Ready for Father Christmas!

Just in case Father Christmas does come down the chimney on Thursday night I thought I better be prepared with somewhere nice for him to put any presents he might be leaving. This is the result! My eldest son approves and thinks that FC will as well. Wishing you and yours many blessings and I will hopefully see you all in the new year.

Christmas Quilt Done!

Yay! I have finished the Christmas quilt. This has been a long time in the making and I am very pleased to get it done and onto the sofa. It has been claimed by my eldest son who snuggled underneath it all afternoon whilst watching Star Wars!

I think I have enough time to get this done as well - a simple patchwork sack for Father Christmas to leave his presents in. I hope all your Christmas plans are reaching completion!

New Winner

The first winner of my SMS giveaway never got in touch to claim their prize, so I have done the random number generator thing again and this time it has picked happycottagequilter. She said:
'What a great giveaway. Please enter my name. Thanks for participating in the Giveaway Day!'
Please get in touch with me and give me your address so I can send you your fabric!

Slow Progress

Life has been realy getting in the way of sewing at the moment. In the last week I have marked 90 exam papers, written 30 Year 9 reports (with another 60 to go by Friday - eek!) and celebrated my son's 6th birthday with an epic sports hall, bouncy castle and 30 children party. I have now started quilting my Christmas quilt and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can finish it this weekend when we put the Christmas decorations up. It was meant to be done two weeks ago but as long as it is done by Christmas Eve it doesn't really matter I suppose. Continuing the Christmas theme, if you want to send a little one a special message from Santa have a look here - it is fab!

Finally a message for Cat - the winner of my SMS giveaway. You must contact me by Thursday night UK time please - if you don't I am sorry but I will have to re - draw the giveaway. Get in touch or you will miss out on the fabric!

More Giveaway News!

Well after getting in touch with Anna about winning my sneaky giveaway for people who have previously posted on my blog, she tells me that she is on a giveaway diet after winning a number of giveaways recently. Anna would prefer it if I chose a new winner so I once more returned to Random.org for the result. This time it picked Floh. So please get in touch so I can send you your goodies!
Also Cat - I have not heard back from you yet about winning my fabric giveaway - please let me have your address so that I can send your fabric out to you!
Finally I was lucky enough to win this giveaway. Yay!

Giveaway Winners!

I have had a brilliant few days entering giveaways, checking out new blogs and reading all the comments on my giveaway - what fun! Of course that means that very little sewing got done round here - some sewing on my Christmas Quilt happened and I chose fabric based on a rainbow theme and posted it out for a new bee I have joined:


Anyway, onto the winners! Firstly the winner for the Arcadia Fabric:

Random.org spoke to me and said that cat is the winner!
Cat siad:
'This is very pretty, not something I have come across before. How happy giveaways are!'
Cat - please will you get in touch with your address so I can post your fabirc off to you. I cannot email you as I cannot see your blogger details! Thanks to everyone who entered and to all the other blog people out there who had a giveaway of their own.
Secondly I wanted to do a giveaway for all those kind people who have previously left a comment on my blog. I do appreciate every one. I wish I could send you all something! Anyway, Random spoke again and this time said Anna - otherwise known as Thimbleanna. Hers was one of the first blogs I started reading - it is a great mixture of sewing, cooking and general life. I love it! So thank you Anna for leaving me lovely comments and please get in touch with your details. As for what you have won, well it is a surprise but it will include something to eat, something to read and something I made!

Giveaway

Welcome to all visitors old and new! I am really excited to be taking part in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway once more and have already warned my family that I will be spending a good number of hours over the next few days visiting lots of lovely blogs! I am offering a charm pack of Arcadia by Moda as my giveaway. Isn't it pretty? For a chance to win all you have to do is say hello!


P.S. I am also running a second giveaway for all those lovely people who have previously commented on my blog. You don't have to do anything - you already have! I want to let you know how much I appreciate all your comments :-) As for what the giveaway is - well you will have to wait and see!

Giveaway Day

Sew Mama Sew! is holding another Giveaway Day on the 2nd December. I took part in the spring one and had lots of fun visiting some wonderful blogs. Come back on the 2nd for a chance to win some fabric. Apologies to anyone who commented on my last two posts for not replying to you - I had to change my preferences to get rid of some spam and I stopped getting email notifications that you had dropped by! I now cannot work out how to 'reply' to your comment without sending you a random email that will not make any sense as the first half of the conversation is missing! This problem has now been fixed so everything should be back to normal. See you on the 2nd! (If not before!)

a big disaster

Well at first glance it might not look so bad, but look closer..... see the big, glaring mistakes? Four of them? Yep it all went pear shaped. I cut it all out, happily sewed it together, ironed it and prepared to sew the quarters together before noticing that the sides of the spotty triangle were not even. Much cursing and sewing later I managed to just about save the square. In amongst all blue language flying about I was struck by how unimaginative our swear words are, so decided to look to the Bard for inspiration via the Shakespeare Insults Generator. 'Thou creeping shag-haired measle' was a much more satisfying way of letting that block know what I thought of it!


My wonky star Christmas quilt is slowly taking shape - a bit too slowly at the moment, I need to speed up!

Gnomes and Spiders

My sewing machine is poorly. I don't think it is terminal but a short stay at the Singer shop for some treatment may be in order. My lovely other half spent an hour trying to make it run again but something somewhere inside keeps sticking as the needle rises. Luckily a friend has a sewing machine that she only uses once or twice a year so I have borrowed hers on a long loan until I can get mine fixed. After faffing about for a while getting to know the new machine I managed to complete my mini gnome quilt. I was lucky enough to be sent some squares of Heather Ross by this lovely lady and when I saw the gnomes I just had to make something with them.



I am so pleased with how this turned out. I only had a small square of the gnome fabric, but it went a long way! I have no one in mind for this quilt - I made it on a whim and I really enjoyed not having a deadline to meet or a person to make for. I am going to hang it on my wall for a while before deciding what to do with it.


The backing fabric is from the children's section of IKEA.


I also completed my spider web block for the Euro Bee. If you fancy having a go making one here is the tutorial.

euro bee stash

I could not resist showing you my growing stash of aqua, red and white fabric ready for my month of the Euro Bee.

My month is not until August, but I really want to get as wide a variety of fabrics as possible so have been slowly collecting bits as I have found them.

I think my biggest problem will be resisting the temptation to start using them before next summer!

Christmas Quilt

Today I began my Christmas quilt. It is going to be wonky stars made out of the most wonderful fabric designed by Comfortstitching. I cannot wait to make each star with a fussy cut center showcasing each little Christmassy scene. (If you click on the photo you will be able to see a closeup of her delicious fabric). The only flaw in my plan is that I need more fabric for the outside of each star, and as we have postal strikes in the UK at the moment (and more likely next week) I may be held up in my quilt making. Good job I started in October then!

made it!

I finished my two quilt challenge just in time. These quilts are for birthday boys and their birthday is tomorrow! Phew - there is nothing like a deadline to keep you motivated. The boys are identical twins and their mum has just started dressing them in different colours to make it easier for people to know who is who! As a lucky coincidence one boy has been given red/brown clothes and the other blue/green to wear. I didn't know this until after I had started making these quilts but it made it very easy deciding which quilt to give to which twin! Please excuse the poor photos - the weather was not cooperating today so i was unable to take any nice photos outdoors or even in natural light.

The only thing I am not happy with is the amount of crinkling on the quilts. I would have preferred them smoother. They looked a lot neater before they had their wash and tumble dry. I don't know why - maybe it is because smoother suits straight line quilting more. Never mind - it is a small niggle, otherwise I am very pleased. The fabrics are all child friendly without being too babyish - hopefully the boys will enjoy their quilts into toddlerhood and beyond!

Next challenge - spiderweb blocks and starting on a Christmas quilt for me and my boys to snuggle under this winter.

lovely stuff

I am having a really productive week spurred on by the fact that I have two quilts to finish by next week! They are a pair of cot sized quilts for twins. The first one is orange and brown and is being quilted at the moment:

The second is green and blue and here is the binding ready for folding and ironing:

I also made my block for the Euro Bee, but please excuse the terrible photo:

I am starting to feel like my sewing groove is coming back!

Quilt Festival

Amy at Park City Girl is hosting her Bloggers Festival of Quilts and this time I get to join in! Last time I had not even completed my first quilt and did not even have a blog - so much has changed since then! I don't have masses of quilts to choose from as I am still so knew to quilting, so I will tell you about my first quilt. It was made using a tutorial by Oh Fransson and was my first effort using a pattern, modern fabrics, binding and well everything really!

I loved the process of choosing my fabrics (the Amy Butler Belle is my favourite) and seeing my quilt slowly come together.

Surprisingly my favourite part was making and sewing the binding - I was expecting to dislike that bit but found it really relaxing.

So there you go - my first quilt! Have fun looking at all the amazing quilts at the festival.

rag quilt done

Well after much snipping I have finally got the rag quilt finished for a first birthday present. I am really pleased with how it has turned out but it was a lot of work - more than I was expecting! Cutting out all the squares (top, wadding and backing fabric) was a bit of a pain. Thanks must go to Katy - she sent me lots of wadding scraps a while ago which I was able to use in this quilt.

I am going to give it another wash and tumble dry just to fluff out the raggedy bits even more before going on to my next challenge - quilts for twin boys by the end of October - eek!

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progress

Well it has been a crazy hectic couple of weeks. After my last post bemoaning the fact that I had no time or space to get any sewing done the situation got even worse - the school I teach at had an OFSTED inspection. Well I say the school - it was actually just the department I teach in! OFSTED inspections only give you a few days warning before they drop in so I have been beyond busy as I am sure you can imagine. Everything went well and we got a great report so we are all very happy.
The relief at reaching the end of last week was immense and I have finally been able to have a nice relaxing weekend full of walks, conker hunting and sewing - yay!
This is my rag quilt in the making for a baby boy - his first birthday present in fact. My plan is to get it finished by Thursday so that I can sit and watch TV in the evening and do all the snipping. Have a good week everyone.

not much sewing but lots of growing!

Now I am back at work full time after my maternity leave I am finding it really difficult to get any sewing done. A lack of time, motivation (I am shattered come 7 pm when the boys are in bed) and space are all adding to the problem. I don't have anywhere just for me to sew - I have to make do with the kitchen table which of course needs clearing for meals. So whilst I am itching to get on with my list of projects nothing much is actually happening. I am hoping that as work settles down a bit more and I get used to it again I will find some space to get going once more. I have to get a quilt made for the middle of October for a first birthday, followed by two more for twins by November. Eeek! I really need to get in the zone again!

On a much more satisfying note, here is my haul from the allotment this morning - we are having a roast for dinner with all the trimmings. The red potatoes are Roosters and make the best roasties ever. Tea today will be yummy!

mini projects in progress

I have had very little time for sewing over the last few weeks. I have loads of quilts I would like to make but cannot seem to get started on them. Instead I decided to have a go making a couple of smaller things, so have been doing a couple of mini projects on and off in odd ten minutes here and there. My first will become a furoshiki once it is backed. I plan to use it for taking my lunch to work.

Secondly I have been experimenting with bleach painting again and plan to turn this into a chair cover.

The above photos were taken outside on a wet and windy evening in Warwickshire. Here are a couple of shots of the sky just as I was finishing - the colours are amazing!

giveaway winners

Well as only two people entered my giveaway I have decided that I couldn't possibly choose between you, so you are both winners! Renee and Lisa, I have sent you an email so if you could please send me your addresses I will pop your goodies in the post! ( I will split the giveaway in two then add a few extra bits as well). Congratulations and thanks for stopping by :-)

giveaway!

I thought I would have a little giveaway - no real reason, just because I felt like it! The following goodies are up for grabs. (Please excuse the photos - it is raining and pouring at the moment so the light is terrible).

Firstly a couple of origami fat quarters by Paula Ozier.

Secondly a leftover square made for my 'dancing leaves' quilt. I have no idea what to do with this so thought that someone somewhere might be able to use it!

Finally some scrappy bits of grey leaves again left over from my grey and lilac quilt.

If you would like to enter please say hello! I will post all over the world and will leave comments open until Sunday morning UK time.

festival of quilts

I went to the festival of quilts today at the NEC. I am really lucky - I only live 15 mins away by car. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no pictures of the amazing quilts on display - boo! There were of course endless shops full of all manner of goodies, droolworthy sewing machines, interesting gadgets and endless quilting books and patterns to enjoy. I found some new bits to add to my growing aqua and red stash:

and some Paula Prass cobblestones just because:

I have however come away from the show not exactly disappointed but a bit unfulfilled I suppose (sounds a bit melodramatic - I still had a really fun day!). I think it was because much of the fabric was very traditional (nothing wrong with that - it's just not always my thing) and lots of it was fabric and designers I could get easily online. There was very little in the way of new, rare or unusual. I did however find this UK designer and fell in love with her origami fabric. Isn't it great!

I am off with the family camping and LARPing. I have been busy making costume for my son over the last few days but ran out of time for photos. I will have to take some whilst we are away. Have a great weekend!