Fiesta

Another week has passed by in a flash and we've celebrated Jess' 18th birthday. It seems like only yesterday that she was a chubby little one, now look at her! A beautiful young woman inside and out.

When we weren't celebrating or recovering from celebrating I took some time out to design yet more blocks on EQ7. Most of them are secret for now but I can show you this one that I designed last night for a block challenge on the Electric Quilt blog. The challenge involves using Fiesta from Michael Miller which has lots of large scale prints that are tricky to use in small scale but that wasn't going to stop me trying. I drafted this block in Patchdraw as I'm partial to paper pieced designs (I'm sure you hadn't noticed that, cough) and I find this the easiest way to use unusual but accurate shapes in EQ7. I'm still learning so I'm sure there is probably a better way of doing it but for now this works for me.  

As per usual I designed this block with secondary shapes in mind, that seems to be my style these days.

I'm not sure how easy it is to see the patterns in this colour way so here's another in solids which is much more defined.

The challenge is open to anybody, even those who scribble on paper ( I still do that too) and there are some great prizes up for grabs courtesy of Michael Miller and The Electric Quilt company. You might want to check it out for yourself. The challenge is open until March 11th. (Note. I'm not being sponsored to promote this I just thought I'd let you all know about the fun.)
Catch you soon x

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway day

It's that time of year again! Sew Mama Sew are holding the first of their twice yearly giveaway days/weeks. We love a giveaway around here so we had to join in again :) With no firm idea of what we were going to offer up this time round I went to bed Saturday night with the seed of an idea...what would happen if I paired > with +...Strange but true! I woke up Sunday morning with the beginning of a plan and after much faffing around with paper, pencil and ruler I was ready to start making. I grabbed a stack of Japanese fabrics from Polka dot tea fabrics, a dash of Vintage Happy by Lori Holt, some precious Dream On from Moda and some luscious denim yarn dyed linen. With plenty of encouragement from the lovely gang on Instagram I've ended up with this:

We thought it would be nice to let the winner decide whether they would like this to be a cushion or a wall-hanging. It's going to finish up around 24" square! So to be in with a chance to win this (finished by me obviously!):
Please leave a comment here with a name suggestion for this pattern.
For a bonus chance to win, leave another comment to let us know if you are a follower, new or regular

The winner will be chosen by random number generator.

There will also be a small surprise gift for the best pattern name so get your thinking caps on :) If you check back on 17th May you might just find the templates for this design waiting for you, just saying ;)

The giveaway is open to everyone. The draw will close on Friday 16th May at 5pm PST but as we're in the UK and will be sound asleep at the equivalent 1am you might sneak in before I wake up on the 17th May.  So now all that's left for you to do is go visit some of the other fab giveaways.
Catch you soon x

Edited to add: Please excuse me if I don't manage to reply to all the comments on this giveaway post :)
Edited to add the winners are Catrin Lewis and Sarah@Sew Me.