Covet of the week

It has to be said, with one thing and another, I've not had a lot of time for covetting this week!  Work has been frantic, I've been a day behind myself all week and nearly missed 2 meetings and a birthday, and then to top it all, I think the tangerine has seeped into my brain and turned it to orange juice!

Last night, in a frantic burst of catch up energy I made my March LMQG challenge thingy.  However I proudly incorporated my first attempt at machine quilting..... and now I'm thinking I wasn't meant to finish the thing, just make a block 'top'!

Ah well, I have cakes to take, along with something really exciting, so hopefully they'll forgive me for getting it wrong - as my old dad always used to say -'read the question'!

On the covet front, just been having a browse and came across this on Pink Castle fabrics website.  It's Sea Garden in Summer - Salt by Cosmo Cricket for Moda, and I love the flowing shapes as well as the combination of colours. 

It makes me want to go and sit in the garden and sew, instead of get out on the drive and clean the car, which is what I have to do instead.....

Check me out.....

Following an email from a well-known quilter and designer, I've decided to amend my last post, and this time, even add a photo!  


so here goes....


"I've dyed my hair......




....Tangerine Tango (Pantone colour of 2012) was SO the look I was going for!"

Now this photo doesn't do justice to the full electric glow that it has in real life - which the LMQG ladies will be able to enjoy in all it's glory on Sunday!


It might be wise to bring sunglasses.....

Oh dear.....

have dyed my hair......






let's just say electric tangerine is NOT the colour I was aiming for!

Fat Quarterly Retreat name badge

I'm gutted that I missed out on the Fat Quarterly name badge swap on Flickr and so I'll just have to get on and make one for myself. But......


How???


I am possibly being a little lazy asking this here, but if anyone can point me in the right direction of what we're supposed to be producing, I'll make a start.  


I also keep seeing all sorts of mentions of swaps and things, but I can't find more info about what the agenda is or what will be happening at the retreat in general.  I've never been to anything like it before, so am a little out of my comfort zone!  I like to know what's going on and what to expect!  

I'm back!

Did you miss me?  Or more to the point, did you not even realise I was gone??  We've been on a little sojourn to Cornwall with the dogs, staying in a lovely mobile home, courtesy of our friends, Tony and June just outside Newquay.

The OH has spent the almost-week fishing, while I met up with friends, walked the dogs (I think Daisy's face kind of says it all about how mcuh we enjoyed ourselves!) ate yummy cornish food, bartered for our holiday accommodation with the promise and commencement of making some curtains for our friends' own home, and of course did a bit of my own sewing. 


Now, lovely as our mobile home was, I discovered they are not the best locations for laying out quilt tops!  Having sewn all my circles onto squares, I cut them into quarters, frustratingly stupidly messing up the first one, so I have to make another one now I'm home to replace it. 

I sorted them into colour piles and started trying to put them back into reassembled circles - harder than it sounds!  I managed to find enough off-the-ground space to lay out 3 rows in total, but here's some of them so far - they might change as I get further on, and need to swap out colours or patterns.

It'll be interesting to see how it develops, but I have realised a piece of fleece or wadding hooked up on the sewing room wall is going to be a necessity to get this one finished!  I love the fact that our 3rd bedroom has become a much more glamorous 'sewing room', but can't quite bring myself to call a blanket on the wall a 'design wall' yet!


In other news, I have a new super-hero to worship in the form of Annie from The Village Haberdashery, who not only has a bundle of my original Covet of the Week, but has also tracked down a small supply of my second Covet of the Week!  I'm clearly going to have to try harder with my fabric choice for this week's Covet, or I'll be buying fabric every week!  Then again.....

And lastly, while out buying fabric for June's new curtains, I bought some of this to make curtains for the sewing room so that whenever I'm in there I can look up and be reminded of Cornish holidays.

Ooh, and I have some really exciting news for next Sunday's LMQG meeting....

 

Look what I found....

Look what I just found - last week's Covet of the Week, the beautiful Melody Millar typewriter fabric is featuring in a giveaway by Canadian Abroad - how excited am I?  So, I've done all the things to enter, but I've also found out I can buy the fabric stack if all entries fail.  Am saving my pennies......

Covet of the week

So I've looked everywhere for these - Pezzy Print by American Jane.  I can find the single colour fabrics, and I can buy those by accident thinking these multi-colourways were included...

I can try and buy these from Pink Castle Fabrics, but their system was forcing me to buy two of each which I didn't want and they haven't replied to my email asking why...

So if anyone knows of anywhere else I can get these brilliantly colourful fabrics, do please let me know - I have a pezzy-shaped hole in my stash box!

WIP's

OK, so please excuse the quality of the photgraphy, but this was at 11.30 last night with my mobile and an enery saving light bulb!  On Friday, having admired the gorgeous raw edge circle quilt on Cluck Cluck Sew for some time, I decided to take the plunge and started cutting! By bed time last night, even with a busy day of chores yesterday, I'd got this far:



So I've got 56 squares matched up with 56 circles and now all I have to do is start sewing them together.  The tutorial is great, and so straight forward.

I've also got a quilt started for my OH's parents, made with a Maison de Garance layer cake - the centre of the top is sewn, it's just awaiting borders and then quilting.  I just need a bigger house to find the space to lay the bigger quilt tops out!

Hope everyone's had a lovely sewing-filled weekend

birthday present.....

Yippeeeeeeee!  Lovely, lovely, lovely OH has bought me a weekend ticket to the Fat Quarterly retreat in June!  I cannot wait, two of my quilting heroes will be there, and I'm beyond excited!

In my other life.....

Like many of us, the thing that most gets in the way of my sewing aspirations is the day job!  Interestingly, bearing in mind my distinct preference for modern quilting, in my role as wedding and events manager, with our own catering business, it's all about vintage this year!

So here's the table I had set up on the little Market stall we run on a Thursday in Henley on Thames - see that little runner?  I've had that in my stash for years not knowing what to do with it, as it's really not my thing!  Last night inspiration struck and today we had a bright, colourful vintage-y table runner for our table mock up!

Thou shalt not covet...

OK, so coveting - is it bad in general, or just when it refers to your neighbour's wife?

I'm hoping a little bit of fabric coveting won't break any commandments, as I thought I'd do a Covet of the Week post.

Today I'm starting with a fabric I spotted in The Village Haberdashery's online shop, and which I can't seem to get away from on Flickr - it's like it's stalking me.... which is fine, actually, because it's my new love!

It's Melody Miller, Ruby Star Shining, Typewriters, for Kokka, and while my favourite colour is this pink and gold number, it does come in lots of other combinations.  


I'm currently saving my pocket money for a metre of this little beauty, but if anyone else has their cash at the ready, you can find it at www.thevillagehaberdashery.co.uk

Hello

Hi, I'm Pennie, and this is my new blog.  Hopefully at some point someone else might come along and read it, but until then, I'll enjoy the uncritiqued practice!

So, where to start?  Well, this morning I went to my first meeting of the London Modern Quilting Guild - that is, the one in London UK, not to be confused with the one in Canada! 

I met 18 other like minded souls and I managed to be volunteered to go first in our show and tell, and no-one laughed or asked me to leave so my quilt can't have been THAT bad!Look forward to sharing some of those things with you.

Because I didn't know in time about their February Valentine's challenge, I took photos of the wall hanging I'd made as a wedding present for my sister - she got married in December, but as the quilt was a late request, I didn't have it finished in time, and so it was delivered to her for Valentine's Day.  It was based on the traditional double wedding ring design, and I am soooo glad she didn't want the whole quilt!


Just to prove I have actually made things too, I took my much loved Sherbet Pips quilt that features in the header for this blog.  This was the first thing I made for myself, not to be given away, and I love it dearly.


The other girls had some fabulous pieces to show - I am now full of envy, especially for Charlotte's heart piece.


After much discussion, and comparison of fabrics, as well as a very tempting perusal of the fabrics on show at Tricollete, the shop who kindly hosted the meeting, I came away with some new friends, a new (functioning) rotary cutter, and whole new wishlist of fabric, patterns, and things to do.