busy doing nothing

Well nothing blog related that is! I always knew I would be a sporadic and occasional blogger but only three posts this year? Oops! I am very busy with work, family and the allotment so sewing has come last place of late. Bee blocks are still being made, which will result in enough blocks to make at least two if not three quilts in the winter when outdoor demands are a lot less.

Here are a few blocks - all bee ones apart from the scrappy 2 inch square block. This is a very long term project to try and bring control to my stash and use up all those scraps!

Well I am not sure when I will be back - I might try to manage two posts in July but no promises :-)

time flies

I cannot quite believe it has been a month since I last posted - where does the time go? November was a very busy month - four family birthdays, report writing, mock exams to mark, sewing to do..... the list goes on. To top it all my work was given an inspection last week so I have been beyond busy. All that is done now thank goodness, so I am hoping that I can now finally concentrate on some serious sewing in the run up to Christmas.
I have got a fair bit done already though - have a look and see what I have been up to!
Bee blocks:






A quilt for a birthday boy:



and a quilt top in progress:



Right - I better get back to it! Happy sewing to you all this weekend!

Halloween and harvest

So I have finally gathered in all the pumpkin and squash from the allotment - don't they look pretty?



I made a table runner for Halloween. I am not a huge fan of orange and black, but adding the purple works really well! We don't go trick or treating but always light a fire, have a lantern and a special meal. (usually a Chinese - not very traditional I know but our favourite!) When I was growing up the lantern was always a swede picked from the field next to the house (my dad was a farmer). Boy oh boy they were hard to carve! I always kept the swede carving tradition going when I left home, but when I got an allotment I did decide that as long as I had grown the pumpkin myself I could use one! So the last couple of years we have had pumpkin lanterns, much to my relief :-)



Finally here is some vintage bunting I was lucky enough to find at a car boot sale in the summer. The youngest it can be is from the 1950's as one of the flags is an Australian flag with a red background instead of the blue we see today. Apparently the red background was used in Australia a fair bit during the first world war but by the 1950's the blue one had become the main flag. Fascinating stuff! I love to think that those little flags might have been used in a village hall to celebrate the end of the war, summer fairs, Christmas, the coronation.... the list goes on! The bunting was damp and covered in mildew when I got it, but after a very gentle hand wash it came up good. I am going to turn a number of the flags (some of them are damaged) into a patchwork cushion for my sister and brother in law. Watch this space!

progress

Six blocks made for my hive peeps in the 3x6 mini bee:

Two more rows added to my ever growing eye spy quilt:

Yipeeee! I nearly have a quilt top! I am on a bit of a roll at the moment - I hope your sewing is going as well!

Shhhhh - top secret!

No sewing from me alas, but look at the pretties sent to me by my Bee peeps. These six fabulous blocks are to be added to the eye spy quilt I am making for my two year old, courtesy of the 3x6 mini bee:


These beauties are the start of the top secret star wars quilt I am making for my soon to be seven year old and are from the Euro Bee:

I am very excited about making these two quilts. The eye spy quilt isn't so top secret, but the eldest has no idea I am making him a star wars quilt - I will be doing some late night sewing when he is abed to get it completed for Christmas. Oops, sorry - I said the C word :-)

My UFO list

I can no longer deny it. I don't have a pile of WIPs (works in progress) but UFOs (unfinished objects). I have decided to take the plunge and write a list of everything I have started. With the exception of a birthday present at the end of June I cannot start anything new until my UFO list has gone down a bit.

robot and dog quilt

furoshiki

nursery decoration

cushion covers

project linus quilt

top secret quilt for my eldest (so secret I haven't blogged about it in case he sees!)

That should keep me busy for a while! In case you were wondering, the quilt in the photo is definitely a WIP - it is my ongoing project courtesy of the 3x6 Mini Bee on Flickr. I love love love this Bee, it is such a clever idea. Every three months we make six identical blocks for 6 people using our own fabric and the colour scheme they suggested. I have been requesting all colours and fabric to make an eye spy quilt for my littlest. This is the result of Round 1, a couple of blocks from my mother in law and a couple of blocks made by me. Isn't it fab? By the end of the year it should be complete. Right, I am off to tackle something on my list!

a perfect weekend

My weekend was lovely and calm, spent sewing, digging on the allotment, playing with my boys and being spoilt on mothering sunday with a lie in, roast dinner and a bubble bath! For the first time in a good while I did not have any job work to do so I could get on with more fun stuff. As well as digging over five beds ready for potatoes I started on a quilt for a boy, using some funky dog prints and lots of orange. I think this one will be a keeper - I am loving the fabric too much to give it away!

I also completed the March block for the Euro Bee. The brief was no angles, curves or wonkiness. I love the soothing nature of the colours Concha has chosen. All in all it was a perfect weekend!

puppy dogs tails

There has not been a lot of sewing going on round here at the moment due to work getting in the way, but I did manage to have a go making string blocks for the Euro Bee. It was my first time using paper and it was not half as scary as I thought it would be! Here is the tutorial I used.


I also got a start on a wall hanging I have been wanting to make my little one for ages. The background fabric is made by comfortstitching and is based on the rhyme 'slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails - that's what little boys are made of! Isn't it adorable! I hope everyone is having a good week so far - bye for now!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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!

Prints Charming

I have finally done it. After weeks of stroking and admiring I cut into my stash of prints charming and started sewing. It is destined to be a little quilt for my baby niece. I may have a hard time giving it up however. I adore this fabric. What is it about Australia? Is there something in the water? There are the most amazing designers out there coming up with the most wonderful fabric. I have just come across Saffron Craig and I NEED some of her dandelion circles fabric to go with my Prints Charming baby paisley in taupe. Luckily I have found a shop in the UK that sells it so if money allows this month I will be getting some. I am off visiting family in Devon for a few days so am taking a quilt to finish off -there is just the hand sewn bit of the binding to go on my grey and lilac quilt. See you next week!

rainbows

I am easily distracted. My plan to work on my new purple and grey quilt went out the window and instead I have been having lots of fun playing with colour. I am part of this Flickr group and have been inspired by some of the wonderful ways people have been experimenting with changing fabric. Last night I had an idea to paint bleach onto fabric, so this morning I did just that! I am really happy with the results but would go for a thinner brush next time. I only had a chunky one belonging to my son to experiment with.



All I did was make up a water and bleach mixture and then paint it onto plain coloured cotton. If it did not change the colour enough I went over it again with neat bleach and left to develop for a while. Everything was then popped in the washing machine. I will be turning the results into a wall hanging of some description.



I also finished off this rag quilt for a 5th birthday present. Tomorrow I will be back on track with my purple/grey quilt, unless late night inspiration strikes again!

new

New fabric:


More new fabric:



New WIP:


So many possibilities!

kawaii quilt

This is my new wip. It is a pushchair/car seat quilt for my baby boy made using Japanese linens. The fabrics are very cute! I was lucky enough to discover this UK based Etsy store run by Stacy. She sells fabric in fat sixes which means I get to buy more designs for my money. Stacy is very helpful and her fabrics are wonderful! Here are a few of my favourites:

Mary Poppin boo pigs:


Russian dolls:


Coffee making mini bears:


Green Forest:



Little Red Riding Hood:


Alice in Wonderland:



My plan is to complete this quilt for the weekend before starting a grey and purple improv style one.