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(