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!