Belated

I've been a bit late to share with you all the lovely goodies I received from the Fat Quarterly Retreat Sample Swap. I sent my hoops along with Kerry, as I couldn't make it myself, and then waited in anticipation of what I'd get back :) Well, I'm delighted with  my goodies! Even more exciting for me was that 2 of the goodies are from my bloggy/ HipBee pals :) I got this fab purse/key fob and beautiful brooch from Jan.

 This gorgeous cushion cover from Catherine

 and this lovely mini quilt from Francine.

Thank you ladies, I love everything! :)
In other news, rather frustratingly my operation date has moved back by a month. I'm not very happy about that as I'm so blooming uncomfortable but I guess it gives me a bit more time for sewing when the mood takes me. It also means that I might manage to pop along to the Festival of Quilts to see Justine. The Sneaky Stars pattern has gone off for formatting and should be ready for selling in kits at the show.

It's almost time for the big reveal on another secret sewing project of mine. I had the great privilege of working with this gorgeous Liberty Stile fabric for a Fat Quarterly project! Issue 14 will be available next week :) Yvonne was slightly excited to see a little mention of yours truly on the Liberty blog (read, ridiculously over-the-top mother excited!!!) I can't wait to share the finished project with you, it's rather lovely even if I say so myself ;)

Finally, we turned three on 23rd July! It's amazing how quickly time flies by. A huge thank you to all you lovely folk who have stuck with us over the years. Tradition would suggest that we do a little giveaway to mark the occasion so I'm going to think on it over night and post a little giveaway post tomorrow :) Catch you soon x

Sneaky Stars

I'm really excited to share with you a project that I've been working on for a collaboration with Justine at Simply Solids. Let me introduce the Sneaky Stars quilt.

I'm really thrilled with how this pattern has turned out. I've been working on it for quite a few months so it kind of feels like my baby. It's a super quick quilt to piece and I really hope that I'll see versions of it popping up on blogs/flickr when the pattern is released ;)

Justine will be selling kits for this in time for Festival of Quilts. I'll update you when the kits go live :) This version of the quilt will be available to view on Justine's stand at Festival of Quilts. For those of you who won't be there here are a few more pics of it.

I wanted the solids to do all the talking so I did some very simple echo quilting in white and a rather lovely blue, variegated 12wt Aurifil. I wasn't sure if it would be possible to machine sew with the 12 wt but it went through with no problems :)

The improv pieced backing really shows the star quilting up beautifully, even if I do say so myself :)

I've also made 2 other versions of the pattern so you can see how versatile the design is. First up is a baby quilt that I made for Amanda's little man. I used Noteworthy by Sweetwater and a natural Moda crossweave. Excuse the rather uninspiring picture.

Here are some close-ups so you can see the pretty fabric:

The cross-weave made this little quilt really snuggly, just what a new baby needed :) You've already seen a sneaky peek at the other version that I made. I thought it was about time I made hubby a quilt so I put this one together for his birthday in June.

I dug out the perle thread for the quilting on this one. There are 3 different colours but it's difficult to capture them properly with the camera. Either way it stands out beautifully on the black solid. 

So there you have it. The Sneaky Stars quilt kit coming soon to now available at Simply Solids! I'd better crack on with writing the pattern now ;) Stay cool this weekend. Catch you soon x