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

Commitment issues

I have no less than 5 projects on the go at the moment. I don't know why I'm being so fickle, maybe I'm just in a rush to try all the ideas that entered my head while I was out of action :) I've recently joined Instagram so apologies to those of you that follow me there as a lot of what I'm going to show now has been aired over there in the last week or so. [Yvonne's on there too but she might be a bit quiet as they've just moved house and have no broadband]
There's been quite a bit of progress on my kites, diamonds and stars EPP project. I've decided it will be a cushion so I've only got one more set of shapes to piece :)

The lovely ladies of the HipBees have been dutifully returning their October blocks to me (I showed you 2 here) and I've been whipping them up into finished blocks as soon as they pop through the door. So much for taking my time over this one ;) It's shaping up to be another contender for my all-time favourite quilt. You can see the individual blocks here. I'll do a nice post showing the individual blocks when I do the final reveal...whenever that might be.

There has been a trial run of Christmas tree decorations using crazy scrappy patchwork. This is definitely a work in progress as I can't decide what I want the finished hearts to look like. I've got another one ready to put together which I'm going to trim with mini-pompoms.

Today I've been having much fun with some gorgeous Laurie Wisbrun prints and bright solids but I can't show you much detail of this project yet. Here's a sneaky peek for now :)

Finally, I've been crocheting in the evenings whilst watching tv so there is wool all over the place in our living room :) I've only got dodgy phone camera pictures of progress with this project so I'll have to get some better pics of that before I share it here. I'll leave you with photos of the most awesome birthday cake in the whole world ever!

 My gorgeous and talented sister-in-law made this for my 38th birthday, complete with replica Sneaky Stars quilt!

I should have taken a pic of the inside because it had multicoloured layers. Jade has some seriously excellent cake making skills! Even more amazingly, this cake was wheat and gluten-free. I'm almost looking forward to next year's birthday for another cake ;)  Catch you soon x

Chock a block

In preparation for my stay at Costa del NHS, and the following period of inactivity, I've been churning out blocks, Chock-a-block style. In the process of uploading photos I found one I hadn't shown you in July. This first one was for Tanya's July HipBee block. We were asked for trees...on reflection I'm not really sure how tree-like this is but Tanya was kind enough to humour me ;)

 Fiona sent some rather lovely Amy Butler for her August HipBee block and left us to get on with it.

Sarah kicked off the second round of HipBees by asking for 2 concentric box blocks.

  I think this is going to be a really striking quilt.

 Then I've been working on blocks for my Amish with a twist BOM quilt. There were many, many half square triangles!

I've still got 36 log cabins to make for August's BOM but they'll have to wait until I'm up and doing again because I was utterly determined to finish a hand-sewing project that I started last year in June! I'm ecstatic to be able to show you my completed Love Spring Carnival cushion :)

I'm ridiculously pleased with this cushion! Love by Amy Butler is my all time favourite fabric range. It was the first designer fabric line that I purchased in its entirety when I started patchworking seriously in 2010. Crazily the majority of my stash was used in projects that were gifted to other people so to finally have a substantial project in my possession is very exciting! I used an Amy Butler Rowan thread  in a green to quilt it.

I can't decide where it will live permanently so for now it's been auditioned in the family room...

 and the living room. It's fair to say that this cushion will be my friend whilst recovering from surgery. It's a mammoth 24" square, so perfect for propping me up in bed :)

Confession time: I've recently tracked down the majority of the Love range and bought myself a new stash :) I'd like to say I'm sorry for doing it but I'm not in the slightest!

So there you have it, I've got one more full day at home to finish binding a wedding quilt and cook a zillion meals for the freezer for post-op mealtimes. I go to the Costa del NHS on Wednesday and am expecting to be there for at least 3 days, possibly longer. Yvonne will no doubt keep you updated on progress at some point as I'm not expecting to be up to blogging or anything much else for a good few weeks. Positive thoughts, prayers and other good wishes will be very welcome for the op and recovery. See you on the other side x