Off to France

This is the only basting I will be doing over Christmas as we are off skiing to La Plagne. There is lots of the white stuff there already, so should be lots of fun. I just hope the Chalet Girl/Boy can cook!!!!



I'll be stitching these in Manchester airport and on the transfer coach. They are all together in here. Thanks Emily :o)

A tale of 2 bags

I made this for my friend Kath as I encouraged her to take part in the Samelia's Mum Name Game mini quilt swap.....Kath made a lovely quilt for her partner...but never received a quilt in return.  It was going to be a quilt....but I thought the bag would be more useful!

Then I made this cute little bird bag from a paper pieced pattern I was testing for Kristy over at Quiet Play. 


She has some great patterns, sushi and fire engines and a little house, including a free one of a Lego Man! and a Lego head! all made into a Lego play mat - brilliant.

....and I finally finished this Ayumi lunch bag....for me.  If you read my Liberty Blue blog you will know that Kath and I had a sewing day back in October... but it has taken me this long to find some ribbon.

...and what is this?????? It is supposed to be a Christmas wreath.  I made it from 2 old t-shirts at quilt club.....everyone else made a normal looking one with holly and leaves, pine cones etc.... I wish I had taken some leaves as theirs looked far better than mine....but mine will last longer...just need some silver bells on it?????

Super Scrappy Swap

I was happy to see that my partner in the Scrappy Swap also liked Heather Ross, Pearl Bracelet and put a picture of a Needle Case in her mosaic, so these are what I made for Angela D.

The Travel Sewing Kit is from a tutorial by Amy at Lots of Pink Here blog. It is a great tutorial and there is also a patchwork version.  The things I changed was to do a single fold binding and I added a little pocket for a needle threader.  I also made the quilted outer a little longer as the dense quilting made it shrink a bit, I trimmed it to size after quilting. I also couldn't bring myself to stitch through the dogs as they are so cute.

There is also a large divided pocked on the right  - not in the photo.


I then made a matching thread catcher from this tutorial from Needling Things (Thanks Jan for the idea!).  The covered buttons are great - one is just a normal button covered in a gathered circle of fabric.


I'd had an idea for the Pearl Bracelet fabric, but I only had a couple of charm squares, just enough for a matching mug rug. I think I made it similar to the "Porthole" technique - by putting an extra plain charm square on top and then sewing the circle, trim to 1/4 inch and turned it through, I repeated this to get the 2 circles.


Then I saw what Angela had made for her partner...a 241 Heather Ross bag, far more than was required by the swap and so generous of her.  I have never been in a swap where you make for each other, but like 39 others in the swap I hoped the bag would be landing on my door step - as Angela had made something so fantastic, I then made a Turtle pincushion to complete the set.  This wasn't an easy pattern to follow, but I will also now be making the larger Turtle sewing kit that goes with it as I loved it so much.  He has arrived safely in California and has a happy home with Angela :o)



The picture above is from the Craft Passion Sewing Tutorial. The bottom shell of the big turtle holds needles etc....brilliant! I want one!

So what did my partner send to me...... I was the luckiest girl in the swap as Angela did turn out to be my partner...and had been stalking my Flickr photos. When I had to make the mosaic for the swap, my computer was broken and so I used the same one as my Modern She Made, with some added notes - never in this World did I think I would receive a 241 bag in the Scrappy Swap! Not only a 241 but so gorgeously made with loads of Heather Ross.  I love the artist and also the cat looking at the Timothy Fish in a Bag! We also had to include scraps (Wow more HR) and a local item, and as we love the sea and surfing Angela sent some stickers from her local surf shop - we might go there one day! I bet the water is warmer than in Cornwall.


Double sided and big camper van pockets!

The above 2 photos have been stolen from Angela :o)
So thanks again to Kat and Karen for organizing the swap and a massive thanks to Angela for being the perfect partner.

M is for Make Scrap Roll

These scrap rolls are from M is for Make.  They tend to fall in your basket while looking around.  They cost £2.50 each, but these were 20% off and so I ordered 4. I bought them as I'm seriously lacking in fabric variety/scraps....I guess you have to make things to end up with scraps left over!

 A yard of scraps for £8 and this is what was in there in case you are thinking of ordering one...or two....or three!
Roll No 1.

Roll No 2.

Roll No 3.

Roll No 4.


I've put these together as a co-ordinated selection from the fabrics above. I 'm thinking I might make a cushion cover with them, but not sure what pattern to use so that I can make the most of these bits.

PS I copied tese photos from Picassa instead of uploading them to Flickr and then copying the HTML code like I usually do - they look a bit big? There has to be a faster way for me to blog a few pics :o(

Modern She Made Swap 2

Here is the finished cushion cover I made for my swap partner, Moira, who blogs over at Kettleboiler.  I used the Lynnebob Square Pants block and tried to make it look like a blue square was lying over an orange one...making green where they mixed, but I'm not sure that it worked.  I surrounded it in some lovely navy linen and finished it with a zip using this tutorial on MissMake.  I loved the way the zip went in and I will use this tutorial again.


I made this Liberty fabric hoop as a little extra.  It is inspired by the 365 hoops that Lucky Jackson made over a year. If you haven't seen them then take a look at the blog here or in the Flickr group there are some fantastic designs and some of the embroidery patterns are for sale in her Etsy shop.
My swap partner was Celine who blogs at EspritPatch and I received this lovely Sunny Spiral Star cushion cover and some yummy Lindt chocolate....which unfortunately was eaten before it made it into the photo.  The quilting is amazing as it is a spiral in variagated thread.  I love the colours and particularly liked the fact that it wasn't white and so will stay clean a lot longer. Celine even added piping around the  edge, a great finishing touch...that I have not yet tried!

This was a lovely swap to be in and I had fun stalking my partner and reading her blog.  Swaps are a great way to try out new things and make stuff that you wouldn't normally try.  There are lots of ideas in the Modern She Made Flickr Group of what I might make in the future. This map of the UK cushion in particular is going to a lucky partner, and Lee hopefully might produce a pattern for it soon.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/75640191@N07/8207369938/

Shopping

I got this book from the library.....it's by Cassandra Ellis who is a designer originally from New Zealand but now based in London.


......so that saved me some money as I didn't buy any magazine...... So I bought a Rob Ryan Calendar. This picture is so me! They also had it on a bag.... But it was far too expensive.



.....and I also bought this daylight Ottlite for £28 from Amazon. They had them in the quilt shop for £48 and so I thought it was just what I needed. It's been great for sewing in bad light and also for taking photographs. The base and shade are plastic and so even though its bigger than I expected, it's still quite portable.

Heather Ross Buttons

How cute are these?

Remember Them

52 killed this year.....

Riverside Quilters Exhibition

Today I went along to a local quilt exhibition on Saltash. Riverside Quilters meet in the Ashtore Rock Centre right underneath the bridge. They had a variety of traditional quilt and quite a few made from Jelly Rolls.
Here are a few of them


Each block in this sampler quilt was had pieced.


I have a Celtic cushion I started about 10 years ago and never finished!





Tim liked the fabrics in this one....






This is very clever and a great visual effect.


This was a block of the month quilt.





..... And I loved all these birds - I think there are 12 different ones, including owls and woodpeckers.






I avoided the sales stalls, but I did buy a few/lots of magazines.... So that's my evening sorted. I've also got Kirstie's vintage home recorded too....... And some hand embroidery to finish.
Random double full rainbow in Mylor last week. I love rainbows.

Swap Shop and TGIFF

After missing out on the Mouthy Stitches 2 bag swap....and being rejected from another swap as I hadn't done enough swaps.......bit like trying to get a job when you have never had one.... I found a few other swaps to join in.
The very cute embroidery above was created for me by Jo, down in New Zealand - thanks Jo - It is so me, as I still love Pooh Bear. This was part of the Phat Quarter Embroidery Swap on Flickr.
My partner Lyndzi said she had a love for subversive, offensive stitchery and gave me a few other clues.  As I am not very good at creating things from scratch, I found a suitable embroidery on Craftster and made a "Toy Bag" for Lyndzi. It has been to America and back and then back again....and it has finaly arrived.  Unfortunately Lyndzi gave me the wrong postcode...but amaizingly it arrived back on my doorstep! praise for the postal system...for once!
Click here to see the bag in my Flikr ONLY IF YOU WILL NOT BE EASILY OFFENDED!

Here is a small clue as to what I made



and on the back


I also joined the Modern She Made swap and here is my mosaic.


and here is what I have made so far for my partner....i'm not too sure about it.....so I might change my mind. It is a Lynnebobsquarepants block for a pillow.


I have also joined in the Scrappy Swap with Flutter Kat, but I've not started sewing that one yet...though I have found a lovely tutorial for the thing I am going to make....sorry can't say too much just yet!
My big finish this week was my Pirate Quilt in the previous post, so if you are over from Lucy, Charm About You for the TGIFF Party, please go and have a quick look.

Worn And Washed Workshop

Earlier this year Kim Porter, the creator of Worn and Washed, asked for name suggestions for one of her new recycled fabric rolls. As the rolls are made from recycled shirts, tablecloths and bedding, I suggested "Washday Blues". Kim liked this idea best and invited me to one of her workshops in Olney, near Milton Keynes. Olney is a beautiful village and great to look around, with lots of individual, vintage shops and some lovely cafes.  We stayed on a Caravan Club CL site on a farm about a mile from the village.
The day is based around a roll, which is 5" wide, and produced a quilt roughly 50" x 60". The pieces from the roll can be quickly sewn together in strips and by the end of the day you end up with a quilt top. Some of the ladies worked super fast and they managed to get their quilts basted and some had booked 2 days and so had the luxury of the Sunday to finish them off.
Kim sells the rolls at quilt shows, on line and also in the Liberty Shop. Also there is a Worn and Washed Quilt Show in Olney in the Spring.




Kim asked which colours we would like and some chose some super soft flannel fabric.








The fabric strips could easily be cut in half lengthwise to add variety, or even cut into 5" squares.






I would credit the lovely ladies that made these, but we were all far too busy sewing and eating cake to chat. Oh yes, there were lots if yummy cakes and a lovely lunch too!
I have had the Syko Frosty Baby Quilt from the Scandinavian Stitches book on my list to do for a while, so I asked Kim if it would be possible to have blue and white background fabric. Kim was extremely helpful during the day, providing me with fabric pieces in a variety of widths. Also when I had a disaster as I trimmed one strip section too narrow Kim was on hand with a good suggestion.
By the end of the day I had turned my pile of used shirts and sheets into this.....


It is about 55" x 70" so I had to scale up the fox, trees and the birds. Thanks to Karen at Listen to the Birds Sing, I had a variety of greens and so I decided to piece the trees - which still need trunks.


I also thought I'd add some small embroideries from the Doodle Stitching book by Aimee Ray to add a bit of interest in the sky. If you have not visited Aimee's blog and need some embroidery tips, she has some great tutorials on there.


So tonight I will be embroidering these while eating trick or treat sweets - unless the village kids are around!
Linking to WIP Wednesday and also to Lily's Quilts small blog meet up.