We have a winner....
and number 13 is.....
Woohoo! Congratulations Ceri! Thanks to everyone who entered.
Now, I need to get back to my swap mamma-ing... I'm a right bossy cow apparently, who'da knew?!
a sewing cupboard that is...
Sunday 26 August 2012
Friday 24 August 2012
Kawaii and Kursing
My Fantabulous FQ giveaway of 9 KOKKA PRINTS and 2 SUMMERSVILLE PRINTS from the incredibly generous, lovely Celtic Fusion Fabrics has a little over 24hrs left if you havent entered already by leaving the word GIVEAWAY as a comment on my previous post. (click to visit)
There are also one or two spots left to fill for the Japanese Charm Swap too! Each swapper purchases one metre of a print and cuts it into 56 x 5" charms - the charms are sent to me, and in turn I send back a stack of 56 gorgeous different charms. If you'd like to take part leave a comment on my previous post saying SWAP (click will take you there)!
Just in case you needed any encouragement, have a look at what Helen did with just a fraction of what you could receive in the swap.
 |
| Made by Archie the Wonderdog |
In the meantime my man is home at the moment so I've been busy...
Fortuantely busy with sewing too! I've got 2 swaps to finish up in the next week.... *help!!* Its all been hand sewing so far (the thinking was to rest my hip, but holy cow my hands have objected...) and there's been a good bit of this....
 |
| Paper piecing the wrong sides together... |
but it is paying off as I am progressing now
And for the other swap, NOT FOR CHILDREN (or mum...)
I know, its not exactly obvious what its meant to spell out.... Part of that I'm hoping is down to the peelywally photo.... also partly cos I've only started filling in around the letters.....
And if it still proves to be a washout when its all pieced I'll see what a bit of Perle can do to help out....all the while probly shouting it out quite a lot...
Wednesday 15 August 2012
Charmed I'm sure
***SWAP AND GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED***
 |
| The Polaroid / I spy quilt I made with some of my charms from last years Japanese Charm Swap |
I love Japanese Import fabrics. I love teeeny tiny fairytale illustrations, sparkly nellies, the cutest of cutesie little animals, mental bizarro creatures, text prints, vintage labels.... Love it all. I love seeing what people make with them too. Especially when fussy cutting the dinky prints.
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| MADE BY ALI @ VERY BERRY HANDMADE |
These amazing wee booties were made by Ali who blogs at Very Berry Handmade. Aren't they fabulous?! Talk about getting the most from small bits of fabric, these are really beautiful.
But how do you get a good selection of prints to fussy cut?
Well let me
Last year Cindy hosted a Japanese Charm Swap for UK & Ireland. It was a stonking success! This year, I'm having a go at hosting.... Anyone want to play?
**swap now full**
Giveaway now closed.
Giveaway now closed.
Basic details - to participate you must have a flickr account and live in the UK or Ireland. To sign up leave me a comment saying you'd like to SWAP! Sign ups close on 25th August or when the swap is full. We need 28, but if lots of people are interested we could go up to 56. (and if we dont get 28 I'll go hide under the sofa for a few weeks...)
I would email the participants to invite them to join the all important Flickr Group. You'd have from August 26th to September the 26th to SHOP, CHOP AND MAIL YOUR SWAP!
Now here's a good bit....
All participants will also recieve a discount code for 10% off at Celtic Fusion Fabrics! *
Cool huh? Celtic Fusion Fabrics is a great British on line fabric shop, that has a lovely selection of Japanese prints - Cosmo, Kokka, Lecien. The service is always great and they do some lovely small bundles of 16ths and 8ths too.
And if that wasnt cool enough, lovely Gwen from Celtic Fusion Fabrics is also providing us with a celebratory giveaway!
11 Gorgeous Fat Quarters - thats 9 Fat Quarters of Kokka, and 2 co-ordinating Summersville!
So, to recap - If you're interested, leave me a comment (and dont be a no reply blogger!) Just say SWAP, or GIVEAWAY, or BOTH!!!
One comment only please, you dont need to follow me, but if you want to go visit Gwen at the Celtic Fusion Fabrics blog to get updates on new stock, sales and promotions click here. Gwen recently did a stunning post on how to wallpaper a wall with your favourite fabric! Wow.
Well, are you coming to play? Huh? Are you? Huh? Go on......
****EDIT*******
ATTENTION ALL U.S. READERS! Hop on over to Happier than a Bird Quilts as she has decided to host a Japanese Charm Swap just for you!
ATTENTION ALL U.S. READERS! Hop on over to Happier than a Bird Quilts as she has decided to host a Japanese Charm Swap just for you!
**** EDIT***
SWAP NOW FULL!
GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED!
GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED!
Saturday 11 August 2012
P's and needles...
I'm plotting and planning and paper piecing...
I'm working on my Brit Quilt Swap, and my Sailors Mouth Swap and fortunately both involve wielding a needle by hand as I'm in bed for a few more days. I had my hip injection a few days ago - another needle, but this one's more the size of a biro... I wont go into all the rotten details (did that in this post!!) But I will gross you out telling you that they had to mess up both of my hands to get the wee plastic tap thingy in, and my hands are actually hurting as much as my bloody hip!
Anyway. In the mean time, voting has started over at Lily Pad Quilting for the Pets on Quilts competition.
A lot of my favourite bloggers have entered their soft and fuzzies so I couldnt possibly ask you to vote for wee bubs... I'll just let her supreme cuteness do the talking.... (ha ha ha!!)
If you do want to do some voting you go to this page and you leave a comment with the number your favourite is at on this page. For instance,
Cat on Quilt # 61
Dog on Quilt # ...
I'll be back soon, and I'm hoping to come back with something special for you all..... fingers crossed eh.
I'm working on my Brit Quilt Swap, and my Sailors Mouth Swap and fortunately both involve wielding a needle by hand as I'm in bed for a few more days. I had my hip injection a few days ago - another needle, but this one's more the size of a biro... I wont go into all the rotten details (did that in this post!!) But I will gross you out telling you that they had to mess up both of my hands to get the wee plastic tap thingy in, and my hands are actually hurting as much as my bloody hip!
Anyway. In the mean time, voting has started over at Lily Pad Quilting for the Pets on Quilts competition.
A lot of my favourite bloggers have entered their soft and fuzzies so I couldnt possibly ask you to vote for wee bubs... I'll just let her supreme cuteness do the talking.... (ha ha ha!!)
If you do want to do some voting you go to this page and you leave a comment with the number your favourite is at on this page. For instance,
Cat on Quilt # 61
Dog on Quilt # ...
I'll be back soon, and I'm hoping to come back with something special for you all..... fingers crossed eh.
Friday 3 August 2012
Kurves and Kitty
I had such a good weekend... I went to Edinburgh (always a Good Thing) and met up with mum. We went to the cinema, which I haven't done in donkeys, and we saw "The Angels Share" - a filum with no explosions and a proper story!! So, so good... And on Sunday... Awe.Some.... Me and mum went to Jo's lovely shop for a sewing day with Katy, Fiona, Lynz and Julie. It was mum's first time meeting cool quilters, and it was my first time meeting Lynz and Julie too. That was especially nice!
Everyone was so lovely - I had cake and endless cups of tea, a braw lunch from the sandwich place round the corner, we all chatted sewing and fabric ALL DAY.... and I got to shop... It was such a brilliant day.
And as if it wasn't good enough, we went for dinner after and I got the tastiest pizza! I didn't get any photys, I'm not very good at remembering things like that really. Actually forgot to do any sewing whilst I was there too...
Naturally I've been a bit dozy this week. Lots of getting up and going back to bed. Had a doozy of a blank yesterday too, I was making a cup of tea, and I remember the kettle boiling and putting the teabag in my mug (my 500ml + mug). I think I remember filling my mug but I'm not that sure. Then I was standing there with an empty mug and some very wet clothes.... ouchy... Don't worry, it certainly woke me up and I was standing right next to a freezer handily full of bags of frozen fruits and veg etc and I got my first aid certificate when I was about 10... So I'm fine, no blisters, just a few red marks. All in a days sleep eh?
Sleepiness aside, I have managed to get wee bits of sewing done this week too. (drum roll please....)
First Time Ever... I'm the first in Brit Bee this month to post finished blocks! Amazing! This was Katys month and so I got my bee fabrics on Sunday. She picked a bundle of greys and aquas that had me itching to shop (such a toddler...I see, I like, I want....) and she wanted 2 retro flowers blocks. I'd seen lots of people doing the retro flowers quilt along, and its a beautiful block.
I painstakingly got all my curves sewn with only one unpick - another record! After a scary amount of trimming I got the blocks together with not toooo many unpicks...
Pretty huh? All my petal middles are really mismatched, and I don't really understand how that happened, but I was concentrating really hard on getting the edges of the petals to line up.... I think they look okay... Hope Miss August approves.
Something else Katy gave me a push to get on with was learning to do inset circles. I'd attempted to try it once before but given up half way through the tutorial and ended up with a sort of portholey reverse applique type thing. Anyway. Miss Thistle reminded me I only had a few days to do it, so I got stuck in.
Not too shoddy! I liked the method, but I used a lot less glue than they did and I still found it a bit too sticky! My favourite bit of the tute is where it says
"Peel and pop the fabric off the pattern to release the paper."
I did three of them and not once did the fabric "pop" off the paper... It just didn't want to shift at all! In all three it ended up being torn off in bits. And I was really really sparing with the glue, honest!
Aside from that though, I was quite happy with how it went, it was certainly speedy! I just might see if I can do without the glue? Or was I not supposed to use Loctite?
And finally (yes its fluff) there's a jolly little linkyparty / giveaway / competition going on a Lily Pad Quilting, called Pets on Quilts! How could I *not* enter little Ellsabub?? (Sorry Hadley, Cat on Quilt photos coming up...) Well, I got the camera out, but this was the view....
Not the prettiest pic of cat or quilt. So I stuck the camera under the quilt and stole a photy before she complained.
That's my cutie!!!
And here's a few more just for fun...
So, I'm linking up, do go have a look here and see if Ells is as cute as the other entries ;-)
Everyone was so lovely - I had cake and endless cups of tea, a braw lunch from the sandwich place round the corner, we all chatted sewing and fabric ALL DAY.... and I got to shop... It was such a brilliant day.
And as if it wasn't good enough, we went for dinner after and I got the tastiest pizza! I didn't get any photys, I'm not very good at remembering things like that really. Actually forgot to do any sewing whilst I was there too...
Naturally I've been a bit dozy this week. Lots of getting up and going back to bed. Had a doozy of a blank yesterday too, I was making a cup of tea, and I remember the kettle boiling and putting the teabag in my mug (my 500ml + mug). I think I remember filling my mug but I'm not that sure. Then I was standing there with an empty mug and some very wet clothes.... ouchy... Don't worry, it certainly woke me up and I was standing right next to a freezer handily full of bags of frozen fruits and veg etc and I got my first aid certificate when I was about 10... So I'm fine, no blisters, just a few red marks. All in a days sleep eh?
Sleepiness aside, I have managed to get wee bits of sewing done this week too. (drum roll please....)
First Time Ever... I'm the first in Brit Bee this month to post finished blocks! Amazing! This was Katys month and so I got my bee fabrics on Sunday. She picked a bundle of greys and aquas that had me itching to shop (such a toddler...I see, I like, I want....) and she wanted 2 retro flowers blocks. I'd seen lots of people doing the retro flowers quilt along, and its a beautiful block.
I painstakingly got all my curves sewn with only one unpick - another record! After a scary amount of trimming I got the blocks together with not toooo many unpicks...
Pretty huh? All my petal middles are really mismatched, and I don't really understand how that happened, but I was concentrating really hard on getting the edges of the petals to line up.... I think they look okay... Hope Miss August approves.
Something else Katy gave me a push to get on with was learning to do inset circles. I'd attempted to try it once before but given up half way through the tutorial and ended up with a sort of portholey reverse applique type thing. Anyway. Miss Thistle reminded me I only had a few days to do it, so I got stuck in.
 |
| I used this tute (click here!) |
Not too shoddy! I liked the method, but I used a lot less glue than they did and I still found it a bit too sticky! My favourite bit of the tute is where it says
"Peel and pop the fabric off the pattern to release the paper."
I did three of them and not once did the fabric "pop" off the paper... It just didn't want to shift at all! In all three it ended up being torn off in bits. And I was really really sparing with the glue, honest!
Aside from that though, I was quite happy with how it went, it was certainly speedy! I just might see if I can do without the glue? Or was I not supposed to use Loctite?
And finally (yes its fluff) there's a jolly little linkyparty / giveaway / competition going on a Lily Pad Quilting, called Pets on Quilts! How could I *not* enter little Ellsabub?? (Sorry Hadley, Cat on Quilt photos coming up...) Well, I got the camera out, but this was the view....
Not the prettiest pic of cat or quilt. So I stuck the camera under the quilt and stole a photy before she complained.
That's my cutie!!!
And here's a few more just for fun...
So, I'm linking up, do go have a look here and see if Ells is as cute as the other entries ;-)
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