That's a wrap!

I have been counting down the days to finally be able to share with you my finished Quilt Now BOM quilt! Today by subscription copy (arrived ahead of it's Thursday UK release) and I had pretty much ripped the wrapper open before it hit the doormat. Issue 13 is Quilt Now's first birthday edition and it is crammed full of beauties this month. I've got a few projects in this issue so I'll tell you about those another day and dedicate today to the BOM.  Prepare for photo overload!

It has been a great pleasure to create the first Mystery BOM for Quilt Now magazine and I'm so honoured that Katy trusted me to deliver the goods on this one. Here's the finished quilt in the magazine. All of the fabrics used in this quilt are from Art Gallery Fabric collections and they play together beautifully.

It is very difficult to capture just how beautiful this quilt is in real life. It was also very difficult to fit the whole thing into the picture.

I sent the finished top away to my amazingly talented friend, Trudi, for quilting as there was no way I could do this one justice even if my shoulder/neck had been up to the challenge. The quilting just sent this quilt into another level of awesome, even if I do say so myself ;) Trudi custom quilted each block and just, WOWOWOW!

The central medallion

The Dresden Fans and solid border

The vines and flowers

The Bargello technique blocks and solid border

The Trapunto-effect bow

The Fast Flying geese blocks

The crazy patchwork hearts

The Dresden corners

The Prairie Points block

The Suffolk Puffs/Yo-yos

I somehow forgot to take pictures of the Reverse Applique flowers and the Gathered hexagons but they received equally awesome treatment.

The quilt is backed with the Steepening Awakening print from Priory Square by Katy Jones and bound with a multitude of scraps from the prints I'd used in the quilt and was pieced and quilted with Aurifil thread. I'm really looking forward to this one coming home to me but I think it might be a while yet as it might be paying a trip to the Festival of Quilts, so you could have the opportunity to see it in real life if you are in Birmingham in August.

I'm quite sad that this BOM is finished but I'm super excited to have started work on the next one, an all solids quilt...

Our lovely friend, Sarah, sewed along with me this year and has already finished her version of the quilt top. It's gorgeous so you should really pop over there to take a look!
I'll be back soon to share my other projects in this issue. Catch you soon x

Holiday at home

Sorry that it's been a bit quiet around these parts, we've been having a "holiday" at home. Yvonne and I managed a half day trip to the Festival of Quilts! I was rubbish and took precisely 2 photos, neither of which are decent enough to put on here. We had a fab time and managed to meet up with quite a few bloggy/twitter friends (the first time for Yvonne), Di, Trudi, Katy, Justine, Ange, Lucie and Brioni. I hope I didn't forget anyone, apologies if I did. It was lovely to be surrounded by so many like-minded people. I had the great thrill of seeing my Sneaky Stars Quilt hanging in Justine's Simply Solids booth...shameless plug alert...quilt kits are now available here. I also got to meet one of my most favourite designers, the inimitable Ms Tula Pink!

Like a mad woman I decided the day before heading off to Festival of Quilts to make a Tula Pink bag to carry all my loot in, and then tracked her down like a crazy stalker at the show so she could see it :) This photo doesn't really portray the scale of the bag very well but let's just say I could probably have smuggled a small child into the festival in this one ;) It went down a storm and there will be a pattern available sometime in the not too distant future.

Since Festival things have been more sedate but hubby has been home so we got a few domestic type things crossed off our to do list. I'm not sure that they could really be classed as holiday activities though. Garage clearing is not the ideal mode of relaxation.
I did spend an afternoon admiring a gorgeous garden..

Hand Drawn Garden by Anna Maria Horner

...and we revamped some orange pine furniture (well, mainly hubby but I supervised). Hooray for Annie Sloan chalk paint!

Before

That's more like it!

After

Hubby managed to transform the bureau too but I didn't get a before pic. I still need to decide what I'm putting on top of it :)

I love how they turned out. The family room feels much more homely now. It's nice to be able to display some of our retro items in such pretty furniture.

Every home should have a Humpty Dumpty biscuit barrel!

Besides that there has been very little sewing going on. I'm hoping to get some done this week as hubby is back at work now. Before I go I must show you a gorgeous hoop that arrived a while ago from Susan. Perfection!

I hope you're all having a good time :) Catch you soon x

oops, almost forgot. Message for Sabrina, please can you check your junk email box as I've sent you a couple of emails :)