Covet of the week...

Now, I'm not sure if I really want this fabric, but who can resist a range called PB & J, with a style called Bag of Chips and a colour called Fluffer Nutter!!!

Plus and minus....

On Friday, we went to deliver our secret Project President quilt to the lovely Annie, fabric shop owner and quilt guild leader extraordinaire, who is expecting her first baby early next month.  

We had a mini baby shower, and took great delight in force feeding cold baby food to poor Annie, who had to try and identify the ingredients.... apparently it's a Canadian thing...!

You can read the full story of the quilt on Charlotte's blog here.

But that wasn't my only excitement this weekend.... Charlotte, knowing I would be likely to squander my hard-earned pay packet on the new Melody Miller Sparkle fabric, newly in stock at The Village Haberdashery, very, very, very kindly (and wisely!) gave me an early birthday present of more of the fabric to go with the beauties she brought me back from QuiltCon.  As you can imagine, even the brown fabric wrapping didn't manage to quell my squeals.  

I just can't wait to get stuck into these - they're a lovely heavier weight fabric than the last collection.  I think the roller blades are destined for a lamp shade for my sewing room, although I am hatching a plot to reupholster an old arm chair in patchwork Melody - still working on the OH for that project though - he's not convinced.....

(Looking at these photos makes me realise I really need a new camera..)

Kelly had very generously given me some of the blue and green phones a couple of weeks ago, so these are all now sitting together waiting for me to do them justice.  

So that's the plusses, now onto the minus.... Having found myself with some unexpected time off this week, I finally found the courage to cut out the Renfrew Top pattern in the Nani Iro jersey I invested in before Christmas.  

Yesterday, I read up on sewing with jersey and so today went to tackle some practice with the jersey machine needles I bought specially for the project.  

You know what's coming next, don't you?  

Yep, I can't find the blasted things - I am 99% sure I know where I put them in the sewing room, but now can't track them down for love nor money.  So if any of you have any ideas of where I might have hidden them, do let me know.  I've checked the fridge and the bathroom cabinet already, but no joy.  Trouble is, I've tidied the sewing room since I bought them, so they could now be anywhere.  Of course, the fact I've just ordered another pack means the minute I walk back into the sewing room, they'll be right there in front of me.

 

Time for a change

So, as you all no doubt know, Google reader is going, and I'm switching to Bloglovin along with a multitude of others. So here's this linky thing...


Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hope to see you there soon :-)

I count myself very lucky....

to have such wonderful quilting friends. Today I had two fab girls keep me very busy...... I'd like to say sewing, but actually I did a lot more gassing than stitching!!!

I had chance to play with two stunning sewing machines, a Husqvarna Viking Topaz and a Janome Horizon with a full 11.5" of throat space which I saw put to fine quilting use this afternoon, had my first go at FMQ which I loved - so exhilarating and liberating - and was given free run of a fab scrap box where I managed to find loads of scraps for both my planned Melody Miller and Welsh flag quilts. My two fur-kids were very ably and affectionately entertained by the two resident gentle giants, although the least said about Daisy sneaking off upstairs for a quick nap on our hostess's bed, and bringing a sock back down with her to greet us at mid-afternoon snack time, the better!

Some things I also learned this weekend were:

1) the first idea I have of how to achieve something is almost always wrong....

2) when using a tutorial and going off-piste, as it were, with different fabric, it's probably best NOT to slavishly buy all the notions asked for in the tutorial beforehand, in the blind belief they will just be fine with the amendments - ie buy a 14" zip only to find you need 20".....

3) it's best to realise your catering size brownie pans won't fit into your domestic oven BEFORE making the mixture to go in them. (Don't panic, brownie devotees, I bought new ones!)

4) it's best not to think too much about where the dog found the roll of Sellotape she just deposited on the spare bed because it will either a) raise too many questions about the standard of your housekeeping or b) raise too many questions about which cupboards she has now worked out she can open, to the point you become too paranoid to ever leave her in a room on her own again!

All in all, a nice, relaxing, distracting weekend. And I'll leave you with a picture of the box bag made this weekend as a very, very belated birthday present for a lovely friend, from Aneela Hoey's oval box bag tutorial, adapted to use Melody Miller's Ruby Star Vinyl records.

good grief!

I've been kind of sleepwalking through life lately. I can't believe I haven't blogged since the 16 January. I missed my blogiversary and everything!

However, I've decided that's enough time spent feeling sorry for myself, and it's time to get back into the swing of things, doing some sewing again, and generally enjoying myself.

So I started with a to do list.  I didn't manage to link up with any of the FALs and I've missed a lot of trending QALs, and although I can't believe it's March already I'm hoping it's more than 100 days till the end of the year.  So I'm on my own with this, and here goes, my 2013 plan:

Quilts:

1) I still have my Cherry Christmas quilt to finish for my sister and her two kids - I think this will be one to get done early ready for Christmas 2013. Shouldn't actually take long to finish.




2) Another sister has asked for a quilt for the new house she is finally getting to buy with her childhood sweetheart.  Originally she asked for burnt orange and the 'b****' word, but I've mysteriously managed to win her over to Melody Miller love and now we'e excitedly planning something completely different, using a pattern from Modern Patchwork.

3) Macho quilt - I think I'm fairly safe in mentioning this here as although he says he reads it, I'm not convinced!  I want to make a quilt for my other half, as he loves snuggling under the raw circles one at the moment.  I did want to do a t-shirt quilt with vintage football, rugby and band tour shirts, but some research has proved that might be too expensive! So time to think again...

4) Welsh flag quilt - our nephew Dylan, brother of Megan who got the two-sided quilt last year, would like one of his own - a Welsh flag , no less.  So I thought I would collect lots of different red, white and green fabrics and make the background from 5" squares and the dragon from 2.5" squares which I would then applique on.  Ambitious?  Yep probably, but this is one I'm really looking forward to.  If anyone has any of the aforementioned fabrics in pieces that fit those measurements that they'd be willing to swap for FQs or something, please get in touch.

5) My baby sister has adopted the quilt I made for mum as her own now, so with quilts planned for 2 of the other 3, I need to make one for sister number 4.  I think a hopscotch quilt from a jelly roll, or possibly Tula Pinks Love Pattern, can't decide that yet, but that will be one for later in the year.  It also needs to be munching-spaniel proof...hmmm.





6) One of my work colleagues has commissioned me to make a quilt for her 4 year old son in blues and greens.  I've got the fabrics for the top based on the Havana range and supplemented with lots of different Kona solids.

Other things I want to do are some boxy pouches which I could sell, I've got one to make this weekend for a friend's birthday which I'm adapting from an Annela Hoey tutorial, so that could be interesting.  I have a couple of wallets and a make-up bag left over from Christmas gifts when my machine was sick, so they also need doing this weekend and delivering to the patient recipients.

Lastly I have some lovely Melody Miller Vintage flowers fabric that I am desperate to make into a messenger bag, but I haven't yet found the right pattern.  So at some point, I'm going to have a go at developing my own.

There's lots of other things, a weekender for instance, a t-shirt from gorgeous Nani Iro jersey, another hopscotch quilt, a pluses quilt from a layer cake and a couple of charm packs.....

not to mention all the other things that will no doubt crop up over the course of the year.

So looks like it will be a busy one.  I'll try and post a monthly update on progress.