And this is how today went....

My good intentions of ploughing through my sewing to do list pretty much went like this....

They did hold it together just long enough for me to do one more stage of my spicing up the kitchen swap project.

Here's hoping hubby and hot glue will sort the handle out this evening.

Spicing up the kitchen swap

I thought I'd post a quick note on my new laptop to see how easy it is to use. I've spent most of the weekend doing battle with my nemesis the paper pattern. This time it's for my partner in the Spicing up the kitchen swap It was actually going quite swimmingly until stage 5 and then I think the author of the pattern reverted to ancient Greek because I can't make head nor tail of what I'm supposed to do next. Ah well, I'll call the Oracle (aka Mum) tomorrow and see if she can translate for me :)

Here are a few photos of my work so far. Iron poised at the ready to make binding.

Bib bound and ready to go.

Close up of the complementary bindings.

Three layers ready to take on a new life :)

I love this fabric by Sandi Henderson and I think it goes beautifully with the fabrics I've used for the binding (sorry I can't remember what they are as I've had them a long time).

Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to complete my battle and arise victorious.....too dramatic?!

Catching up

Well once again the week has flown by and I haven't been blogging again! I'm still sharing my daughter's laptop and really don't want to load it up with all my sewing photos hence the infrequent updates. I'm using the iPad for keeping up with flickr stalking which is fabulous but for blogging, they could do with an app for that! In fact there probably is one somewhere but I don't want to waste my time looking for one :)

I've spent a lovely few hours with Yvonne this afternoon discussing the giveaway we promised at the beginning of January. Don't panic I haven't forgotten! Hopefully we'll manage to sneak it in before the end of January!!

As you know I'm taking part in the Amy Butler Style Stitches Sew Along with Bree This is a brave move for me as it involves the use of paper patterns! I don't know what it is about paper patterns but they freak me out. I just can't seem to get my head around them. It's kind of like maths and me, I'll explain. When sitting my 3 hour Maths GCSE exam I completed it in about half the time and thought 'wow that was easy', looked around the room and saw everyone else still working away and thought 'oh crap, I must have missed something' so went all the way back through the paper changing answers as I went. I have no way of knowing whether I did worse for changing the answers or better but I still think that maths should be hard so if it's easy there's a problem. I digressed but the same is true for me and paper patterns. It must be really hard to use a pattern, so it is!

I started cutting out my pieces for the Cosmo bag last week and it took what felt like forever. I've mentioned my impatience many times before and this was no exception. I like to feel I'm getting something accomplished, i.e sewing and this cutting out pieces lark takes ages. It would appear that Amy Butler is a huge fan of interfacing, and it would be very fair to say that I am not a fan of interfacing particularly after trying to use it for this bag. I don't know if I had a dud batch but it did not want to fuse to the fabric I was using and was the cause of a deep blue fog in my sewing room ;) Ultimately I bodged what I could together so that I could actually get on and sew something and will have to return to interfacing another day. This is the result of my efforts so far.

I'm using my favourite Gunilla fabric range from Ikea. It's nice and sturdy so hopefully it will hold up under the strain of my novice pattern usage. Other examples of this bag in progress can be found here

I'm also about to embark on cutting my fabric for Don't Call Me Betsy's Sliced Coin Quilt Along This should be fun! I'm going to use some of my fat quarter stash of Innocent Crush by Anna Maria Horner with some Kona Amethyst for the sashing. You can see what the other participants are up to here.

Lastly, I've finished Serafina's first birthday present. I used the machine embroidery that I finished last year as the centre piece of a hoop for her bedroom wall. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out.

Catch you all soon :)

Addictive personality

I have definitely got an addictive personality. Since the start of the year I have signed up to 4 flickr swaps and 2 sew/quilt alongs!! I'm not too sure how this happened but I can't seem to be able to resist them. Here are the details just in case you're interested :)

Doll quilt swap Round 10, My favourite little quilt swap Round 2, Spicing up the kitchen Round 1, Urban Home Goods, Don't Call Me Betsy's Sliced Coins Quilt along and Style Stitches sew along with Bree

All the flickr stalking that goes with these swaps has led to me being rather more quiet on here than I would normally be so I will endeavour to keep you updated more often about the projects that Yvonne and I have going on. This month my cousin's precious daughter is 1 year old. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. I'm in the process of making her a hoop for her bedroom wall. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet but I do know that it will include this pieced star. It's the first time I've used diamonds to make a star and I'm quite impressed at how close I got at matching up the points.

From a distance it looks quite impressive!

I don't have many other photos of projects at the moment as the light round here is so shocking but I will leave you with these blocks that I have done for Krista aka Lolablueocean on the Fresh Modern Bee 2. Krista asked for circles or circular type designs and these are my offerings.

Catch up with you soon :)

The Plaid Scottie Giveaway

Kaelin is having an extremely generous giveaway over at The Plaid Scottie. So go check it out. There's fabric galore, a book for inspiration and a mystery prize!!!! What are you waiting for?

Lucky me :)

I've been very spoilt from Christmas onwards so I thought I'd do some gratuitous showing off. I received this lovely black and white mini quilt from Krista who was part of the My favourite little quilt swap. Sign-ups are underway for the second round now if any of you are interested. It's amazing how a completely blind swap has ended with me receiving such a perfect mini quilt. This one will definitely be finding a home in my daughter's bedroom, I have been told!

This was the first year I actually got organised enough to complete a Christmas wishlist and boy did I luck out :) Books for inspiration, yummy fabrics and a Go! Baby...lots of crafty goodness!

Yvonne gifted me this fabulous dresden and hexie cushion and was dedicated enough to be sewing the finishing touches on Christmas morning!!

I had been admiring this Kate Spain Fandango fabric since Yvonne used it in her pillow talk swap cushion so was majorly excited to receive this beauty.

I think it's fair to say I was very sulky at having had to put the sewing machine into hiding for the Christmas period so I decided to remedy this problem and cajoled my poor old hubby into creating me a sewing room. We (OK, 'fess up, hubby with me 'supervising') cleared out our library/family room and moved in the makings of a great crafting space. A fabric and embellishments bookcase:

a cutting and piecing table that's so big there's room for a table top ironing board:

and a sewing table that I can cover up when not in use. This is a funky old table on wheels that can be extended when necessary for bigger projects. There are also shelves underneath for more storage space for my fabrics :)

The new space inspired me to knock up this cushion in an hour or so from an Amy Butler scrap bag I had for Christmas. It's really simple but I think very effective.

I backed it with a mink coloured slub silk and a strip of pieced fabrics.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the postlady bought me the first of many packages from my post-Christmas online fabric shopping. Yummy!! Dodgy photo but I'm sure you can see enough of the goodies to be jealous ;)

I'm sure these goodies will come in very useful as I've signed up to yet more swaps on flickr. They are so addictive!!

Out with the old...

In with the new. Happy New Year to you all. It has been interesting to look back over my projects from the last six months or so since joining flickr. I've got much braver in the projects that I have taken on. I resolve to continue to push myself to try new techniques and if at all possible to sew every day!

In the absence of my sewing machine this holiday period, I have managed to finish the Babette blanket that I started in November! I can't believe how quickly it all came together in the end. I'm really pleased with the end result and am now resting my tired hands in preparation for doing it all over again for Yvonne.

Please excuse my erratic posting, my laptop is dead and I'm having to share my daughter's. Keep checking back here as Yvonne and I are planning to have a giveaway very soon to celebrate the new year :)