Busy, busy, busy

The silence here on the blog belies the amount of activity that has been going on in the sewing room. I thought it was about time I pulled my finger out and showed you some of the things I've been working on. It would be really rude of me not to introduce you to Jinny the Janome first though ;) She's a real beauty!

There are a gazillion stitches and new fangled presser feet to get my head around but it will be a lot of fun experimenting. I suspect I wont actually use her to the full extent of her capacity but I'm likely to have a more consistent seam allowance and much less cussing when quilting ;)

I've already tested that theory on my Larking Around quilt. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I started this quilt in 2011!! It's well on the way to being finished now though :)

I did some very light machine quilting using Jinny and had to take a shot of all that extra space to the right of the needle just to show off ;) I've started hand quilting in perle thread and hope to have a finished quilt to show you by the end of the week.

 I've joined yet another bee over on flickr. Each month we will make 4 Japanese x and + blocks from our stash to be sent out in pairs to 2 other bee members.

 I'm hoping this month's queen bees will be happy with my choices!

I've done this month's block for the Simply Solids Bee too. This one was also from stash. There's lots of Oakshotts in this so I'm hoping the May queen will love it!

I just need to find time to do a block for Sarah in the HipBees and then my bee commitments are behind me for the month. If you could see the length of my sewing to-do list you'd be sweating just as much as me! Lots of deadlines approaching, it would be so lovely not to need as much sleep as I do to function. Speaking of which, it is M.E awareness week again. Our lovely Jess has written another fabulous post to mark the occasion this year, please do pop by and read it if you haven't already. Catch you soon xx

Today...

...I met some internet friends in person! The lovely Laura drove me to Lynne's house for a meeting of ladies known affectionately as the Kitchen Quilt Guild. I've watched their antics from afar for the past couple of years with much envy so to say I was excited today was an understatement. When we pulled up on the drive I was "bricking it" but put on my best I'm not scared face and went to meet the ladies. I needn't have worried they're a lovely bunch! Katy, Mandy, Justine, Trudi, Lynne and Laura all made me very welcome. There was some quilt flaunting....I tried to swipe this Chicopee Scrappy Tripalong from Katy but she wasn't having any of it!

Katy showing off her Chicopee quilt.

Excuse the terrible photo, I wanted to show you all the ladies but only managed to get this dodgy shot of Mandy and Trudi's hand. Lots of chatting and giggling...

Trudi's hand, Mandy and Lynne with Mandy's scrappy tripalong.

...and there was quite a lot of cake munching too.... sorry Justine, I caught you mid-munch with a brownie.

Justine and Laura packing up the leftovers. 

It was Katy's birthday at the weekend so we all handed over presents to keep her happy as she's so high maintenance ;-) Just so we're clear my tongue is firmly in my cheek here! There was much ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the pressies, you'll probably find some of them on the other ladies blogs. My offering was unsurprisingly a cushion which you saw the beginnings of here. I spent the weekend paper piecing 40 of these...

Shelburne Falls and Oakshotts.

 ...and turned them into this Candy Coated Diamonds cushion. The pattern is from Pillow Pop in case you're interested :)

 I backed the cushion with a baby cord that I'd got from Katy in a destash last year.

I have to admit to having a slight problem handing this one over as I love it! I tried all the tricks I know to make Katy hand it back; second hand tissue paper wrapping paper with bits of selotape(?) still attached and a hole in it for extra panache all presented in a dodgy baby pink gift bag a size too small for the present. It was all for nothing though, she still wanted the present, better luck next time ;) Anyway I'm shattered and rambling now but suffice to say it was a lovely day. Catch you soon x

Whoops

Well I didn't fall off the face of the planet but I do appear to have been rather lax in my blogging again. February went by in a blur and there was very little sewing going on. During that time our gorgeous Jess turned 16! I seriously can't believe how quickly life seems to be flying by. When I finally managed to venture into my sewing room the passage of time was demonstrated to me by the number of unopened white packages from the USA. The Fat Quarter Shop BOM that started in June last year has been dropping through my letterbox as regular as clockwork. How hard could it be to make one block a month? Well, in my initial excitement I got 2 blocks done on time...

June 2012 FQS BOM

July 2012 FQS BOM

and since then...not so much...Here are the packages from August up to February.

FQS BOM pile of shame

I've managed to make up 2 blocks from the pile of shame.

August FQS BOM

September 2012 FQS BOM

 I've still a way to go to catch up but I don't feel quite so bad about myself now that I've got 4 blocks made ;) Thankfully I haven't fallen behind in my HipBee commitments! This rather lovely flying geese block is for February's Queen bee, Di. Obviously I mean the fabric and the pattern are lovely and not my execution of it ;) Di trusted us with her precious stash of Ruby by Bonnie and Camille. It's going to be one pretty quilt!

Today I sneaked back into the sewing room to start a secret project which I should be able to show you next week. I think it's safe to say it'll be fab...Oakshotts + Shelburne Falls + Pillow Pop = win!!

Catch you soon x

ET calling

Every once in a while a block comes along that screams "make me now". Lynne's new ET phone home block is one of those! I've spent the afternoon playing with Oakshotts and this lovely print from Basic Grey. Coincidentally the film, ET, was on the tv this afternoon.....(do-de-do-do twilight zone). The photo doesn't really do this justice but those of you who know what Oakshotts are like will know that the colours are way more gorgeous in real life. I cracked open my Colourbox for the first time in honour of this block ;)

I think I'll sash this block and turn it into a cushion or something similar. This is a really addictive block so I foresee more of these in my future!
Just before I go I'll point out that the Brit Quilt Swap has started sign-ups for the next round. We're back to making mini quilts this round :) It's good to see lots of familiar names in there!

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