Gritted teeth

Today I gritted my teeth against the grinding tiredness and whipped up another Swoon block for Katy's Swoon-along. I've used Ty Pennington fabrics again with 2 klona solids. The points aren't as pointy as they could be but hey, it still looks good to me :) I think I might chicken out of making 9 blocks though. Currently I'm thinking 4 blocks with lots of solid sashing might be the easy way out. I have been known to change my mind though, so we'll see.

Hope you're all having a good weekend. Catch you soon x

Hello

Sorry I've been so quiet, I did warn you that I might be. I'm absolutely exhausted after an extremely busy and emotional weekend. My amazing sister-in-law gave birth to my gorgeous nephew on Sunday evening by c-section after a rather lengthy induction. Mother and baby are doing really well and have been back in their family home since Tuesday!! The downside to all that excitement is that I've been too exhausted to do anything since I got home on Monday but really it was a small price to pay for the honour of being with my brother and his wife at such a special time. Here's the very precious little man himself :)

Before I went up to be with them I made a very quick and simple flannel throw for my sister-in-law to use during night feeds, or frankly any other time of the day :) I love these folksy flannels and thankfully I have plenty left to make something for me!

Also before I went away I finished a project that will be featured in Julie at The Intrepid Thread's newsletter. I'm ridiculously excited about this little venture!

So if you want to see what I made in full you will need to sign up here for the February newsletter. I'll remind you again nearer the time that the newsletter will be sent out and there might even be a giveaway right here to celebrate! It will be a double celebration as we have finally reached 100 followers!! I'm not sure why 100 seems to make such a big deal to us but it does.

Thank you to all you lovely folk that stop by to read to our ramblings :) Catch you soon x

Swoon Along

I couldn't help but join in with Katy's Swoon-Along! I already had the perfect fabrics in the form of Impressions by Ty Pennington! It had to be didn't it :) I've just finished my first block and I am quite in love. I say quite as they are monster blocks, at around 24", and another 8 blocks are called for. This may take some time! I've used 2 prints, 2 klona solids and the background fabric is Kona medium grey. I'm thinking that I will do some form of quilt-as-you-go so that I'm not left with a mammoth quilt to struggle with on the machine. I am even contemplating some hand quilting in perle cotton as I enjoyed using it so much on Katy's cushion.

Today this scrummy bundle of Folksy Flannels arrived on my doorstep and frankly I couldn't wait to get stuck in with them. They are beautiful! I've just cut some huge squares out of them and now I'm going to get off the computer and sew them together :) Woohoo!

If it's quiet around here for a while please forgive me. We are expecting a very exciting new addition to our family anytime soon and I will be heading north on Thursday for a few days :) Beyond excited!!

Ty and other stuff

I can't tell you how long I've waited to get my hands on Ty Pennington! OK so it's only his fabric that I've snagged for now but you've got to start somewhere.

I ordered 2 colourways of his new range from Julie just before Christmas and it turned up yesterday. It's lovely! Masculine enough to keep men happy but in touch with its' feminine side too ;-)

I'm planning a project with these lovelies but you'll have to wait until February to see that!

While I'm on the topic of fabrics I thought I'd better show you my fab Christmas presents: Countdown to Christmas jelly roll, Little Apples jelly roll and Cosmo Cricket fat quarters....yum!

Lots of new dies for my Accuquilt Go!Baby...

...and lots of books for inspiration! How lucky was I?!

As part of my obligatory New Year ruminations I decided that I need to get another free tutorial up here. With this in mind, I made a cover for hubby's new kindle yesterday and I'm in the process of writing a tutorial for it. It takes so long to write a tutorial, I can't imagine how people do it regularly! I know it's pretty basic but I like to think that beginners may happen upon this blog and find it useful, so for all you clever peeps please bear with me, I'm not trying to teach Grandma to suck eggs ;)

Another of my New Year ruminations involved the design of a bag pattern which might have retail potential. I'm not talking big bucks here, just a minimal amount for a pdf pattern. Today I started work on that too. I've got a very clear idea of where I'm going with this but in the meantime I'm trialling the idea on muslin. I'm not risking my precious fabrics on a prototype.

I'd love to enlist 5 pattern testers for when I've got the pattern written, so if any of you would be interested in offering your services I'd be really grateful and I'm sure there'd be a little something in it for you ;) I promise not to sulk too much if no-one has the time!

Catch you soon x

First finish of the new year

Happy New Year all. I'm very happy to say I've finished my first project of the new year! Katy's consolation cushion is now complete and ready for posting out some time in the week :) I embellished the solid triangles with some hand stitching.

The finished cushion is around 16" square so I'll be sending it out without a cushion pad as I'm tight like that ;) I totally love this cushion and really hope that it will fit into Katy's home!

I used a co-ordinating linen for the back of the cushion and finished with a button. Unfortunately it's not very central so I'm applying my new favourite line that "asymmetric is all the rage"!

Hope you've all had a relaxing break. Catch you soon x

Goodbye 2011

This was going to be a post with lots of mosaics showing all the lovely things I made in the past year but having spent over an hour trawling through the 69 substantial makes, I lost the will to live! Instead I will just wish you all a very happy New Year. I hope the new year brings you all much happiness! Thank you very much for all the support and encouragement you have given us over the past year. I'm really looking forward to the next 12 months :)

Because I can't do a post without photos here is a progress pic of Katy's consolation cushion.

Catch you all very soon :)

Katy's consolation

Hello All. I hope you've had a relaxing time over Christmas :) It's been very quiet around here which is just how we like it! Many lovely goodies were given and received too and I'll probably share some of those with you in the new year. I'm sitting rather gingerly at the moment as I managed to tweak my back on Boxing Day....curses a plenty! I've got some good pain-killers though so I'm managing to do little bits and pieces now that they are kicking in. Today I've felt well enough to make a start on Katy's consolation prize :) I have to admit to being slightly intimidated by making something for Katy with all her mad skills and Fat Quarterly knowledge but she's led me to believe she'll love whatever I make! I'm making a cushion as I do seem to be OK at those ;) I've pushed myself to do something a bit fancy so paper-piecing has been the order of the day again. Here's a little peek.

When designing this I didn't think too much about how the seams were going to meet up and the amount of Y seams that would be necessary but thankfully, so far so good!!

Ask me again when I'm piecing the lady into the centre of the finished octagon!

I've called it a day for now but hope to get this finished by the end of the weekend. Catch you again soon x