By Hand and a discount!

Hello all. I'm still suffering with the trapped nerve issue which is positively doing my head in! I'm awaiting MRI results which I hope will guide the people in the know to sort me out! Sewing machine time is seriously limited, I'm talking 5 minutes at the very most before I feel like crying, so there has been lots of hand-stitching and pattern writing going on to keep my equilibrium. First, I pattern tested a new design by Julianna which can be either Foundation Pieced or done with EPP. It goes together very quickly and is really quite fun to piece. You can find the free pattern here. Here's my version using some lovely Denyse Schmidt prints.

I also joined an Anna Maria Horner swap on Instagram before the pain got really bad so I've had to drum up a design that I can hand-piece so I don't have to drop out. This is one quarter of it; that is a lot of piecing! Thankfully the deadline is June so I should have plenty of time to finish this one :) Typically for me it's a riot of colour so I hope it won't scare my partner off too much!

I've just finished up the last blocks (all hand sewn) for the current Quilt Now BOM and am really looking forward to finishing the top off so I can send it away to Trudi to work her magic on it. You just know that it's going to be epic when Trudi is finished with it! I'm so glad I decided to piece this medallion as we went along rather than leaving it all to the end or I'd be in major hot-water right now!   I can't believe that Quilt Now has been around for almost a year now, bonkers. I'm really excited to be doing the next BOM for them too!!! Sorry for all the exclamation marks it's one of those days.
Finally, because we all know I need another project like a hole in the head, I've started up another Wafers EPP project, to give me a break from the epic piecing of the swap project, using a lovely selection of prints from Art Gallery Fabrics. I'm loving these earthy prints!

This leads nicely to the discount part of the title. I've just restocked our Etsy shop with some of our instant download patterns/templates (including this one) as it appears that Etsy will now be dealing with the VAT issue. To celebrate you can get 20% off everything in the Etsy shop this weekend only (10-12 April 2015) by entering INSTA20 at the checkout.
Hoping all is good in your world. Catch you soon x

Wafers

As predicted I'm back with a finish! My Wafers cushion goes together in a flash and I'm just a little bit in love with it :) I pulled lots of my current favourite fabrics together for this autumnal piece. There's some Anna Maria Horner, Amy Butler, Denyse Schmidt and Katarina Roccella alongside some other Art Gallery fabrics that came in a scrap pack I bought from Simply Solids. The deep orange solid that I used is a Kona FQ that came in my Fat Quarterly Retreat goodies bag.

I used a lovely rust coloured Aurifil thread to do my usual crazy-straight-line quilting.

Quite by accident I noticed that it produced nice little stars in the solid shapes, an added bonus :) After a little rummage in my fabric cupboard I found the perfect backing fabric from my favourite, Anna Maria Horner :) The colours are much richer in real life, for some reason unknown to me it's all washed out in the photos.

I've uploaded the PDF EPP templates for this project to our Payhip page. They're a bargain (even if I do say so myself) at £1. I've included a colouring sheet so you can see how the blocks fit together and practice your fabric combinations. I'm thrilled that it's already started to sell to some very keen ladies over on Instagram :)

Now I need to go and shackle myself to the sewing machine! Catch you soon x

Oops...

... I'm not sure where time flew to. There has been plenty of sewing going on but as usual not a lot I can share with you just yet but I did think it was about time I showed you the cushion I made for Kay with the mini-cartwheels.

I got busy with my usual crazy-straight-line quilting in a yellow variegated Aurifil thread. I love the texture it adds without detracting too much from the patchwork.

I used one of my favourite Pam Kitty Picnic prints for the back of the cushion.

Before sending it off to Kay I took a photo of it next to the full-size Cartwheels cushion. I love them both :)

I am extremely tempted to revisit the full-size Carthwheels block for a quilt! I may even have dug out a long hoarded stash of Punctuation with this in mind ;) In the meantime I've been working on another EPP design, Wafers. There will be a reveal of that very soon as it's currently awaiting quilting :)
I hope all is good with you. Catch you soon x