Good fortune

For a few years I've harboured a longing to patchwork a chair, don't know why I just have. Last week I found 2 potential candidates on sale for a bargain price through Gumtree, so wasting no time I despatched hubby to collect them for me :) Today I'd love to be showing you my first patchwork chair but instead I am showing a renovated chair minus the patchwork. As usually happens around here, Jess collared this one for her room and was adamant that it was not to be "busy"! Flipping kids!! Anyway, moaning aside here's how it started off....Granny chair...

I decided to repurpose a brown cord shirt from a charity shop to cover the arms of the chair as they're bound to get lots of wear and Jess could do with a bit of comfort for her arms which have a tendency to be rather sensitive (stupid CFS).

With a bit of faffing this XL shirt was more than enough to cover both arms :) I even managed to use one of the pockets as a mobile phone holder for when Jess actually lets it leave her hand...you know those teenagers and surgical removal of phones! The material that I used for the cushions is a Romo fabric, it's a linen cotton blend and is delicious. It was a bean bag in a previous life :) I'm so pleased to have been able to renovate this chair without spending a fortune. I do love recycling fabric!

Here's the finished article. Not bad even if I do say so myself! The next chair I show you will be patchworked....whenever that may be.

It has to be said that I was rather tetchy by the time I finished this project. It has taken me a good few days and frankly stamina is still low so tempers may have frayed around here a little. Thank goodness for the postman and his bundles of fabric-y goodness!! A whole FQ stack of Kate Spain's Good Fortune from Julie at Intrepid Thread. Woohoo!

Then there was a layer cake of Pure and charm pack of Authentic by Sweetwater from here. Thanks to the very lovely Fiona for tipping me off about these goodies :)

They put a smile on my face but I think it will take a large dose of chocolate to improve the mood!! Catch you soon x

Last block done!

Today I finished my fourth and final block for Katy's Swoonalong! As much as I love this pattern I just can't face making another 5 blocks. The brown leaf print in this block will always be a reminder of our current home.

When we moved in there were real leaves stuck to the wall of our bedroom in some kind of border formation. They had all been painted brown and varnished! Truly gruesome but very funny with it!

Here they are as hubby prepared to remove them. I'd like to point out that this picture was taken nearly 6 years ago and contrary to the photographic evidence I am not a cradle snatcher, hubby is just blessed with youthful looks...grrrr! As you can tell from his body language we weren't that keen on them ;)

I've put together a mosaic of the 4 completed blocks so we can see them all together. Now to mull over what to do with them. Rebecca made a great suggestion in the comments of my last post and I'm always open to other ideas so feel free to chime in if you have any!

Hope you all have a fun weekend :) Catch you soon x

More swooning

There's still not a great deal going on around here but I have managed to finish a third block for Katy's Swoonalong.

I finally decided that I would go down the quilt-as-you-go route. I'm going to quilt the blocks but apply a backing after they're all quilted. I just can't get my head around piecing them all together when the backing is already in situ. I've gone for a very in your face pink Aurifil thread for the machine quilting.

Unusually for me, I've then done some hand quilting with co-ordinating perle threads. I found a new love for hand-quilting while making Katy's consolation cushion. Nothing fancy just straight-lines but I love the depth of texture it gives to the blocks.

I've done two blocks so far while watching crappy TV.

Today I have decided that I will only be making 4 blocks for this quilt, so I've only got one more to do! I am just too impatient to get on to other projects to stick at doing the full 9 blocks. The finished quilt will be going on our bed so there will be a large amount of sashing to make it fit :)

Just before I go I'm going to ask if any of you technical types know how to include a scanned pattern piece into a word document without it resizing. It's driving me slightly (more) mad so if any of you know how please share your knowledge with me :) Catch you soon x

Gritted teeth

Today I gritted my teeth against the grinding tiredness and whipped up another Swoon block for Katy's Swoon-along. I've used Ty Pennington fabrics again with 2 klona solids. The points aren't as pointy as they could be but hey, it still looks good to me :) I think I might chicken out of making 9 blocks though. Currently I'm thinking 4 blocks with lots of solid sashing might be the easy way out. I have been known to change my mind though, so we'll see.

Hope you're all having a good weekend. Catch you soon x

Hello

Sorry I've been so quiet, I did warn you that I might be. I'm absolutely exhausted after an extremely busy and emotional weekend. My amazing sister-in-law gave birth to my gorgeous nephew on Sunday evening by c-section after a rather lengthy induction. Mother and baby are doing really well and have been back in their family home since Tuesday!! The downside to all that excitement is that I've been too exhausted to do anything since I got home on Monday but really it was a small price to pay for the honour of being with my brother and his wife at such a special time. Here's the very precious little man himself :)

Before I went up to be with them I made a very quick and simple flannel throw for my sister-in-law to use during night feeds, or frankly any other time of the day :) I love these folksy flannels and thankfully I have plenty left to make something for me!

Also before I went away I finished a project that will be featured in Julie at The Intrepid Thread's newsletter. I'm ridiculously excited about this little venture!

So if you want to see what I made in full you will need to sign up here for the February newsletter. I'll remind you again nearer the time that the newsletter will be sent out and there might even be a giveaway right here to celebrate! It will be a double celebration as we have finally reached 100 followers!! I'm not sure why 100 seems to make such a big deal to us but it does.

Thank you to all you lovely folk that stop by to read to our ramblings :) Catch you soon x

Swoon Along

I couldn't help but join in with Katy's Swoon-Along! I already had the perfect fabrics in the form of Impressions by Ty Pennington! It had to be didn't it :) I've just finished my first block and I am quite in love. I say quite as they are monster blocks, at around 24", and another 8 blocks are called for. This may take some time! I've used 2 prints, 2 klona solids and the background fabric is Kona medium grey. I'm thinking that I will do some form of quilt-as-you-go so that I'm not left with a mammoth quilt to struggle with on the machine. I am even contemplating some hand quilting in perle cotton as I enjoyed using it so much on Katy's cushion.

Today this scrummy bundle of Folksy Flannels arrived on my doorstep and frankly I couldn't wait to get stuck in with them. They are beautiful! I've just cut some huge squares out of them and now I'm going to get off the computer and sew them together :) Woohoo!

If it's quiet around here for a while please forgive me. We are expecting a very exciting new addition to our family anytime soon and I will be heading north on Thursday for a few days :) Beyond excited!!

Ty and other stuff

I can't tell you how long I've waited to get my hands on Ty Pennington! OK so it's only his fabric that I've snagged for now but you've got to start somewhere.

I ordered 2 colourways of his new range from Julie just before Christmas and it turned up yesterday. It's lovely! Masculine enough to keep men happy but in touch with its' feminine side too ;-)

I'm planning a project with these lovelies but you'll have to wait until February to see that!

While I'm on the topic of fabrics I thought I'd better show you my fab Christmas presents: Countdown to Christmas jelly roll, Little Apples jelly roll and Cosmo Cricket fat quarters....yum!

Lots of new dies for my Accuquilt Go!Baby...

...and lots of books for inspiration! How lucky was I?!

As part of my obligatory New Year ruminations I decided that I need to get another free tutorial up here. With this in mind, I made a cover for hubby's new kindle yesterday and I'm in the process of writing a tutorial for it. It takes so long to write a tutorial, I can't imagine how people do it regularly! I know it's pretty basic but I like to think that beginners may happen upon this blog and find it useful, so for all you clever peeps please bear with me, I'm not trying to teach Grandma to suck eggs ;)

Another of my New Year ruminations involved the design of a bag pattern which might have retail potential. I'm not talking big bucks here, just a minimal amount for a pdf pattern. Today I started work on that too. I've got a very clear idea of where I'm going with this but in the meantime I'm trialling the idea on muslin. I'm not risking my precious fabrics on a prototype.

I'd love to enlist 5 pattern testers for when I've got the pattern written, so if any of you would be interested in offering your services I'd be really grateful and I'm sure there'd be a little something in it for you ;) I promise not to sulk too much if no-one has the time!

Catch you soon x

First finish of the new year

Happy New Year all. I'm very happy to say I've finished my first project of the new year! Katy's consolation cushion is now complete and ready for posting out some time in the week :) I embellished the solid triangles with some hand stitching.

The finished cushion is around 16" square so I'll be sending it out without a cushion pad as I'm tight like that ;) I totally love this cushion and really hope that it will fit into Katy's home!

I used a co-ordinating linen for the back of the cushion and finished with a button. Unfortunately it's not very central so I'm applying my new favourite line that "asymmetric is all the rage"!

Hope you've all had a relaxing break. Catch you soon x