I can resist everything but temptation....

..... and nestled in a leafy corner of West Hampstead is the most tempting shop I've ever been lucky enough to spend time in.

The lovely Annie, of The Village Haberdashery is adding to her empire and to accompany the fabulous online shop, there's now going to be a real-life, bricks and mortar version.

I've been a regular user of the online version and rarely get through a shopping 'trip' there without buying extras I didn't go looking for. But I have so far managed to be very disciplined and I don't go browsing -  I go on the site, buy what I want, and get out while there's still money in my account!  

However......that shop..... well, you can't use such avoidance tactics when all the fabricky wonder is spread out in front of you, colourfully arranged on shelves and in baskets and just daring you to leave it there.  I've been in the shop twice now, luckily with Annie having no credit card facilities in the store, but my mental shopping list is up to about £300, and I'm not sure I'll escape so lightly on Sunday when I do my stint as eager shop assistant!!

I had a wonderful day today helping get the last bits and pieces done before the open weekend tomorrow and Sunday - so if you can manage a visit, do coo over the beautifully arranged 'Peg Board of Notions' (I single-handedly put all Annie's cute red tipped 'pegs' into it and added the notions - all to my own design, so remember to be impressed!).  

At the moment, Annie has the fabric, threads, notions, yarns, purse frames, patterns and funky felt balls (it's worth coming to see the Christmas tree alone), and probably a lot of other things you never knew you couldn't live without.  In the New Year, the shop will be opening more regularly, and there are plans for classes and demos, too.

So......


What: The Village Haberdashery's first Open Weekend!
Date and time: Saturday, 15th December 11-7 and Sunday, 16th December 11-5
Location: 47 Mill Lane, West Hampstead, London NW6 1NB

Hope to see you there!

Covet of the week

It's hard to know right now just what I am covetting the most, there is so much out there to be covetted!

For now, let's start with Ruby Star Vinyl by Melody Miller.  You all know how much I loved the Ruby Star Shining typewriters, and I am totally besotted with the amazing sofa that was on Melody Miller's stand at Spring Market.  And then today, into my inbox drops a newsletter from a certain online fabric shop, with news that this line is in the Coming Soon section.  I just don't know what to say!

So, now it's time to start planning what to make with it.  I saved my typewriters for something special which was eventually a 241 tote.  So whatever this gorgeousness is used for will have to be equally special.  I think it's going to be a quilt, but what pattern, that's the question.......

I also think I need to buy up a bit more of the Ruby Star Shining fabric while it's still available - can't help thinking I might regret not having more when it's gone...

All of which will no doubt make Annie very happy!

Silly billy.....

We have some friends, let's call them Toby & Jane Oakley* who live in Cornwall.  Back in March, we were lucky enough to have a lovely week in thier holiday home, and in exchange I promised to make them some new curtains.  Jane* and I went shopping for the fabric, lining etc, measurements were taken, one pair were made, although not without many mistakes, during the holiday and I came back home to finish the other 8 pairs and pelmets. 

And here I have to confess, I've been a rubbish friend, and I haven't yet finished them. 

Earlier this year, I applied to join a quilting bee for the first time, and was excitingly accepted.  Half way through April the fabric and instructions arrived and they've been sitting on my sewing desk looking at me accusingly (I think the sweet chocolate bee that came with them was doing more looking than the fabrics to be honest) while I have failed to start the block.  It's a wonky square in square block, I've made them before, no reason not to just get stuck in.

This morning I had a coffee and a good girly chat with a quilting friend.  We got quite carried away (ok, I got carried away!) discussing a secret project, and I was really touched when said friend said she would only want people to help who she could trust to sew things to a really good standard.  Judging by the to do list I've come away with, it seems I am to be trusted to do that.

So, 'what the heck is she going on about', I hear you ask?  (If you're Charlotte or Kelly, that word's probably not 'heck'....) what's the connection?  Am I about to not do another thing for someone?

Nope, far from it.  What this morning made me realise was that I've been having a bit of a crisis of confidence, and not trusting my ability to make things for other people.  Having been less than well since March hasn't helped - I've had little energy and a serious issue with brain fog and lack of ability to concentrate.  Anything I've done for myself has been fraught with mistakes, unpicking, stupidity.  And so I just haven't had the faith in my abilities to do things for other people.  I've blamed it on work pressure, family commitments etc, but cards on the table, heart on sleeve, the fact is I didn't trust myself to do them right, and I was scared to ruin them.  But if I'm trusted to get involved with the secret project , then I need to stop being a silly billy and just get on with the curtains first!

Today, I've tested myself and made the bee block.  I'm not convinced it's what the bee member wanted - I think it might be too sedate, but I managed to make it.  I've sent a photo, and if they don't like it, I will make another one.

But more importantly, here & now, I'm not only apologising to our lovely friends Toby & Jane* for my total muppetness and rubbish-friend-ness, I'm making a promise that I will get them finished before the bank holiday weekend, whatever it takes.  You're all my witnesses - all 13 of you that read this blog! - and you have the right to nag me as much as you like to make sure I get them done.


* names have been changed to protect the innocent

A lovely afternoon....

After a very busy month, the only time I've had for sewing has been after a stressful or long and tiring day.  I've been working on a 12" mini for the LMQG challenge, and I just haven't been able to get it right, because I've been tired, and so have taken short cuts or made mistakes with proportions when my brain's not working!

So today I sought professional help!  I took my brain-curdling efforts over to Aneela, with the plan to have a cuppa and chat while we did some sewing. Once again, there was too much chat for us to be able to concentrate on stitching!  I got some advice - mainly don't sweat it - on the mini, we talked about upcoming projects, brain stormed an idea for a new tv show (yes, really, we have a great plan!) and then I had a truly breathtaking glimpse into her fabric stores.  Oh my, I hope I didn't get too much drool on them!

There was obviously the full range of Aneela's own designs, and some other ranges I recognised, but the most exciting of all was the stack of beautiful Heather Ross fabrics, that previously I've only read about. There were aliens, cats, dogs, camper vans and ice cream trucks.  And then there were the supermodels of the fabric world - the unicorns and Princess & the Pea of Far, Far Away, and the truly beautiful Mendocino.  I have a fresh understanding of why they have been so sought after.... and a huge regret that I didn't start quilting longer ago, so that I might have bought some myself.

Next time, it'll be my turn to host, although I doubt there is anything in my little range of fabrics that would even compare with the contents of Aneela's sewing room.  I might have to resort to chocolate brownies in recompense!

Oh, and that photo at the top?  They're now mine, all mine.......

Primary school art

I wasn't sure I was going to blog this, but here we go..... honest opinions only please - even if it's not great! Let's face it, taking criticism is all part of the learning process.


On your marks, get set, go......

Let battle commence......

This year I gave up competing with my spaniels at agility to concentrate on quilting, deciding that was more relaxing.....

.... more relaxing, that is until an element of competition was introduced this month with the LMQG challenge!  We're to make a 12" mini quilt which expresses 'what modern quilting means to you'!  Well, right up until yesterday it meant relaxation, escape, peace, happiness.

After yesterday, I might have to revise those adjectives!  I've seen two of my co-quilter's entries so far, Kelly,  who produced this rainbow-hued wonder (and that's not even it finished, it gets better!) and Charlotte, who completely blew me away with this fully-functioning beauty.

Right then, I thought, where the flippin' heck do I, as a fairly novice quilter, start to even begin to come up with anything remotely close....

Well, step 1 was looking through the modern quilting flickr groups.  Step 2 was feeling more and more inadequate as each page passed!

So, stop that, Pennie!  Thursday night ended with me reading a Jo Nesbo thriller for hours, trying to eradicate all thoughts of pretty, stunning, clever quilting.

I was determined I was going to design my own unique quilt - having never done it before.  (Those of you who are getting to know me will suspect I'm not one for making my life easy!)

Out came the notebook and Bic, and two quick sketches were produced.  The first one was to be words and the second was to be a visual representation of those words.  I even toyed with the idea of making both and using one as the back....


Anyway, off I went to Hobbycraft, bought a pencil and sketchbook and drew out the winning design to 12" size.  Measured, drew, rubbed out, re-drew, tore up, started again, finally, 'that's it', I thought.  And off I went. 

A multitude of methods were tried - applique was favourite to start with, but I knew really I needed to foundation piece it.  I'd done FPP before but following a pattern.  This time I had to make the pattern myself.  And oh boy, did that cause some ructions - each time I tried the next piece, it was either upside down, back to front or just not cut right.  I couldn't work it out... Then eureka!  I realised I had the template I was sewing onto back to front.  (I did say 'novice' didn't I?!)

That sorted, it got a lot easier.  Even so, having started the whole process at about 11am yesterday, it was 11pm by the time the main block was put together, and I was finishing off the bits I did decide to applique (another thing I've never done before!).  I laid it out on the table and went to bed.

And tossed, and turned, and fidgeted, and huffed and puffed.....

And this morning when I woke up I knew instantly it was wrong.  It's too simple, too basic, too twee.  It's a pretty mini-quilt for my wall, and I'm proud of it for what it represents to me - my first design, my first mini-quilt of it's style, my first applique, etc, but it's just not up to the mark.  It would be like good primary school paintings exhibiting in the Tate gallery!

So, inspiration has struck again this morning, and I'm off now to try and put that idea into practice and hope it's a better result!  Let's just say that relaxation is no longer the theme!

Have a lovely Easter weekend, think of me with my now even messier worktable to clear up, new boxes to fill and curtains to settle down to while my mind churns with my new idea which I can't start yet 'cos I'm missing a fabric!

Disorganised chaos

First job for the long weekend.... find the work table!

Second job, sort out the stash boxes, especially as there's now tonnes of new fabric to somehow fit in there!

Did I say 'job'?  Both sound like a great excuse to while away some hours stroking fabric..... 

Feeling 'sew stitchy' this week.....

So, when I posted about my lovely birthday on Sunday, there was one thing I left out.  The excitement levels made me think this little piece of news deserved it's very own post.

I got a little gift.....


..... from Aneela.....

I was beyond excited, although I might not have shown it too much at the time as I was driving!! 

These are pieces from Aneela's new collection Sew Stitchy, which for those of you who haven't seen them on her blog are themed around sewing.  The gorgeous pieces here include pins, embroidery and chain stitch.

I have the perfect project lined up for them.

I had a lovely new Janome for Christmas from a very generous Santa, and thought it does come with it's own uninspiring white plastic hard cover, it mostly spends its time sitting on my sewing table stark naked!


What better use for a sewing themed fabric than a funky sewing machine cover....

 

So, I have a couple of other things to get out of the way, not least 9 pairs of curtains (!), but once they're done I'll be getting started.

Huge thanks to Aneela, and I just hope I'll do her gift justice!

What a day!

So, yesterday was my birthday and I wasn't exactly looking forward to the arrival of 45!  However, once I realised it co-incided with the next LMQG meeting and that it was possible the lovely and talented Aneela Hoey might be coming, all of a sudden it seemed like it might be quite a good day after all!

Aneela and I travelled into London together, and were so busy chatting about everything under the sun, the poor sat-nav woman had a job telling us where to go, and it's fair to say we got a bit lost and were a bit late!  Still, I'd gone armed, not only with Aneela, but also the best chocolate brownies in the universe, so I was sure of a warm, if belated welcome.  The rest of the group didn't know Aneela was coming, and their faces were a picture!

However, my day wasn't complete yet.... the lovely Charlotte had made me a pretty little iced fairy cake for my birthday.  I've also got into an expensive habit of ordering a few bits and pieces from the Village Haberdashery for Annie (our group president) to deliver at the meeting so she handed over a very, very, very exciting bag with not just one of my weekly covets, but two!



I'd also ordered a stack of Magical Lands and some lovely embroidery cottons for me to have a play with.


To say I was a happy girl would be an understatement!


We got on with the meeting, including talking about the Siblings Together project.    Judith (Needles & Lemons) has offered to collate some blocks and make them up into a quilt.  I handed over 6 simple log cabin blocks made with Pezzy Print (which I forgot to photo! you can now see on Judith's blog here) so I'm looking forward to seeing them appear in one or more of the final quilts.  If you want to get involved then go over to the Flickr group (linked to above)and sign up.

Our challenge for March had been to make a wonky log cabin or crazy block using the scraps we 'won' in the swap at the beginning of the month. It was incredible to see how, even in a small group of 20, we all had such differing tastes as so many of us commented on how we'd found the received scraps hard to work with as they weren't our style or colours!  I confessed I had shamelessly cheated, as I'd been dying to make something with the Pezzy Prints, and so I used the smallest of one of my scraps and then made up the rest with lovely Pezzy!  I thought it worked really well with the geometric design.




Once the meeting part was done,  the important part of fabric buying started!  So Michael and I trotted through to the back of the shop where I indulged with a few stash boosters - some that will go with existing stock and some that are just too-much-fun-to-leave-on-the-shelf-and-will-come-in-handy-at-some-point!


The afternoon was rounded off  back at Charlotte's lovely house, with a fashion parade of her amazing quilts, a very envious ferret through her drawers (oo-er!) in her quilting shed and a lovely cup of coffee!

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!

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.