bliss.

The UFOs ticked along and by the end of December managed to get 4 quilts finished for Joy In The New Year. I’m pretty chuffed with that as I knew that 12 WAS really over ambitious anyway! Here they are:

And, i even won a prize over there too. A threadcatcher/Pincushion make By Krista!

I did get some bee blocks done

And i did do some more work on this so i think i have 20 blocks done now!

January is likely to be a very busy month as I’ve set myself the task of making quilts for 3 birthdays at the end of January so it’s looking doubtful that I’ll even get the rest of the UFOs all done by the end of this month.

Getting sidetracked by my new 22 degree wedge ruler for dresden plates is NOT going to help!

I'm nearly a week behind which seems to be the story at the moment...

2009-12-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

Anyway, last weekend was clear apart from my work Chrimbo party on the Friday at The National Media Museum. Even though it was a free bar i managed to not get spectacularly drunk (probably my mouth didn’t stop flapping long enough for me to drink very much) so i wasn’t nursing a hangover on Saturday morning.

My normal pattern for a weekend is to give myself a completely unrealistic to-do list, and then get all cranky on Sunday evening when I’ve only got hardly any of it done. I still had the unrealistic list but managed to get enough done to avoid the crankiness on Sunday evening!
I was up fairly early both Saturday and Sunday as Curly Boy was snoring like a lion. I was spitting feathers when i couldn't stand it any longer and had to get up, but i guess i have him to thank for me having so much time.

Amazingly I got my Orange and Teal wonky log cabin quilt finished!

I quilted it on the frame and I finally remembered to take a pic of the frame with the machine on for those of you who have asked. Sorry – i did mean remember before now, but better late than never?

I don’t know how I’d describe the quilting. Sort of lines and squares? I love how it looks on the front....

but it shows up even better on the back.

It was good fun and QUICK to do. 5 hours including the ½ hour ish to put it on the frame. I didn’t realise having THAT much fun quilting was possible and judging how achy my legs and bum were on Monday morning – fantastic exercise too.

I even hand sewed the binding down apart from ½ side which i finished on Monday night. The binding it wasn’t even on my list! That’s a grand total of 2 UFOs done!

I also made a block for the Around The World Quilting Bee, finished the last couple of bits on the Reversible quilt (blogged about on Saturday), prepared a few blocks for the Josephs Coat quilt a long, embroidered a label for the Bento Box and even did a bit of tidying up!

Busy busy...

2009-12-05T04:44:00.000-08:00

I think i have had the busiest 3 weeks in history not helped by my back.
2 evenings of rotary cutting last week and I managed to totally cabbage my back to the point that the muscles around my ribs have been so tight that my stomach has been really upset, and I’ve been a bit pukey. Nice.

But being a brave little soldier (yeah...right!...) I managed to do just about everything i needed to do with the exception of going and seeing my favourite girlies dancing last Saturday night. I was gutted that i missed it and I’ve been popping the pain killers ever since until i could finally get the Osteopath last week to get it sorted. Thankfully it’s on the mend now but I’m trying to avoid the rotary cutter. That shouldn't be too hard as i shouldn't be cutting out for anything new anyway with a list of UFOs as long as it is!

The evenings I spent rotary cutting was the fabric for 2 quilts that Mum and I made at a class last Saturday. My Mum is THE hardest person to buy for so i thought i'd book us into the class as her birthday pressie. Here’s my finished lap quilt made with Amy Butler Love.

Front...

Back....

I chose Moda Panache for Mum and it looks lovely so I’ll try and remember to snap a pic of it next time i’m at her house.

I finally stopped ignoring the Bento box and after unpicking the crappy pattern I did last week on 4 blocks, I cracked on with it again.

After a disastrous start to the whole quilting frame malarkey – like EVERYTHING seeming to go wrong – this was an absolute breeze. I started quilting it on Sunday and finished the last 20 minutes before work last Monday. Probably 5-6 hours work in total with very little hassle and no thread snappage! I love the swirls and loops and it was a joy to do. It’s all bound and washed although, the downside of using unbleached cotton is that it wrinkles like the hell for the first 2 or 3 washes until it softens.

That’s 1 off my list of UFOs and I've managed to quilt another one today so I'll show you that when I've hand sewn the binding down and the light's better. So, it's nearly 2 down, 10 to go!

Not much progress.

2009-11-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

It’s generally been a bit of whirlwind couple of weeks.

I have a ton of UFOs, but also a ton of social events which eats into my crafting time so I’m really trying to not put too much pressure on myself to finish up my mahoooosive list, but still actually achieve something!

In the main I’ve been working on this.

Not on my UFO list but it’s what i really want to be doing. It’s the time of year. There is nothing more lovely that curling up on the sofa with the fire on, hand stitching.

Doesn’t help that i put another quilt on the quilting frame last weekend, started quilting and made a complete hack job of 4 blocks!!

I drew on the design thinking “how hard can it be to jut follow the lines?”. Erm...very hard!! I think i was trying to run before i could walk.

The shapes were so wonky i actually laughed. Very loudly. I guess that’s preferable to taking a sledgehammer to the quilting frame though.

After ignoring it for a few days i will be unpicking it this weekend and will opt for something a little easier. I'd like to get it finished by the end of this weekend if i can just ignore the lure of the cerise pink flower petal!

Americish?....Britican?...

2009-11-24T00:05:00.000-08:00

Posting the picture of this block last week was quite appropriate as last weekend started with Curly Boys Citizenship Ceremony. Yup...he’s now a Brit!
(Well, kinda. He hasn’t given up his US citizenship so now he has dual nationality)

He has been here for 7 ½ years and has had Indefinite Leave to Remain for the last 6 (ish) years so would be able to stay here for as long as he wanted anyway, but he wanted to become a UK Citizen.

As he says, all the previous immigration steps have been essential to allow him to move here in the first place and stay here with me. This one has been about him being allowed to vote (which is really important to him), and declaring that he is ‘home’.

The ceremony took place in the Leeds Civic Hall. After waiting and queuing for various things - I’m sure to test whether the new to-be UK citizens had mastered the British art of queuing - we all trooped into one of the beautiful oak panelled halls.

He first had to say the Affirmation of Allegiance (as he opted to have the non-religious one):

I (name) do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law.

...and then the Pledge:

I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfill my duties and obligations as a British citizen.

He was presented his certificate by the very jolly and uniformed Deputy Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire and a photographer took their picture along with a portrait of Queen Lizzie - looking rather marvelous in her Queenie finery.

During the ceremony the Deputy Lord Lieutenant gave a lovely speech where he talked about everyone’s journeys. Curly Boys has been fairly easy but there will have been people amongst the group that the journeys won’t have been quite so easy. There were people from (amongst others) Somalia, Iran, Iraq and Zimbabwe and although i don’t know their stories i can probably hazard a guess that their journeys may not have been quite so easy. I wish them all the health, wealth and happiness in their new lives here.

Other than going for a lovely lunch and a wander around the German Christmas market, afterwards we celebrated by re-mortgaging the house for a box of American goodies.

Since then I’ve already inhaled 2 of the Zero bars and plan to bathe in the root beer once I’ve remembered to get some ice-cream from the shop!

Deadlines...well kinda.

2009-11-18T23:30:00.001-08:00

Rather than working on my UFO list I’ve been a bit distracted by a few other projects.
It’s not me going off the boil already (honestly!) but these really needed to be done as there were deadlines to meet.

First up is little colourful and rainbow inspired things for Trashys Rainbow Swap – that needed to be out 1 day before i actually put it all together (oops!).

A block for Courtney for the Quilt Around The World Bee.

She wanted us to create a block with something about where we live, and something about us. A Union Jack was quite fitting – with some selvages of my favourite fabrics.

This was my first attempt at foundation piecing. I can do English paper piecing standing on my head but this....jeez. I think the block took me about 5 hours in total – not that you can tell from all wonkyness going on. The whole point of foundation piecing is for accuracy so i think i must not have quite grasped it. I probably should have read some tutorials or instructions – and didn’t - so the wonkyness and inaccuracy probably had something to do with my ‘make it up as you go along’ approach. Having said that all that, it does make me smile.

And I cracked on and made a cushion for The Pillow Talk Swap that needed to be out by the end of the month.

It’s my swap partners favourites mixed with an idea from quilting magazine. I quilted it on the stroppy Janome who for a change managed to behave herself while i quilted it. I didn’t want to part with it so I’m adding making 2 for me onto the (ever-growing) list of projects i want to do.

Last but not least I’ve been fiddling with bits of stabiliser and fabric for the Don’t look now quilt along. The conversation with Curly Boy the other night went something like this.

CB: That looks suspiciously like a new project.
Me: No, this one? Nooooo.
CB: It is isn’t it? That’s a new project and not a UFO.
Me: No it’s not a new project as I’ve been planning it in my head for while, so it’s not a new project. Technically speaking it’s a UFO.
CB : Well the pieces ARE kind of UFO shaped so i guess that would count as a UFO.

Haha. He’ll do for me!!

Joy in the New Year

2009-11-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve finally decided to participate in Joy in The New Year over at Tallgrass Prairie Studio.
Unfortunately i dithered after i first saw it so now have 2 weeks less than i should have to complete, although I guess as no one’s going to come and lynch me if i don’t get them all finished so i might as well have a stab at it.

Here’s my list and i think i might have bitten off more than i can chew. All the quilts are quite large (approx 72” x 84”) so they’re not ones that i can get done that quickly.
I considered cutting them all in half as then they’d all be half the size and really quick to do, but then i realised that would just double my UFO list – so that wouldn’t work!

1. Hexagon pinwheel – to finish quilting (I’m just over halfway) bind and label.

2. Whirlygiggle – to quilt, bind and label.

3. Orange and teal log cabin - to quilt, bind and label.

4. Bento Box - to quilt, bind and label

5. Sue Spargo wool quilt – to HAND quilt, bind and label.

Hhhmmmm, not sure adding one that is going to be hand quilted to the list is the best idea I’ve ever had!

6. Momo quilt – to join the blocks, quilt, bind and label

7. Arkansas Crossroads quilt – join the blocks, quilt, bind and label

8. Eurovision Bee quilt - make 20 tiny log cabins, finish the top, quilt, bind and label

9. Bee Addicted 3 star quilt - make 15 or so blocks, finish the top, quilt, bind and label

10. String quilt - to make another 34 or so blocks (!!!!!) , finish the top, quilt, bind and label

11. Sew flowers on crochet blanket.

12. Finish doll.

As yet i have no plans for New Years Eve. It’s a good job really!

What I'd do with my lottery winnngs!

2009-11-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

I wish i could win the lottery (although....doesn't everyone!). The Euro lottery last Friday i believe was 95 million Euros. Curly Boy’s is in a Euro millions syndicate at work so he spent a significant chunk of last weekend spending his winnings (that he didn’t win!) and the rest of the week feeling depressed that he didn't win!

Obviously the first thing I’d do is order Lamborghini Murcielago and book a holiday, then I’d look for a house that is just like mine but with enough space for a fleet of super cars and an extra room downstairs for my sewing.

Last week when Holly the Pfaff came, i sat at the dining room table and played with her. I loved it. Loved being close to Curly Boy who was in the Lounge watching TV or reading. We could have shouted conversations between rooms and he could shout me to come and watch the water tank explosions on Mythbusters (although i do have to admit that after the 4th time i stopped what i was doing that i told him that i wouldn’t be coming in again!).

Curly Boy noticed that i loved it too and jokingly suggested that i buy another sewing machine to keep downstairs (yeah, like i need any encouragement to buy more sewing machines!) but it has got me thinking. My theory was that If i moved my machine downstairs i might be more inclined to do a bit when i get home from work, or while tea is cooking, and be more inclined to sew after tea rather than laying like a vegetable on the sofa.

So here it is. My machine is downstairs on the dining room table. I’m not convinced i can be well behaved enough to stop my stuff getting strewn everywhere but in the last few evenings in between Judge Judy, cooking tea and The Dog Whisperer i got these done.

Blocks for Katrina for Bee Addicted 3

A pile of blocks for my Arkansas crossroads quilt

I've had to take a pic of the blocks on the lounge floor as - ahem - the Momo blocks are still on my design wall waiting to be sewn together!

I don’t whether this means that my theory is working or whether it’s the novelty of being able to check on the boiling pasta after a few seams. We’ll see!

Distracted already!

2009-11-10T02:39:00.001-08:00

I had a weekend pretty jam packed full of so I wasn’t sure I’d get much time to mess around with Holly the Pfaff. But, as I’m not ‘hip and with it’ and had no plans to go out clubbing on Saturday night, i had a play then.

Instead of doing some free motion quilting to figure out what thread she did and didn’t like etc, and to figured out the tension, i did the last thing i should have been doing – starting a new quilt!

It an Arkansas Crossroads quilt and will be made from all brown/rust/beige scraps - to go with my bedroom. I hate scraps with a passion for some reason. I think it's because i haven't found a good way of storing them so they don't fit in with my OCD tendencies. I have piles and piles of the sodding things.

Saturday evening i got all the 84 4 patches that i need made. I was astounded.
Maybe everyone else does them that quickly but as i generally have the concentration of a gnat and get bored of chain piecing after about an hour, so i didn’t expect to get anywhere near that much done.

Before work yesterday (i know, I'm obsessed) i got the HST triangles sewn and last night and this morning before work i trimmed them all. I've had to come up for air from my quilting as I've run out of quilting thread, so until Mr Postie brings me some more i have the perfect justification for doing this rather than the stuff i really should be getting on with.

2009-11-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

I was going to do all sorts this evening but i got sidetracked by The Dog Whisperer. Have you seen it? That man is a genius!

We used to watch re-runs of Road Wars on the telly while we ate our tea (as we're heathens who believe the dining room table is a place to just dump all the stuff that we don't know what else to do with) but now we've discovered Cesar Milan.

He makes me want to dash out and get a dog....and a pair of roller blades.

Pfaffing about.

2009-11-04T05:01:00.000-08:00

I’ve been AWOL while I’ve been messing about with my new quilting frame that arrived at the end of last week....oh, and watching the rest of Season 1 of Little House on the Prairie.

I booked 3 days off work to get so i could take delivery of a few things and have a break, and you know how some things – even when planned with military precision – don’t work out that way? Well, that’s been the case with everything in the last few days.

Curly Boy set about putting the frame together on Saturday morning....and there was 2 bolts missing. Curly Boy had a rummage around to see whether we had anything that would fit, and he didn’t. Dad had a rummage in his shed anything that would fit and he didn’t either. So it was erected with clamps holding the legs on until Curly Boy could get some from work on Monday.

I was planning on using my old machine on the frame except....the cord for the foot pedal isn’t long enough so I’ve had to put my newer machine on the frame.

I ordered wadding to arrive on Friday as well – it didn’t arrive. I didn’t arrive on Monday either. After a few phone calls from me to the company, and the company to UPS what it boiled down to was that UPS said they “were too busy”.
At 6.40pm there was a knock on the door and a rather pissed off UPS man was stood there with my wadding. I suspect had been told to get off his butt and get to me and judging by his expression wasn’t too happy about it.

Anyway, I have a quilt loaded on the frame and am about halfway through it. It’s going, but I’m not sure whether I’d go as far as saying it’s going well. The quilting looks lovely but i definitely need more practice.

Things I have learned:

* My Janome is VERY temperamental. I knew that anyway but it’s a pain in the backside when i have to keep sorted it out when it gets jammed.
* My Janome LOVES YLI quilting thread. That is, until the bobbin gets low and then it hates it.
* My Janome can’t cope with free motion quilting for hours on end. After about 3 hours it just stopped and went off and couldn’t turn it back on for another hour.
* The lighting in my room is appalling.
* Borders on a quilt are a pain as they stretch differently to the rest of the quilt.

So, on Thursday i bit the bullet and bought this

I haven't used her yet as she only arrived last night. She's called Holly. As she is a hobby 1200 and my very first sewing machine was a little childrens Holly Hobby one, and as she's an early Christmas pressie to myself, the name seemed fitting. She came with a pile of goodies to which are nearly as exciting as the machine.

Enough thread to last me a lifetime and extra bobbins and needles.

And this. So if i ever want to take her anywhere with me, or just wheel her around the streets i can!

Placemats for PQS2

2009-11-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

I was that busy making sure i didn’t show any pictures of the placemat i made for the PQS2, that i totally forgot to show the one i received.
Stephanie was my swap partner and she sent me this! Isn’t it a beauty?

I love those autumn trees. A lot. I think she read my mind (or maybe looked at my favourites) but I’ve been admiring quilts with these little trees on them...like...forever. Now i have one of my very own! She also sent fabric, so even though i loved her when i saw the placemat, i REALLY love her now.

She’s now received the one i made, so I can show you it.

I'm thrilled that Stephanie loves hers as much as I love mine!

My sewing machine loves me.

2009-10-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

Cos i was a good Mummy and gave her a clean.

It was only because i was finding the squeak really annoying but don't tell her i said that.

She is purring with happiness now. She loves me.

Momo on the prairie.

2009-10-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

My cold turned into Pharyngitis (i think i might have just made up that spelling!) so rather than doing all the things I'm supposed me to be doing i felt perfectly justified in starting a new quilt. Oh, and spending a whole weekend watching a Little House on the Prairie box set!

I had a Momos Wonderland jelly roll and layer cake that i bought when i was feeling the need for those cute lil packages of fabric, and have been wracking my brains for weeks trying to come up with a pattern that would make maximum usage of the fabric. I told Curly Boy and within about 5 minutes he'd come up with a pattern idea!! Yay for Curly Boy!

So I've chopped up my jelly roll, my layer cake and some yard goods (that's what Ma Ingalls calls it!) and I'm all set to go.

My half square triangles are trimmed and ready

and I've even tried a block to see whether i like it, and now just need to park myself at the sewing machine for a bit.

I will when I find out whether Laura and Jack the dog have both caught rabies from Jasper the raccoon!

Aaaaaaaaaahhh...CHOOOOOO!...

2009-10-17T01:05:00.000-07:00

Had the mother of all colds this week so although my heart has been very willing, my body hasn't. I've achieved little of what i set out to do but luckily i haven't missed any deadlines!

Mostly I've been obsessing about my Dear Jane quilt and luckily i got a few things done last weekend that i never showed you.

First up, Curly Boys' quilt is done!

Here's the back.

He loves it and is very pleased to have a quilt of his very own - finally. I figured he's worth it for putting up with a house full of fabric and always being covered in thread ends!

I got some bee blocks done.

October is my month in 2 bees and the blocks are coming in thick and fast now so although the posties are still threatening to go on a national strike, for this week at least i love my postman.

For my Eurovision quilt i planned on sashing the blocks with unbleached cotton and Curly Boy came up with the idea of making mini log cabins for the corners - genius!
These were GOOD fun and are 2.5", so will finish up at 2" square. I think i might just be tempted to keep going and make a whole quilt out of these. Would be a great way of getting rid of all those stupidly small pieces that i insist on saving!

Dear Jane....

2009-10-12T08:30:00.001-07:00

Dear Jane....

I seriously wonder whether you were as mad as a lump of wood when you make your quilt in 1863

...and i wonder whether I'm also mad as a lump of wood to even contemplate making one now.
Now the excitement has worn off fear has set in!

Yours,

Flossy.

I think summer's over...sigh

2009-10-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

The weather has really turned wintry this week....and rainy....bbboooo!! I guess summer is finally over.
It feels really strange getting home from work and it’s already starting to get dark, and although I hate winter with a passion I do find that when the days start getting shorter I’m strangely comforted by it.

I can also tell it’s winter as Cliff Richard has crawled out of the woodwork and is starting to do the chat show rounds – just like he does EVERY year about this time. I apologise to all you Cliff Richard fans out there, but i really dislike that man. I have absolutely no grounds to dislike him, but i just can't help it. Even more than Kerry Katona and that’s saying something (for those of you in the UK you’ll know who she is, for those of you in the US you probably have no idea who she is and i wouldn’t bother wasting your time googling her!).

Anyway, back to a much more interesting subject - my ‘To do’ list for this week was to: Make placement for Flickr place mat swap and work on Curly boys quilt.

The place mat will have to remain a secret until the recipient has received it so i can’t show you that, but i can show you curly Boys quilt top.

He has been pouting for months for a quilt and i have been able to use the excuse that it’s summer and that it’s too warm for one but as i can’t use that one anymore i figured I’d better crack on with it.
I can’t remember whether he looked through my books or whether i threw some suggestions at him (not literally, as he’d have thrown them back!) but we arrived at the Colour wheel quilt. He’s an arty boy (with a degree in Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago) so it’s perfect for him. Colourful but not too girly, and if he should ever forget colour theory he can just look down on his lap and he’ll have the answer! It's a bit heavy on the aquas but for him to snuggle up in, and spill his dinner down, it will be fine.

The instructions said i needed something like 7 ½ yards of fabric. I thought i was being clever and knew better and only bought 5, so i am short of fabric for the back and as that particular charcoal grey was a one-off i can’t even get anymore. Serves me right really!!

So, I’ll be bodging the back with stripes and pretending that that was my intention all along.

Birthday weekend.

2009-10-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend was my birthday weekend!

It got off to a nice start with a trip to Katy's on Thursday so we talk about fabric and quilts for hours...and we did just that (in between 76 cups of tea and a bacon sandwich....Mmmmmm!)
She even got me a birthday pressie. Thank you Katy!

The rest of the weekend involved presents....

.....eating Brazilian food, Thai food and Hello Kitty cake...

...and hours and hours (and hours!) of hand sewing 1" bias binding while watching the Japanese Grand Prix.

With a bit of work on a new little project thrown in.

Weekends don't get much better than this!

Lean, mean quilting machine - part 1.

2009-09-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

Edited to add: For some bizarre reason Part 2 has ended up below Part 1 so if you want to read the 2nd gripping installment please scroll down!!

Ok, I'm definitely not lean, or mean, but judging by my productivity this weekend i am certainly a machine!
It helped that i didn't have many plans but i also framed myself. On Friday I wrote myself what i thought was a fairly unrealistic list and then just got on with it!

Blogger wasn’t playing ball on Sunday. I typed a huge long post and then lost half of it....ggrrrr. So, I’ll tell you about my weekend exploits in 2 instalments but it won’t be like TV as there won’t be a cliff-hanger!

My list:

Finish orange/teal log cabin quilt top - DONE!

This was my first improv quilt and m pretty pleased with it.

Make backing for it - DONE!

Finish hand pieced hexagon pinwheel quilt top - DONE!

I am so thrilled with this. I hand piece on the train to and from work - much to the other passengers amusement. They probably all call me the freaky patchwork lady and they all avoid sitting with me like the plague. A colleague catches the train part of the way and sits with me so thankfully that's one person that doesn't seem to embarrassed to be seen with me!

It's made of about 280 pinwheels so that's about 1700 pieces.

This was the last half pinwheel i put in and Curly Boy suggested that i put something special in there just like the Golden Spike in the Transcontinental Railroad. So, what better opportunity to use some of the gorgeous fabric i got from Joybucket with the DQS7 quilt she sent me.

Make backing for it - DONE!

Make spiderweb blocks for Katy - DONE!

This wasn't it! I did a few more things but I'll show you them another day when I've broken off what I'm doing at the moment long enough to write Part 2 - again!

I'm a lean, mean, quilting machine - Part 2.

2009-09-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm finally back with part 2 of my weekend exploits!!
The rest of the stuff on my list that i got finished was:

1st ever quilt re-bound - DONE!

When i dug this out a couple of months ago i thought I'd be horrified by is as i have come a long long way since then. The pattern for this came out of the first quilting book i ever bought when i was still naive enough to think i could pick one of the most complicated quilts in the book and pull it off! Luckily i did just about manage to pull the quilt off but not the binding - it was horrific!!

I finally got round to rebinding it and i adore it. It is made with woven sage green check and 2 layers of batting and sooooo soft.

Get Sue Spargo quilt ready to go to the long arm quilter - DONE!!

This has only been sat waiting for the last few bits doing for oh, maybe 2 years?It's made from wool blankets that I spent 2 or 3 weekend dyeing in a pan on the stove after seeing this tutorial.

Make backing - DONE!

Last but not least i made binding for my grandmothers Flower Garden quilt. Remember this?

This has been waiting a few months for me to finish it off. I love this quilt and am amazed that my love of it didn't motivate me sooner, but guess that's probably because i have the attention span of a gnat and had already moved into something newer and shinier!

The binding was a pig to make. I made continuous bias binding which confused me no end and it felt like I'd sewed, unpicked, sewed it a thousand time before i got all the lines to match up properly.

Just have to sew it around all the hex shapes around the edge. If you hear a really loud scream then you know it's me losing the will to live!!

Perking up nicely.

2009-09-23T05:35:00.000-07:00

Well, i think my mojo is starting to come back – yay!
A weekend filled with lovely things was just the ticket i think.

It started out on Friday night with my best friend who I’ve known...ooohh....erm...about 19 years? We met at University and were friends more of less from the start.

She came over so we could look through the photos we had taken at the photography studio a few weeks ago (a treat from her for my birthday!).
The photos are just what i wanted them to be and i think think captured the essence us 'us'. I treasure her and get something from her that i don’t get from anyone else, something i can’t put into words.
Here we are in all our finery (i'm the very blonde one!)

It’s THE big birthday for us both in 2 years time and we are going to make a pop video. We’re thinking rock chicks with stripy tights, loads of black eyeliner with a ton of attitude. I think there is going to be a fair few of us as everyone we’ve mentioned it to so far is really up for it. Can’t wait!

Saturday involved a bit of fabric shopping, and wander around Salts Mill and nap on the sofa to recover from the full bottle of wine and 3am bedtime.

And Sunday i cranked this out. Once i got going there was no stopping me and it’s now done and in the ‘to quilt’ pile.

Jimmy just can't help himself....bless.

I’m feeling marginally more perky this week so far!

2009-09-16T22:58:00.001-07:00

There seems to be a few people in blogland losing their mojo at the moment and it appears to have hit me too. Maybe it’s the time of year?

Rather than type a really long lack-lustre (and potentially whiny) blog post, i think I’ll just show you a few pics of what I’ve been up to if that’s ok?

I made these for a swap on Flickr:

And these for Becca in the Bee Addicted 3 Bee:

There is one thing that has significantly lifted my spirits this week, and it's this:

It came from Susan for the Doll Quilt Swap 7. I actually waved my arms around and did a dance when i opened it as i couldn’t believe it was for ME!
The little bits and pieces at the bottom are lovely extra goodies that she sent. Fabric that she designed and had printed at Spoonflower, and some postcards of pictures of the dollies she makes. It was all packaged up really beautifully but I was SO keen to open it that i didn’t stop to take a photo. Thank you, thank you Susan!!

Oh, the other highlight is that I ordered 2 packets of flower head pins, and a couple of books as I figured that the best way of lifting me out of my funk was a bit of retail therapy!

Nearly there...

2009-09-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last few weeks ‘sorting out’. It’s not like me being all motivated for housework etc but I’ve had a bug up my bum about it since i decided i wanted the Quilting frame, so I have been a women on a mission for the last 3 weeks.
There’s nothing like the promise of a bit of new kit to get me motivated to have a sewing room clear-out. I could pretend that it was well overdue and that i was doing it in favour of my poor straining joists, but everyone would see straight though me.

My sewing room is fairly compact at about 10ft square and as the Freestyle Quilting Frame i have ordered is 7 ½ ft long i need to clear a whole wall for it – which seemed like a fairly impossible task!

Last weekend we took the last car load to the charity shop and hired a carpet cleaner so as a result i could hardly move at the start of this week. I must have used muscles that I don’t use for anything else, although given that i don’t actually do any exercise apart from getting up from my sewing chair to the ironing board i shouldn’t be surprised! In theory my bingo wings should be all toned now. In theory!

I've just about run out of steam now. I still have my yarn to sort through and a couple of baskets and bags of odds and ends (as you can tell from the pic below!!) but I’m nearly there. The wall with the dresser is where the quilting frame will go when it arrives!

My sewing table has now been moved under the eaves and lighting has been installed by my sweetie so i can actually see to sew. Imagine that!

I just need to get some more pretty things on the wall now but i already feel really inspired by new space. So, i'm back from being shorn at the hairdressers and i'm planning on not leaving the house for the rest of the weekend!

Yet another banner change!

2009-09-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

You like my new banner?

Curly Boy took the picture of the bee block i made last week and did some magic jiggery-pokery in photo shop!

I wanted to make a full quilt of tiny houses anyway but I seriousley love the rainbow colours with the roof on each one being all of the same fabric. Hhhmm....that's got me thinking...

Squeezing some crafting in.

2009-09-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have been busy with a major sort out – which I’ll tell you about another day - so that hasn’t left as much time for sewing and ‘niceness’ as i would have liked but i have got some odds and ends finished.

I made the next block for the Around the World quilting Bee. Dionne’s starter block was a house block so after been blown away with the little tiny house at the Festival of Quilts i was really itching to do a teeny teeny one.

This was good fun to make and i suspect that if anyone has seen just how much i stared and smiled at this block once it was done they’d think I’d lost the plot!

I have finished up the doll quilt for the DQS7

I quilted it really simply as i didn’t want to detract from the little strips of fabric. I am really rather proud of this and the hope that it will be loved by the recipient makes it much easier to part with.

This ‘quiltie’ is for the Butterfly Project at the Houston Holocaust Museum. if anyone else fancies making a Butterfly or two you can read more about it here.
The brief was to make a 2 dimensional butterfly no bigger than 8” x 10” and for me a mini quilt was the obvious choice. This was a really bittersweet project for me but I am honoured that this will represent just one of the children who lost their lives in the Holocaust and never got to fulfil their potential.

Last but certainly not least we had a visit from my niece and great-niece for breakfast and some of Curly Boys amazing french toast. It's always a joy when they come. My Mum raided my stash for some fabrics to make her a dress and they had saved it as a surprise for when they came. How cute does she look in it?

It doesn't get much better than this!

2009-08-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

It's taken me so long to post about this as my brain has been so jam packed full of gorgeousness i didn't know where to start!

Last Saturday i tripped off with Katy to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.
We met up with Trash and Maria – which was a joy – and we shopped, chatted, laughed and admired quilts. It doesn’t get much better than that.

I was on a mission for jelly rolls and charm packs, and a ruler and i didn’t veer too much of course.

I didn’t take that many pics of the quilts as generally i was too busy drooling to remember to get my camera out but i did get a few of my absolute favourites - the first being at the top of the post. Mmmmm....hexagons.

And this beauty.

The ones i like best though were the ones by Ingrid Press. I absolutely loved the simplicity of them and these are reason I haven't been able to sleep very well since then. Serious over stimulation. I now understand why they recommend that children don't watch TV before bed!

These little houses make my heart go all a flutter!

I did go with a budget and one of those (although they were selling at an absolute bargain price) would have blown the budget out of the water so it probably wasn’t a bad thing that my favourites were sold, and i suspect it could have got pretty messy. Katy loved the same ones as me so we’d have had to scrap for them, and she’s taller than me so probably would have won.

Look at these teeny quilts - how gorgeous are they?

The other reason why my brain is so full is that we tried a couple of quilting frames out. I love free motion quilting and would love to do more of it as I’ve no doubt that the possibilities are endless, but I loath and detest battling to get it all under sewing machine. The frame is one where you attach your sewing machine onto it and then move the machine around with handles I think this would just be perfect for what i want.
The man on the stand was very pleasant and there was no high pressure sales pitch.
He just let us just get on with having a go and just answered our question in-between eating a Muller Rice yogurt with a chopstick (he told us he’d forgotten his spoon). He’ll do for me!

So i have been busy reorganising my sewing room so i can try and squeeze a 7ft one in - and i can YAY!!!

Good stuff.

2009-08-21T00:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all your good wishes after my fall. I thankfully didn’t break or dislodge anything. I didn’t even bang my head although if i had it may have knocked some sense into me ;-)

I do have a dark purple bruise the size of a small African country on my leg/backside though so I have felt as if i could continue to justify my obsession with my new quilt. I cannot leave it alone. I have been working on it every day both before work and after work (and have even dreamt about it) and now I have 20 blocks done out of the 25 I need.

You’ll have to excuse my bad photo. The dull British weather is partly to blame but it also doesn’t help that i don’t have anywhere decent to photograph anything larger than half a dozen blocks.

There are a tons of fabulous photos of this kind of quilt on Flickr. Some have been sashed so that the blocks don’t line up and have kind of wonky sashing (I suspect there’s a proper word for it but have no idea what it so you’ll have to bear with me!).

I don’t have a design wall and as the cats roll around on the blocks if they’re laid on the floor, the only way i could figure out how to do it was to add another row of unbleached cotton around every block and the trim them unevenly – so that’s what I’m going to do. It will probably finish up at about 78” (195 x 195cms) square.

I’m probably not going to get any time to work on it at the weekend and it’s a really good job I have an exciting week coming up or I suspect i would probably start to feel some separation anxiety!

First up on Saturday is the Festival of Quilts at the Birmingham NEC. Katy is riding shotgun with me – which will be lovely - so I will be picking her up at the crack of dawn to head 2 hours south and hopefully be there when the doors open!!

This will be more fabric and quilts than I’ll have been surrounded by at any one time and I AM SO EXCITED!!!

I am in the mood for jelly rolls and charm packs but as my stash seems to be going down at a great rate of knots (it is, honestly...) I might quite fancy some fat quarter packs and bigger pieces too. I have set myself a budget but as i am notoriously bad at sticking to anything, it could (and probably will) go to pot when I get there!!

Then on Sunday morning a friend and I are going to have a session with a photographer. We have known each other coming up 19 years and don’t have any good pictures of the two of us. We will be taking party frocks, masks, fans, feather boas, jewellery the size of houses (and probably my silly new gold T-bar dancing shoes!) and all the silliness we can muster. It should be an absolute hoot and i can’t wait!!

Slacking.

2009-08-17T02:32:00.000-07:00

We had quite a busy weekend so i decided to take today off work to catch up.

I shouldn't have been putting 3 baskets of laundry away. No.
I shouldn't have been cleaning my windows so i could see out of them. No, shouldn't have been doing that.
I shouldn't have been sewing backing so i could take 2 quilts to the long arm quilter.
I shouldn't have vacuuming to dust bunnies that are threatening to eat the cats. No, definitely not that, and I absolutely should not have been doing a whole host of jobs that i keep conveniently forgetting needs doing.

Obviously what i really should have been doing was starting another quilt!!

This is my first attempt at an improv quilt. I figured it was time to get with the program' and have a go and am quite pleased with my first few blocks!!

I fell down the stairs last night. From the top, to the bottom! Today I feel rather like I've gone 5 rounds with Mike Tyson, but as my ear is still intact i can't have done.

Anyway, i figured that was perfect justification for being a slacker today!!

Busy Bee!!

2009-08-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've been busy, busy, busy.

The whole of last weekend was taken up with dolls and have had a ton of stuff that I HAD to get done! I cleared them all out of the way so that i could get on with the latest blocks for the Bee. I had so much fun doing them that i have had to resist the call of the Bee until i got finished with everything else.

The first one is a wonky star.

I am hooked on wonky stars and am now desperate to make a whole quilt of them as I seem to be spending a lot of time drooling over them on Flickr. This one is drool worthy, as is this, and this, and this and these. In fact i could go on forever linking to them.

The second block was going to be a Goose in the Pond block but I shuffled the blocks around a bit and liked it better. Well, i would have liked it better had i have sewn it together properly!!
Notice the half square triangles at the bottom? Doh! Actually it's double Doh! as i didn't realise until i uploaded the pic from my camera.

When i've sorted it out it will probably be called something like.....Duck in the lake or Swan in the river or Sparrow in the bird bath, but as it stands it's called Dodo in the water butt!

At least it's reassuring to know how i'll be spending this evening!

Giveaway!!

2009-08-13T08:23:00.000-07:00

Not here though.....i'm way too tight to give away fabric, but Randi is very generously giving away end of bolt fabric scraps from her shop.

I'd drop in there if i were you!

Dolly laiking

2009-08-10T22:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a lovely weekend of dolly laiking.

I don’t know whether ‘dolly laiking’ is an old saying confined to Yorkshire and although I am able to use it in context I wasn’t 100% sure what it meant.
I googled it and couldn’t find ‘dolly laiking’ but could find ‘laiking’ which means playing or messing about.
‘Dolly’ might comes from the pole with that the washing was done with (in a dolly tub) but I can’t for the life of me imagine how ‘washing’ and ‘playing’ could ever have been used in the same sentence!
It could mean as simple as meaning ‘playing with a dollies’ and if so, that definitely sums up my weekend.

A friend - who gets married next weekend - asked me to make some dolls for her bridesmaids and page boy. I have made the occasional softie but I have never made dolls before and was more than happy to have a go, if a bit nervous.

The best word to sum up my experience of making them is: FIDDLY. Fiddly with big fat capital letters! The jury is still out as to whether I’ll make more but they’ve now gone to my friend - who was really thrilled with them - and will be going to their new homes on Saturday!

Oh and thank you everyone for your lovely comments on the doll quilt. I’m hoping to find some time in the next week or so to tackle the quilting!!

Strips.....and strips...and strips.

2009-08-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

I adore small pieces of fabric. The smaller the better in my book!

This is my collection of 1” strips sorted into Ziploc bags, by colour.

Does that give you the impression that I am a really organised person?

Well, I guess it would be rude to shatter your illusions then.

While we’re are on the subject of 1” strips, I have been plugging away with my second doll quilt for DQS7. I know I’m daft as a brush for making 2 but I wanted to try this to see how it looked and I actually think that this is going to suit my partner way more than the first.

Even though this quilt it little, it’s sucked up hours and hours of time. I did also try a couple of options out before settling on this and that took some extra time but I guess that’s also the downside of being mad enough to opt for chopping fabric into 1” strips and then sewing them back together!

Saying that though, I absolutely love the end results and it was absolutely worth the time it has taken. I could do a lil jig I like it that much!!!

Help.

2009-08-01T04:25:00.000-07:00

P.S. Can everyone please go and update their blogs cos i have now run out of reading and am trying to put off doing the things i'm supposed to be doing. Thanks!

Funny week.

2009-08-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

What a funny week (funny peculiar….not funny haha!)

It has felt rather like and out of body experience. Like the lights are on but nobody’s home.
I guess that’s typical when recovering from flu but work has sucked up so much of my energy this week that I haven’t had much left by the time I’ve been getting home.

I did improve quite significantly at the start of the week but unfortunately I'm not so sure anymore.

Luckily my creative juices were flowing at the start of the week long enough to get some fabric cut and some ideas ready to try for my second attempt at a doll quilt for the DQS7.
I know I’ve already done one but I wanted to try a few things out and then decide which one I thought suited my partner the best.

I think this colour combo looked lovely, but a bit too Christmassy

Maybe I’ll play around with them further as I fancy making some Christmas place mats.

And the combination of light and dark on these just wasn’t cutting it for what i want to do.…

So I am gradually arriving at the option that I like the best.

I just LOVE fiddling around with little strips of fabric. Maybe it’s because I’m tight with my fabric and want to use it sparingly or maybe I just love being able to pack in as many fabrics as possible. Or, maybe as Katy suggested some time ago, I am maybe into self flagellation!

But, what ever the reason, I’m having a lovely time - and isn’t that what it’s all about?

Cheap.

2009-07-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

I guess Curly Boy doesn't think my sewing machine is worth much.

Although, was it Curly Boy who did it, or Cousin It!

Here's the back view.

I love being married to a boy who has better hair than Carol Decker!!

Guilt free sewing

2009-07-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

The upside of being unwell is that i get extra time to sew without the nagging guilt that i should be vacuuming or cleaning. Obviously WAY to unwell to do any house chores so for the last 3 days I've had a lovely time stitching to my hearts content!!

First thing i made was a doll quilt. I sat for 2 days and hand stitched the pinwheels like a woman possessed. I did break for the loo and for food but that's more or less it.

I also made the next set of blocks for the Around the World Quilting Bee. They seem to be coming thick and fast but i do get very excited every time the postman knocks on my door with another lil package.

I bottled out of piecing the circles and just appliqued them on but at some point I'd like to have a good go at mastering circles. I used Park Slope fabric and I had forgotten just how gorgeous these fabrics were until i dug them out for this block.

The next one is my first ever wonky star and it makes me smile. I really enjoyed making it so I see many more wonky stars in my future. Maybe i'll add it to the list of about 20 quilts that i want to do someday!

The last one i made from strips pieced onto a paper foundation. This one was a maths nightmare and i really though i'd messed it up when i trimmed one smaller than i intended. But luckily when it was done i was amazed that it was exactly the right size. For that to be the case my maths must have been way off to begin with!

Whirlygiggles

2009-07-23T04:03:00.000-07:00

You may or may not have noticed but i have been changing my banner as often as my underwear! That's because curly boy is on a mission to make me the perfect banner - bless him. I love this one a lot so i think it may stay a while - thanks sweetie pie!

I am not very well at the moment so am home from work. so, loads of time on my hands, but no energy to do anything...ggrrrrrr.

I did want to show you this though. I was inspired to crack on with it by
this and was really quite astounded by just how quick it all went together. Shame on me for not getting my lazy butt into gear earlier.

I have been debating whether to quilt it myself or send it to the long arm quilter, but as she asks that you sew 1/8" around the edge to stop the seams pulling apart and i have already done that, i think my sub-conscience has already decided for me!!!

Stash Strategy.

2009-07-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

This post has been written especially for LauraJ who wanted me to share my fabric shopping strategy. She asked me eons ago but I have only just got around to this.

The first thing I should say is that I'm not sure 'strategy' is the word…..I'd say it's more like 'smash and grab' at times!!

I hope no-one minds, but I have used the questions that came from Sew Mama Sew ‘Tell us about your stash’ event back in February.

What do you usually sew?

My favourite things to make are quilts – either machine pieced or hand pieced.
I also make bags, purses, clothes and other bits of nonsense

When you shop for fabric, what size cuts do you usually buy? (I.e. if you see something beautiful, but you don’t have a use for it right away, how much do you buy?)

I never usually have a use for fabric right away. I buy for my stash.
When i first started quilting I used to buy fat quarter packs, mainly so i could increase the variety of fabrics I had. These days i pick the ones i like out of a range and buy a bit more of them as I know now which fabrics will get used, and which won't.
As I am in the UK I generally can’t get the nice fabrics here at a reasonable price,
I buy my fabric online from the US and more often than not buy 1/2 yard of each fabric. I buy fabric for backings locally when I need them.

Do you buy on impulse or do you go out looking for something you need?

I generally buy on impulse. I decide that I need a fabric fix, go to my favourite sites and pick some gorgeous stuff, or when a new range comes out and I want to bag myself some. I tend to only buy what I know I’ll use which is usually small prints and geometric patterns. I have a tendency to make quilts will small pieces and large prints get lost.

Are you a pre-washer? If you are, do you wash your fabric before you need it, or only when you’re ready to use it?

I LOVE washing my fabrics and do it immediately. I machine wash them in with my clothes and tend to tumble dry them – I find that the pieces get a bit distorted by hanging them on the washing line. I also like to dry them to get the maximum shrinkage so I don’t have to worry about being able to machine wash my quilts.

Do you iron it?

Hate ironing with a passion but LOVE to stand and iron all my new fabrics. I iron them and cut off the selvedges (I have serious selvedge love!) It’s one of my favourite things to do as I love how they look when they are folded and stacked.

How do you sort it? (Colour, print size, collection, etc.)

I used to sort by collection but I now sort by colour as I find it easy to find what I’m looking for.

Do you have any special folding techniques?

I had my own (flawed) method that was ok if the pieces were 1/2 or a full yard but once the pieces had been cut into, the size of the folded pieces went to pot.
I am in the process of re-folding it using the Happy Zombie Fabric Folding method as i go along, but at some point I will drag it all off the shelves and refold it.

How do you store your fabric?

On Ikea Expedit shelving (or the floor, or the sofa arm, or in a washing basket at the bottom of the stairs.)

What tips do you have for building up a well-rounded stash?

Figure out what kind of things you are likely to use and stick to those when buying fabric! I now try and only buy what I know I’ll use which is usually small prints and geometric patterns. I have a tendency to make quilts will small pieces and large prints get lost.

Fabrics I use lots of:
Small prints
Medium to light colours/tones
Prints with a maximum of 3 colours in them.
White on beige
Unbleached calico

Fabrics I know I don’t use very often:
Large prints
Dark/murky colours
Batiks
Fabrics with dark backgrounds even if the patterns are light coloured
White

When do you say enough is enough?

My (self imposed) limit is when the shelves allocated to quilting fabric are full and scrap drawers won’t close, but don’t think I’ll reach my max as my stash is actually going down at the moment.

What are some of your favourite stash-busting projects?

I have worked hard to get my scraps down (from 2 large drawers to a 1 drawer).
I have been making strippy scrap quilt blocks and mixing the fabrics I’m less keen on in with the good stuff. It's amazing that some of the fabrics look WAY less ugly now!
Also, When I am cutting out for a quilt and end up with a piece 2” wide or less, I cut it up at into 1” strips and throw it into a freezer bag with other strips of the same colour. That means that I am not adding too much back into the scrap drawer and makes it much easier to put another block together when I have a bit of spare time.

What’s your definition of the perfect stash?

I think my stash is perfect as I love just about everything that’s in there.

Do you have a current favourite print in your stash?

My all time favourite fabric is Heather Baileys Freshcut range and i adore most of those prints. When I heard it was going to be discontinued it almost sent me into a major panic buying frenzy, but I have resisted as I already have 2 large quilts, 2 small quilts and all sorts of other bits made from it. I figured it was to be brave and let go!!!
I've grown quite attached quite attached to my American Jane and Katie Jump Rope fabrics and i have a pile of Lecien My Folklore fabrics that i'm not sure i'm ever going to be able to cut into!!

Go slow....

2009-07-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

My new post-holiday pace is ‘go-slow’. I’m going so slowly that if you saw me you would question whether I really was moving at all - but I’m liking it very very much!!

After successfully diverting attention from the lack of crafting with my holiday stuff and my new (ever so lovely) sewing machine foot, I finally have some crafting to show you.

I’ve hand pieced some shoe bags using the half hundred weight of hexagons left from my grandmothers flower garden quilt. Clearly i got carried away when cutting out!

I have only made 2 so far which is a laugh considering the number of pairs of shoes I’ve got and the numbers of pairs I usually take away with me but hey, it’s a start!

I also now have 110 granny squares for my blanket. I have to say that I am also fast approaching my boredom threshold with this so am going to stop while the going is still reasonably good.

I have finished all the yarn I had so I will join them together, sew the flowers on, crochet some kind of edging and then it will be finished and ready to snuggle under.
I think it will end up about 125 x 125cms (50" x 50").

And finally I have made some more progress on my hexagon pinwheel. I think I only have about 90 pinwheels left to make. Only...
I need 19 rows of 13 pinwheels and so far i have 11 (5 all sewn together) and i am so excited to see this finished!! I think it will end up at about 175 x 200cms (70" x 80").

Notice that I have cunningly combined it all into one post to make it look like I’ve done all this in the last 2 or 3 days?

I think i'm a bit slow on the uptake.

2009-07-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

I am going to admit something now. You have to promise you won't laugh.

*deep breath*....here goes...

I didn't know that 1/4" sewing machine feet existed until 3 weeks ago!

Yes. Just in case you were wondering you did read that right. I have been making quilts for about 5 years ish and I never knew they existed. No idea at all.
I have been blissfully going about my business guessing what a 1/4" seam allowance looks like when I could have made life MUCH easier for myself. How the hell did I miss that??

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that I ordered one, and I now have it in my hot little hands. I haven't used it yet but is it not a thing of beauty? I think I’m already in love.

Also, am I the only person who didn't know how jaw dropping this magazine is?

I paid a visit to my local fabric shop last weekend and they've started stocking them. There was a huge pile of them and after an age of flicking through all of them I managed to narrow it down to 3. I had to limit it as I was in fear of bankrupting myself in one foul swoop!
WAY more gorgeousness than a girl can cope with in one sitting. Has anyone ever been known to have suffered from eye candy overdose? I think it might be wise to ration time spent looking at them.

Are there any more life changing snippets of info that I don't know that I don't know???

I thought you might like to see my holiday booty.

2009-07-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

Although the hotel we stayed at in Thailand was in the middle of nowhere, my cute-stuff-radar was definitely fine tuned so I managed to get some good stuff!! Thailand is also fairly cheap so I got a lot for my money.

My absolute first love is shoes (think Imelda Marcos!!) and I managed to bag myself 2 lovely pairs of sandals. These I already posted a picture of, but in my eyes you can't even get enough pics of cute shoes!!...

And these pearly coral flowery beauties...

Down a back street in Hua Hin town we found (well actually it was Curly Boy who spotted it as I’ve managed to also fine time his cute-stuff-radar!) was a little shop full of handmade goodies.
The lady who owned the shop is a serious crafter - which she tells me is quite rare in Thailand - and she has even published her own crafting book.
We had a lovely chat, I admired some things that she showed me that she made for herself, and then I swept through the shop like a tornado!!
I got flower hair bobbles that will become something else at some point, and 2 zip pouches.

I got a Thai silk bed cover that I put it on my bed the first night I got home and the cats have already clicked it, so I have taken it off and pondering what else I can do with it…

Silk and cotton scarves….so soft….

And finally twig pens and coloured pencils!

Good eh??

Back in the land of the living - well kinda!

2009-06-29T08:49:00.001-07:00

We're back from our lovely jaunt to Thailand feeling refreshed, sunkissed, and... around 7 pounds heavier (not bad considering my record is 12 pounds in a two week holiday!).

It was as near perfect as it could have possibly been as it's a beautiful country, the people are so friendly, the hotel was wonderful and the room we had was pure luxury. I had been fairly frazzled leading up to it but it didn't take long to wind down and get into the groove of laying around like a vegetable!

Most days were gloriously uneventful - breakfast, morning walks along the beach to look at the shells and other bits and pieces washed up overnight, afternoons laid on the day bed reading, afternoon shade overlooking the sea with crochet/sewing/a book and lazy evenings of yummy Thai food.

We spent the afternoon of our wedding anniversary in the Spa.
3 blissful hours of salt scrubs, full body massages and facials. For the evening of our anniversary we had grand plans for having a private gourmet BBQ either on the terrace of our villa or on the beach, but we really wanted pizza and ice cream on the squashy sofas in the bar overlooking the sea, with the British Grand Prix on the telly. So, that's exactly what we did and it was perfect.

The highlights of the holiday were (in no particular order):

The welcome...

The private garden and pool...

The beautiful restaurants...

The beach...

Saving an octopus that had been washed up on the beach...

Batik painting...

Seafood dinners in Hua Hin night market...

The Spa...

Shoe shopping....

And spending 2 glorious weeks with my sweetie!!!!!

Suprisingly not much crafting got done even though i had taken my crochet blanket and hexagon pinwheel quilt. I love reading but it generally plays second fiddle to crafting, so laying around and reading to my hearts content was just bliss.

I haven't been motivated to get much done this week since we got back but it's been very warm here, and am stubbornly refusing to get out of holiday mode!!!!

I am looking forward to spending some time with my sewing machine this weekend though, as i've missed her.

Jolly holidays!

2009-06-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

Not much crafty stuff has been going on this week apart from i have managed to get the next block done for The Around The World Quilting Bee.

The thing i am loving the most about doing this is the challenge of making blocks of different styles and colours to blocks i would usually make, and i can try something out without having to commit to a whole quilt. I loved making this one (although in fairness i think I've said that about all of them).

Tomorrow I AM GOING ON HOLIDAY (not that I am excited or anything…) We are going to Thailand for 2 weeks and while we are away we celebrate out 7th wedding anniversary.

We met on the Internet in the summer of 2000 and I was in the UK and Curly Boy was in Chicago. We had our first proper date in the summer 2001 in Chicago. He arrived in the UK for good on 1st April 2002 and we married in June of the same year. Neither of us can quite believe just how quick the last 7 years have whizzed by!

We are spending our anniversary in Thailand at the hotel where we stayed for our 1st anniversary (the sister hotel of the hotel we spent our honeymoon at).
The hotel is in the style that Thais do so well - rustic and understated elegance. This time we have splurged and are staying in one of the pool villas.

I have a couple of craft projects packed so looking forward to 2 weeks of eating, sleeping, sunbathing and sewing - all in rotation!

I may drop in and say hello while I'm there but it depends whether i can peel myself off the sun lounger, or whether i can moderate my pina colada consumption enough to be able to type a coherent post. If neither of those things are possible, I'll see you when i get back!!

This week has been mad, mad, mad. Good, but mad!

2009-06-09T05:23:00.001-07:00

The week did get off to a really mad start though...

I was settling down on the sofa and Curly Boy was going upstairs to doing a bit of car chasing through the streets of San Francisco on his computer (or whatever else he does up there!) and he called me upstairs to the spare bedroom. We could hear cheeping.

Birds up (or should I say down) the sodding chimney!!!

Our house is 110 years old and we have 6 fireplaces. Luckily this was the only fireplace that was not sealed up with wood at the bottom and the old occupants had just put old carpet in the bottom of the chimney to stop the draught.
I rang my dad (as I always do if I have no idea what else to do!) and then Curly Boy set to and started pulling down lumps of carpet.

To cut a very long story short (one that involves a long stick!), Curly Boy got birdie number 1 out. I was supposed to be catching the thing but I am a bit of a wuss, and failed in my duties so it flew around a bit and bashed against the window a couple of times before Curly Boy caught it. The second birdie took a bit more poking out but he was young and a bit weaker so he just rolled out of the chimney and we bundled him up in towels.

We let the big bird go first and then the baby. Baby looked to be having a bit of trouble flying and flew into the wall a couple of time before settling on the house across the road.

A couple of minutes later the baby was joined by birdie 1 and another bigger bird (probably Mummy and Daddy) and they all flew away together. A mixture of adrenalin and us having saved the 2 birdies lives, I was all overcome.

Thankfully order is now restored, and I have a mental note to get the roofers to come and cap our 6 chimneys off.

My niece and 2 year old great-niece came to visit on Wednesday. Leah loves Curly Boy and is usually found parked about an inch away from him.

I guess it's been a mad week for everyone!

Well... another weekend has whizzed by!!

2009-06-07T23:07:00.000-07:00

Not much crafting this weekend apart from the next block for the Around the world quilting bee. I thought I'd do a 'grown up' block and i definitely needed some practice doing half square triangles. I'm usually a bit heavy handed with the iron and they end up really out of shape - but not this time!! *big smile*

...and to see Take That in Sunderland. A group of girlies tripped up there on Friday and it was lovely to have a change of scenery, a giggle.....and see those handsome fellas strutting their stuff!

Look who's come to live at my house!

2009-06-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's Liberty!!

She's only been in the house 5 minutes and she's already trying to nick my fabric!

At the moment she's still missing her old Mummy but she thinks she'll be happy here.

She's just not so sure about her pet mousy...

Yum!

2009-06-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

My new fabric is all washed and ironed....aaaahhhhhhh.

I wasn't planning on buying more but I couldn't help myself, especially when i saw the fabric with the little trees on!

As i have to get it from the US i just HAD to make it worth my while (well i did didn't i?) so at the same time i bought a couple of other bits and pieces.

Have I mentioned how much I love selvages*?

2009-05-28T23:35:00.000-07:00

It all started when I saw THIS!!!!!

(If you were considering skipping that link, trust me don't - just in case you haven't already seen it - and I'll wait for you to come back)

Is that not the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen?? (barring Jon Bon Jovi in full leathers of course.)

I loved it enough to spend 2 days dragging all my fabric off the shelves and chopping the selvages off all of it, and trust me that's a fair amount.
I have already made this for my jolly holidays....

....and here's the back

Yes, I know. I did say the zig-zag one was for my holidays too but a girl can never have too many bags can she?

I want to come up with something gorgeous that I can make with this lovely pile!

There is also some selvage love going on over at SummerSadies place. She's not telling what she's making yet and can't wait to see what it is.

*I googled it to find the correct spelling and there appears to be a zillion ways of spelling it!

Jam packing it all in...

2009-05-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

I love having an extra day tagged onto my weekend. I'm not sure i achieve much more, but at least it means that I'm not doing it all at the same frantic pace i usually do!

A swap I signed up to on Swap-Bot (as clearly I don't think I have enough on my plate!) was to make a decorated dishtowel. My swap partner seems to like most things so that made life easier, and her kitchen is red, yellow, green and orange.

It's along the same lines as the one I made for myself. The one that serves absolutely no purpose but just sits on the kitchen towel rail looking pretty!

I made the next block for the Around The World Quilting Bee. I'm rather pleased with it and hope the recipient likes it too!

I bound, labelled, washed and dried the Irish Triple chain quilt.
When it was quilted i requested the cotton/polyester wadding that shrinks a bit as i wanted it too look old. I'm not 100% convinced i've made the right choice as it has really changed the look and feel of the quilt and i really loved it how it was. Although i guess it's probably no less lovely, it's just different, and i will be fine once i've got used to it.

I did some more granny squares on my blanket. Very satisfying!

We also squeezed in a trip to Temple Newsam House. It's a stately home in Leeds and only about a half hour drive from us. There was Steam Rally on so we had a look around there, and then wandered around the gardens and admired the rhododendrons that were all in full bloom. The sun was even shining for us - which was a bit of a novelty!!

Feels like all my birthdays have come at once...

2009-05-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

My quilts are finally back from the long arm quilter - whooo hooo!!!

They have been with Chris for about 6 weeks. When I took the quilts to her there were 22 in the queue in front of me and although I was bummed that I'd have to wait so long, once I saw the piles of her own quilts I knew they were going to be worth the wait! Katy dropped hers off about a week before mine so I knew once she had her quilt back that mine wouldn't be long behind.I actually felt quite emotional when I went to collect them and saw how beautiful they looked ('quite emotional' being an understatement as had I have known her better I would have blubbed like a baby!!) I think Maggie likes them too!

The first one is a Grandmothers flower garden. It's hand pieced from 3069 hexagons and took me about 3 or 4 months to do as I attacked this project like a woman possessed. We probably didn't eat too well, jobs around the house didn't get done, and fingers were shredded to bits but I loved loved loved every single minute and every tiny stitch of this quilt. I had a romantic notion that I was going to hand quilt around every hexagon but know myself well enough to know that after 50 I would have wanted to poke my own eyes out with the quilting needle - or it would have stayed unfinished for years. I have (stupidly!) decided to bind around all the hexagons with narrow continuous bias binding. It will be a pain to do but I think it will be worth it.

The second one is a Triple Irish chain using mostly my favourite fabrics of all time - Heather Baileys Freshcut (with a bit of Amy Butler thrown in). I hand pieced this one from 2" squares and it probably took me about 6 weeks. This was the start of the hand-piecing frenzy that led onto the Grandmothers Flower Garden!! I wasn't too keen on the large expanses of calico so i appliqued the daisies on and then embroidered around them.Because the design didn't lend itself to an all-over pattern I opted to have it custom quilted. This was the one that I most wanted to see as it had sat folded up in a carrier bag for 6 months as I was too scared of messing it up by attempting it myself. I so LOVE it.

I will spend the first part of the weekend parked on the sofa sewing the binding on the Triple Irish chain and then I plan to spend the rest of the weekend wrapped up tightly up in it.

I think it will be a loooonng time before I'll be able to say the same about the grandmothers flower garden!

I always have a nice weekend, but this one was extra nice.

2009-05-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of my weekend was meeting up with Katy for a cuppa and quilty chat on Sunday morning.

It was a huge huge pleasure to meet her and we cunningly combined meeting up with a visit to the tea room (for bacon and sausage butties) and a touch of retail therapy at the sewing shop. You probably won't be suprised to learn that most of the conversation revolved about fabric, quilts, fabric, quilts, templates, quilts...oh, and fabric.

I don't have many crafty friends so I was wonderful to chat about fabric without worrying about whether I was boring the pants off her, and I could discuss the merits of making king sized quilts out of hexagons the size of my thumb nail without her looking at me as though I've lost the plot!
I'm really looking forward to meeting up with her again in the near future.

By the time I got back, my swap partner for the 'Quilties' swap on Swap-Bot had been allocated so I squeezed a bit of sewing in. The brief was to make a quilt between 5" and 10" and here's what i came up with:

My swap partner likes vintage things so tried to some up with something with a vintage look, and added some hand quilting with embroidery floss (while I watched Eurovision Song Contest). Hope she likes it.

Talking of Eurovision, is it just me that thought that the Norway song was rubbish???

The little voices made me do it….

2009-05-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

It was VERY silly of me to buy yarn. No idea how I imagined in a month of Sundays that I’d be able to keep my mitts off it? Especially when the little voices keep talking to me...

I wanted a blanket made from granny squares with flowers in the middle of them so I have been playing around deciding what I'm going to do. Many many decisions to make.
What size granny squares? Single colour or multi-coloured? Single or double layer flowers? All flower centres the same colour? My oh my....

I had a play on the train to and from work and here's what I've achieved so far....

I think I like smaller squares and the centres of the flowers all one colour.

Going to have to be strong and ignore the voices at the weekend, as I have got make a mini quilt and a decorated dish towel to make!

Katy has done her block for my Around The World Quilting Bee quilt and I LOVE IT!! You can see it here. I'm just hoping the cute birdie doesn't eat the flowers on my block…..

I also got Marias block so have to get my thinking cap on - the cogs are already turning (albeit very slowly, as i was up until 1.30am doing some stuff for work).

The colours are very 'me' so looking forward to having a play!!!!

My first block for ATWQB is done!!

2009-05-12T04:45:00.000-07:00

I have made my block for the Around The World Quilting Bee!

I suspect what I love about patchwork is the structure and repetition. I have seen some of other peoples improv stuff on various blogs and felt very envious of their ability to just try things out - something I don't find very easy. Having a quilt made by people all over the world is a really exciting prospect , but I knew that this would definitely take me out of my comfort zone - also a really exciting prospect!

When it came to deciding what I wanted to do for my block I felt really overwhelmed. Usually my head is filled with vague ideas of things I'd like to try but they all disappeared and I had no idea where to start. After giving myself a talking to, I fiddled around for a bit and this appeared....

I have added my details and it will be going in the post today! Very excited for the next one now...

I got loot!!!

2009-05-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

After stumbling across this BEAUTIFUL blog I feel really inspired to crochet again and REALLY want to make a blanket.
Crochet was my first love before I got sucked into quilting, and now I'm just itching to get going again. I did want to make the hexagon blanket from the tutorial on the blog but was side-swiped by the granny squares with flowers in the middle.

After having a shufty on t'internet I found Sirdar Snuggly Bamboo. The colours are exactly what I was after so I dashed over to Texere after work to bag myself some. How gorgeous do they look??

I learned to crochet about 4 years ago. After trying to teach me, my Mum suggested that I might find it easier to learn if I found a pattern that I wanted to make first, and then I'd learn the stitches as I went along. I found this book and it was all the inspiration I needed! I sat on my own for a couple of hours until I had figured out the stitches and then asked Mum to make a granny square while I watched, and then it all fell into place. Many many hours, many balls of yarn and a heavy dose of Repetitive Strain Injury (as I couldn't leave it alone!).......

Anyway, back to loot. I also got sweeties from a swap I joined on Swap-Bot.

The first package I received was from Texas and contained 2 candy bars, however I have no pics as they were scoffed in record time. The first was a Whatchemacallit (is that's how it's spelled?) and Curly boys eyes nearly popped out of his head with excitement as he hasn't had one since he moved here from US 7 years ago. I made him a very happy by sharing it with him. The 2nd candy bar was a Zero bar. Oh man, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It's a good job I don't live in the US as I'd be eating twice my own body weight of these on a daily basis.

If anyone in the US gets an overwhelming urge to sending Zero bars to random people in the UK....then I'm your gal!!

My 2nd package came from Malaysia and contained lots of Japanese sweeties.

Everything is right up my street and the butterscotch wrappers are even pink and flowery!!!

All is good with the world today.....

2009-05-10T13:48:00.001-07:00

P.S. I hate spaceships and sci-fi but....i LOVED Star Trek!!!!

Mmmmmm......

2009-05-10T03:42:00.000-07:00

I love rhubarb. I have a lovely memory of being little and sitting on my granddads' back step in the summer with a stick of rhubarb and a cup of sugar to dip it in (does anyone still do that or is the sugar thing bad now?).

The house I grew up in (and where my Mum and Dad still live) was built on rhubarb fields and everyone had patches of it in their garden that they spent years trying to get rid of.

I have a teeny tiny garden and 3 years ago I put a rhubarb plant in a big pot. It thanks me every year for ignoring it by sprouting plenty of stalks - there were only 4 that were ready but there looks to be another 10 stalks growing - and I thank it in return by yanking the stalks out.

I've no idea when I'm supposed to yank them out or cut them, but it keeps coming back so it can't be too upset about it!

I chopped it all up and mixed it with sugar and left it overnight until it went gloopy

.... boiled it all up in my jam pan and ta-daaaa!

It called for soft white bread toasted. Mmmmmmmmmm.......

Eeeuurrgghhh......

2009-05-09T05:19:00.000-07:00

Feeling REALLY crappy today. Kind of a cold with stomach pains and just....well.....crappy.
Was going to work wonders and s**t miracles today. Was planning to:

Plant strawberry plants
Make rhubarb jam
Pay cheques into bank
Drop some things at the charity shop
Make my block for the quilting bee
Re-bind my green quilt
Go fabric and yarn shopping

But....can't be arsed. You KNOW it's bad when you can't even be bothered going fabric and yarn shopping. I was even going to get lovely yarn for one of these!!!!

Got a hot date with Curly boy and the 'USS Enterprise' this evening (and i don't think he'll let me back out unless I'm dead!) so I'm gonna ditch my plans and go back to bed!!

A knife and fork would probably have done a better job

2009-05-06T00:45:00.000-07:00

Is it only me that attempts to cut out with a blunt rotary cutter blade???

A couple of weeks ago I changed the blade and then more of less immediately ran over a staple with it. Gggrrrrr. Did I change the blade? No. Couldn't possibly as I had only just changed it, so I persevered with it even though I had to go over everything I cut twice, and then snip some of the missed threads with scissors.

After Curly Boy listened to me tutting and sighing (and swearing!) after every cut for God knows how long, he pointed out that I was allowed to change it.
I relented and all I can say is WOW! So little effort, no blisters (with having to press down so hard!) and no snipping off the missed threads.

The thing is, i KNOW i won't learn from it!

Good job jobbed.....

2009-05-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

The pile of half finished stuff has been bugging me lately so thought I'd crack on with some of them, No idea why i went off the boil as had a lovely time finishing them.

Notebook covers x3. Cut out and half decorated last year.

I started this bag to see whether my sewing of half square triangles had improved. And…it hasn't! Now it's finished it actually doesn’t look too bad considering how un-square the squares were. Think this will be my holiday bag for carting my odds and sods to the pool.

Chocolate lollipop skirt. I did all the hard work and cut the pattern and cut the pieces out but only managed to get the front sewn. I did wonder whether the rest of the pieces had ended up in the scrap box but i managed to find them. 3 guesses what I'm wearing for work tomorrow?

My Sue Spargo wool wall hanging is now ready to go to the long arm quilter!
I finished the top in record time about 18 months ago and attempted to quilt it, but the gap between my foot and the plate isn't big enough to sew where the seams are and I made a complete hash of it. I’ve unpicked all my crappy quilting, bought new backing and sewed it, and am planning on taking it with me when I go to pick up my quilts from the long arm quilter. No pic as by the time I'd thought if it the weather was way too dreary.

I hemmed Curly boys trousers (only taken me a year), buttonholed my beige trousers (not too bad as they've only sat there for 2 weeks), took up some red/brown linen trousers (have worn them too long for a year) and altered a skirt (I loved it so bought it in the sale a year ago for £4 even though it was 4 dress sizes too large!)

So, rather a productive weekend all in all!!

Hexagon Love.

2009-04-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

Most days I travel to work by train and it's takes about 3/4 hours each way. The prospect of this would probably make some want to gnaw off their own limbs, but not me. It means that I get an extra 1 1/2 hours a day to sew....yay!!!

English paper piecing is the perfect train project as it's small and I can be keep my space small enough to avoid jabbing my fellow passengers (unlike knitting!). The added bonus is that's it's a real conversation point and that means that I get to chat to people who I probably wouldn't have otherwise (although some do avoid sitting with me like the plague and look at me like I’m a loony!)

I never thought I’d be a hand piecing kinda gal but this has turned out to be the thing I love to do more than anything else. I find it strange that the projects are so slow but somehow they manage to hold my interest, but maybe that's not strange at all? It has probably become my way of meditating without me realising it. Meditation often involves focusing attention on a single point of reference to achieve a more relaxed frame of mind - so I suspect hand piecing has the same affect on me.
Anyway, This is what I'm working on at the moment (the 3rd quilt I’ve hand pieced on the train):

I saw it here and loved it so once I’d stopped being blonde and realised that each piece was a half hexagon, and raided the scrap box, I was off!!

I am going on holiday in a few weeks and am planning on taking this with me. I could lie and say that as it because it will involve about 12 hours of flying that I need something occupy me, but if I'm honest the thought of being separated from any kind of craft project for 2 weeks brings me out in cold sweats! I did consider holding off doing any more until my hols but (and this is when my counting OCD tendencies become obvious!) at the average rate of 4 pinwheels per work day, I’ve calculated that with 73 pinwheels done, even If I do 4 a day for the 29 working days leading up to my hols then that is only 189. I need around 280 to complete it so that leaves me 91 to do, and then they’ll need all sewing together. So phew, I needn’t have worried!

Finally some sunshine!

2009-04-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

The weekend was fairly productive partly down to not having many plans, but the (extremely rare) sunshine gave me a bit more spring in my step than I usually have.
So, firstly I got the zig zag lap quilt finished!!
I stupidly didn't take any photos at the weekend when the sun was shining so have had to wait until the now dreary weather we've had since Monday morning has picked up a bit,
I then realised that i have absolutely nowhere to put quilts to photograph them so hanging it on the washing line in the back yard seemed to be the best option.

More often than not I usually make quite large quilts (usually queen/king sized) so in comparison this was an absolute joy to lay out, smooth and pin, (especially as I managed to to swiftly get rid of the absolutely corking alcohol induced headache I had when I got up on Saturday).
I quilted it with simple zig zags to keep as much loft as possible (and to prevent quilting boredom!) , and am really chuffed with the result. I'm even more chuffed with how speedy it went together - you can't beat instant gratification!!
I was hoping to avoid the cats claiming this as their own but I guess I lost as Maggie seems to have already taken a shine to it.

It was the Bahrain Grand Prix day on Sunday and Grand Prix Sundays are planned with military precision!! Anything that needs to be done is done in the morning and the race Sky Plus'ed so that we sit down and watch it when we're done - partly so we can fast forward past the adverts, rewind to re-watch any spectacular incidents (or bits I've missed cos I'm doing something else at the same time!), but mainly so we don't have to get up at stupid o'clock to watch it because of the time differences.

We got parked on the sofa with the race on the telly and I finally sewed the binding on the last 2 cushions (after my poor fingers have had a few of days to recover). Now I have 4!!!

They match the mat for my hair straighteners I made the other weekend although since I was 'shawn' at the hairdressers I'm really not sure hair straighteners are going to be used very often, but at least the top of dresser looks pretty!

Curly boy reckons I am obsessed by flowers and yes…I probably have to agree. I love flowers.

I have a tons of these flowers so need to ponder where else I can stick them ( I'm sure curly boy will have some suggestions that he thinks are really funny!)

Also, labels are now done and sewn on for all the quilts I've kept and I have even managed to keep up the momentum and make ones for the two that are at the long arm quilter.

I always label quilts that I have made for other people but haven't done any of the ones I've kept. I would say that I don't know why, but yes I DO know why - sheer laziness!!

They're nothing fancy, just simple embroidered labels with my name and the year I made them.

It's the weekend....

2009-04-25T03:14:00.000-07:00

I sneaked an hour of sewing in last night until I had to get ready to go out and have finally finished these patchwork baskets that have been sat around for ages - made using this lovely tutorial at Pink Penguin. I made the baskets and then went off the boil when it came to the easy bit - sewing the linings in! All finished now and will be put to good use on my sewing table holding (stupidly small and possibly useless) bits of fabric, selvedges and other odds and ends. They are made with the scraps of Heather Baileys Freshcut (I'm sure if Heather knew how obsessed I was with this fabric it would probably freak her out!!!).

It was nice to finally get some sunshine so at least my pics don't look too murky.

Here's the lovely Jimmy Boy giving me the evil eye for taking pictures of the baskets when i should be feeding him!!

Zig zags

2009-04-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I spent some time chopping (yet more) fabric up for (yet another) quilt.

I was sitting on the sofa one night last week and my feet were a bit chilly - and couldn't be bothered going upstairs to get some socks - so figured I needed a comfort blankie for these occasions. I am slightly ashamed at myself at going off at a tangent again even though I have 3000 (or maybe more) UFOs, but I can't ignore cold feet can I?
Anyway...the top is done!!!! It was really quick to put together and is made from this fab tutorial that avoids having to sew triangles - cos i'm not very good at them!

The browns are from various ranges and the coloured strips are Anna Maria Horners Chocolate Lollipop range.
The backing is underway and is just stripes using up all the pieces I have left. I usually hate to use nice fabrics on the backings, but I wanted to get the chocolate lollipop fabric used up. Although I love it, its much darker than the fabrics I tend to use so it never seems to go with anything. It's been sat on my shelves forever and am pleased that i have finally found a good use for it.
Not too much going on this weekend so hoping I'll be able to get it pinned and quilted on Saturday although.... I spose it will depend on how many brandy's i have on Friday when i'm out with my friend Julie!

Spring flowers

2009-04-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Have been squeezing in a bit of time this week to do bits and pieces on these this week, and today I finished them (well...kinda).

As I made the flowers ages ago (before I went off on tangent onto something else!) I though there wasn't going to be too much work involved. Bit of iron-on sticky stuff, bit of machine applique, a bit of free motion quilting and a bit of hand stitching for the binding and they'd be done. Erm....not quite. Everything went smoothly until the hand stitching of binding onto furnishing fabric. Fingers are sore and shredded after doing the binding on 2....and it took me about 4 hours!!

I worked out that I have had the previous ones 15 years (shame on me!). They match my curtains in my old house and was planning on making new ones after I moved. So I made some new ones - 7 years later! Better late than never...

So, here's the 2 on my sofa......with Rock God monkey doing the honour of modelling them for me!

Wish i could have 4 day weekends EVERY week!

2009-04-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd struggle with work this week. I thought I'd find it hard to get motivated after Easter weekend and just wanted to be home continuing the loveliness (is that a proper word?) of having 4 days to do whatever I pleased. But, happy to say i seem to be feeling quite alert and full of the joys of spring!!

We were originally planning to decorate the lounge but found any excuse not to, and so glad we did. So instead it involved going with Curly boy to collect this:

It unfortunately doesn't have blue wheels - this was pic that he played around with in photoshop - but i like them!!!

Finished this for Jenny. What a joy it was to make this and i hope she likes it!

Many hours of cutting scraps into 1" strips - while catching up episodes of The Wire (well and truly hooked!)

Picked these up from the post office, washed, ironed, chopped off all the selvedges and folded them:

A bit of this:

I got rid of a load of scraps to Tara of Sew Gorgeous who lives about 1/2 hour away from me - glad they've gone to a good home.

Yummy pub lunch.

And finally making a mat for my straightening irons so that i could finally throw out the scabby bit of old tablecloth that has been doing the job for about 5 years!! It didn't take very long to do, made me smile and after seeing it in the lounge I feel some new flower sofa cushions coming on....

Getting with 'it'!

2009-04-14T01:45:00.000-07:00

Well…I've finally 'got with the program' and made the big leap into blog land!!!
Up until now I have resisted the urge for a few reasons:

I really don't think I am witty or interesting enough for anything to think of reading my blog.
Any time I'm spent blogging is time taken away from crafting/quilting.
As blogging is likely reduce the crafty stuff, maybe there won't be enough stuff to talk about.

But, as sewing is generally a solitary pursuit (well...other than the cats being with me eating loose bits of thread off the floor!) i am feeling the need to connect with other people who 'get it'! People who understand why i would feel the need to:

Cut perfectly good large pieces of fabric up into small pieces, and then sew them back together.
Spend a whole weekend chopping scraps into 1" strips...
Sit on the lounge floor in front of the telly sorting scraps by colour
Stand for hours ironing and folding pieces of new fabric
Cut the selvages of every piece of fabric i own (and believe me that's quite a lot!!)
Sew 3069 hexagons together into a grandmothers flower garden quilt.
Have a spare bedroom as a shrine to Heather Bailey
Sit for hours with the Hancocks of Paducah catalogues and a pink Sharpie marker.

I guess you won't all be with me on all those points…..but at least you 'get it'.

I figured the best place to start would be to go through some projects I've completed, until I get into a groove - as I guess once I do there's isn't a hope in hell that you'll stop me talking!!

So...more to come...but please bear with me with the techy stuff!!

B.
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