Brit Quilt Swap Completed

If I hadn't have seen the sender of today's parcel I would have been very worried when I opened the wrapping to discover this! Prepare for lots of exclamation marks!!!

 As I did know the sender I was super excited to get inside the box!!! My Brit Quilt Swap mini arrived today and feast your eyes on the fabulousness that is the Dark Side of the Pond by Hadley! I had admired it in the Flickr group so I'm completely delighted that it now resides with me :)

 This little bit of text print will cause me many giggles every time I look at it....I'm very immature ;)

 The frog prince peeking out at me, love Tula Pink!

The fabulous hand embroidered label :) 

 Hadley included this gorgeous little hoop which is so cute! I thought it was a nod to the brown purse I sent her but Hadley reminded me that I had specifically stated that I wouldn't be impressed if I received a brown dog in a patchwork waistcoat :-D lol, what do I know...clearly dogs in patchwork waistcoats are totally awesome!

 Finally, Hadley included this gorgeous flexi-frame purse! Check out those tiny Liberty hexies! The other side of the purse is also tiny hexies, so much work!! Thank you Hadley, you got me sussed :)

 Benji is feeling much better today, although rather grumpy after his trip to the vet, so I was able to get on and finish the mini for my Brit Quilt partner :) I'm hoping my partner will excuse the rather wonky appearance of the edges of the quilt. I'm not quite sure what happened but what I thought was straight was not so I've lost the purple edge entirely on one side and part of it on the other, sorry partner!

I backed with a print from Good Fortune by Kate Spain. I'm hoping to get this posted tomorrow so not long for my partner to wait now :) 

Hope you all have a good weekend. Catch you soon x

Hmmm

So today I was hoping to show you my finished Brit Quilt Swap mini quilt but this little chap had other ideas. 

Benji 

Benji decided to bung himself up with fur so we spent the day trying to get him to eat when I should have been sewing! After a quick trip to the vets he seems to be feeling better so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll get the mini finished tomorrow. It really wouldn't be good for a swap mama to be late sending out her swap!! This is as far as I managed to get today. If my partner doesn't like purple I'm stuffed! I used this pattern to piece the sewing machine. I ad-libbed the rest of the design but I think it all works together. The "Sew wall-hanging" is cross-stitched and the borders were originally intended to be flying geese but I had total brain-fade and ended up with these envelope type things instead. I'll be doing some very basic quilting on this one as I don't want to overcrowd it. 

Brit Quilt mini ready for quilting

 In other news, I bought these gorgeous screen-printed fabrics from Brit Designer Leanne at The Little House Martin. They are absolutely gorgeous and so intricate! You  might want to haul your backsides over there and order some of your very own if you haven't already ;) Leanne threw in some buttons and scraps as a thank you, how lovely is that?! I envisage lots of lovely makes from these and they'd play really nicely with Karen's fabrics too....

The little house martin fabrics

Catch you soon x

Winner

Mr Random Number Generator has spoken!

And the winner is Di, our HipBee mama :) Congratulations Di, I've got your address so I'll stick your prizes in the post to you as soon as possible!

Thanks to everyone that entered the giveaway. I'm sure there'll be another one soon :) Hope you all have a fab bank holiday weekend. Catch you soon x

August and a giveaway

Well I can't believe August is over half way gone! In the post-Olympic period I've got very little done but here are a few things that I've been meaning to share for a while. I was lucky enough to take part in a Fat Quarterly design challenge this month using fabrics from the British Designer, Nel Whatmore. My project is on the Fat Quarterly blog today! Feel free to pop over and leave a comment over there so the Fat Quarterly guys and gals know you've been, make sure to come back though to find out about the giveaway ;)

Fireworks pillow

August is the first month that the HipBees have been sewing blocks and luckily they're for me!! I sent out packages of Summersville with co-ordinating solids and asked for house blocks in return.

HipBee packages

 I've already received quite few of house the blocks. You'll have to check out the HipBee group on flickr to see them as I won't be showing them here until I've got them all :) I also received this super cute Summersville ring pincushion from Tanya which was such a lovely surprise!!

Ring pincushion from Tanya 

Talking of surprises, I received this gorgeous package from Sarah as a 'hello' to the HipBees. A Zakka pencil case and check out the cute bee charm made by the very talented Shannon, Jude's daughter. What a great bee to be in!

Zakka Pencil case from Sarah with Bee charm by Shannon

 So now to get to the nitty gritty of the giveaway that I mentioned a while ago. This little old blog has been in existence for 2 years now! Wow, where does time go? As a thank you for all your support we're giving away this awesome mini quilt that was hand-pieced by Yvonne using Vintage Modern by Bonnie and Camille. Check out the photos in Yvonne's flickrstream for more close-up detail. It is beautiful!!

Vintage Modern hexies hand-pieced by Yvonne

I'm also going to dig into my stash for some fabric goodies too! I'm thinking a little bit of Tula Pink and Amy Butler might be up for grabs....
So there will be one lucky winner.
You get up to three chances to enter:
1.  Leave a comment letting us know your favourite craft blog of the moment. We're always on the lookout for new sources of inspiration :)
2.  If you're a follower old or new just say so in a comment.
3. Blog, tweet or shout from the rooftop about the giveaway then leave a comment to tell us you did for another shot.
That's it. The winner will be chosen by Mr Random Number Generator after the draw closes at midday(BST) on Saturday 25th August.
Catch you soon x

Donald where's your troosers

I have lots of things I ought to be blogging today but frankly I'm too busy watching the Olympics :) TeamGB are having a fantastic games and Usain Bolt (I love that man!) has just won the 200m again! Here's a pic of some little makes that I've managed to sew up in between events. Once again I've used Lotta Jansdotter's pattern to create these funky little trousers for Mackinlay.

Zoo menagerie, Farmdale and a cute spotty baby cord from Katy's destash 

Normal blogging service should return after the Olympics closing ceremony. Hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the Summer such as it is :) Catch you soon x