Doll Quilt Swap received

My return from Scotland was celebrated with the receipt of my Doll Quilt Swap :) I've been slow to post this thank you as I've been waiting to hang it on the wall in my sewing room. Bank holiday weekend was the perfect opportunity to crack the whip on hubby ;) This fabulous doll quilt came all the way from Australia!! It was beautifully made just for me by Melanie (melaniemade)

I just love the happy rainbow of colours that Melanie has used. Her piecing is so precise and there are lots of lovely fabric details like the little gnome in the middle. Those little squares are about 1.25" finished size, so seriously precise work!! The back if fabulous too!

Lots of my favourite fabrics make an appearance here :) Melanie was also kind enough to include some fabric for me to play with!! How lucky have I been with my swap partners?!

Melanie asked to see a picture of it on the wall in my sewing space so here it is above my sewing machine!

And another slightly closer shot. See how cute it looks next to the mini I received in My Favourite Little Quilt Swap.

So thank you Melanie for making such a gorgeous mini just for me. Great eye-candy for when I'm creating!

Did you miss me?

Hello all :) I'm back from Ol and Jade's wedding. We had beautiful weather for the occasion, it was unseasonably warm in Angus which made for a lovely day! Here's a quick pic of myself, the bride and groom and bridesmaid.

One of the cool things about a Scottish wedding was all the kilts on display! For us English folk it was a real pleasure to see kilts in their true home :) I might put some photos of those on at a later date.

Jade paid such attention to all the details. With a little help from friends and relatives the reception room looked stunning. Just look at the pretty table!

I'm not back into crafting mode yet but hope to get on with something later on this week. I thought I'd check in though before you thought we'd abandoned the blog for good. Catch you soon :)

Boo to red tape!

After much excitement regarding the launch of {Modern} Relief-Japan it is with regret I have to say that things have not gone according to plan :( You'll find further details here. Red tape totally sucks! Please do check back though as the quilts will still be available by means other than raffle....details are still being discussed as we 'speak'. I will bring you further news as soon as possible although due to a certain wedding that may be a little while off. I would like to thank all those who have supported our fundraising attempts and do hope you won't be put off from helping in the future. In brighter news, I finished the bunting today! I'll have to try to get a decent photo of it in situ at the wedding reception :)

Things will be quiet around here for a week or so but gobby old me will be back as soon as I return from my Best Man duties :)

Modern Relief-Japan launch!

Today is the day that {Modern} Relief-Japan launches the quilt raffle! Regular readers will have seen this post where I introduced the quilt I am donating to the cause. I was lucky enough to get into the first round of quilt releases (which is fab with Ol's wedding coming up) so today is the day I can show you the finished article! Before I do the reveal I wanted to give you another close-up of the text fabric from Sunkissed by Sweetwater. I've said it before but I'll say it again, how appropriate the words are for this project.

I backed the finished quilt with a print from City Weekend and used Tufted tweets for the binding. As is fairly typical for me, I straight line quilted as the fabrics were so busy I wanted to let them do the talking (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

OK, so drum roll please....here's the premiere blog showing of the finished article (unless of course you are super impatient like me and scrolled down to the business end already).

I did warn you that the fabrics were very busy! I actually love how this has turned out. I've definitely used colours and fabrics in a way that challenges my usual 'all from the same range' approach. I think they work well together but what do you all think? Constructive feedback is always welcome :)

You will have plenty of time to buy tickets if you are interested in donating money to help those people so badly effected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, with the added bonus of a chance to win one of over 75 quilts!!! New quilts will be released every Monday up to and including the 9th May. Yvonne will be doing her {Modern} Relief-Japan post here on 2nd May! The raffle will be drawn on 16th May 2011, all the details can be found here. Please donate if you can, it's for such a good cause!! If you'd like to help us advertise the raffle you can pick up a {Modern}Relief-Japan html button here.

Happy Mother's Day and Stylish bloggers

First may I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day. I'm always aware that today can be a very difficult day for many people but I hope this greeting will be taken in the spirit that I intended which is Special Women Rock!! Mums, Nans, Aunts, Like-a-Mum-to-me....you get the jist :) In other news, the very lovely Judith of Rags to bags nominated us for a Stylish blogger award. It's seriously cool to be thought of as 'stylish', so thank you very muchly :)

In line with the 'rules of acceptance' of this award there are a few things I must do:

1. Thank and link back to the person who bestowed the award.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3.Bestow the award on 6 recently discovered bloggers.

So, seven things about us....

1. 
   
   As a family we have 2 cute bunnies Holly and Benji
   
   

   



2. 
   
   I have vivid red hair!


3. 
   
   Yvonne has a fabulous Doll's House which she had for her 50th birthday!!! (sorry Mum, I meant your 21st....*runs off to hide*)


4. 
   
   I love heavy rock and metal music and thankfully after many years of trying I have succeeded in 'educating' my daughter in this love of mine :) So much so that I had to go and see a band (Crashdïet)for her last week as she is not well enough to attend. Poor me ;)
   
   

   



5. 
   

   Family is really important to us!!!!



6. 
   

   We share a love of chocolate, amongst other things!



7. 
   

   Our blog and flickr friends help to keep us sane :)

So now I've bored you with that, here are 6 bloggers that you might like to check out :)

http://narcolepticinacupboard.blogspot.com/

http://vintagerockchick-gill.blogspot.com/

http://www.apriltwoeighty.com/

http://chasingcottons.blogspot.com/

http://blueberry-park.blogspot.com/

http://domesticlightandmagic.blogspot.com/

To close today's installment I'd like to ask you all to come back tomorrow for the launch of Modern Relief Japan!!! I'll be showing you my finished quilt :)