Mouthy Stitches Swap

I got a parcel yesterday at work. I couldn't quite fathom what it could be, yes I'd ordered loads of fabric recently, but it was not due to arrive for at least a week or so. And then it struck me. You know that swoon pouch I sent off to its new home? Well something was sent off to me too! (Yes Laura, that's how a swap works... remember?)


All I could think when I opened the parcel was "Are you frickin kidding me??!" (in a good way, that is).

The whole way through the swap I saw this developing from idea to fabric choices to realization. And the whole way through the swap I wanted it. I didn't think I could be so lucky, but it turns out I was. Are you jealous?? I would be... Just look at those fussies! Panda's and hedgehogs and flowers, oh my!

This pouch was made by the lovely Nikki, over at Sew Quine. She has a gorgeous blog, full of lovely makes and beautiful photographs. I do suggest you pop over and say hi!


I don't really have the right words for just how divine this pouch is, it's made to the highest standard... it has a lovely sturdy feel without being stiff, and the seams and zipper ends are just perfect. Waaaaaay better than anything I could hope to achieve! And the stitching, oh my the stitching. Its incredible. Beautiful even.

My arm isn't that hairy usually... 

As if the pouch-of-perfection wasn't enough, Nikki also sent this glorious bunch of scraps! I think we must have similar tastes, because I love all of these! Especially that little green leaf print, bottom left, does anyone know what it is?

As you can tell, I'm a happy bunny! I'm yet to hear my swoon pouch has arrive safely, it should have got to its destination yesterday or today... fingers crossed!

Saturday

I'm sat here in bed, enjoying my only lie-in of the week, and I cant sleep. I'm being mauled by cats. Cats that are hungry. So I get up, feed said cats, make myself a delicious cappuccino, and come back to bed. I try to get back to sleep, but now I'm being mauled by cute cats that want a cuddle.


Give up. Turn on the laptop, blog.


I'm thinking about my "to-sew" list. Not the Bucket List of quilts I'll make someday, but the list of things that need to be sewn like, now. It doesn't seem to be going down!


I really wanted to start on my Brit Bee quilt yesterday, but it wasn't in the cards. Instead, I made 6 granny squares before breakfast:

I adore this pattern! It works with any kind of colour scheme and print. I've notice though, that I prefer them with light centres. The top middle green, aqua and grey is for me, but I much prefer how the blue one looks. 

These are for the 4x5 Bee, and again this quarter  4 people had similar colours. They're not due for a while, but I wanted them out the way. Since we're swapping 12.5" blocks I did have to sash these. I like them as a single block sashed, but a whole quilt like that would not work!


It was a smidge late for breakfast now, but its never to late for eggs. Poached eggs, my favourite. They turned out pretty perfect actually... I have a secret technique :-)

Then I started on another commission quilt. This time its a baby quilt for a little boy. His dad is a pilot, so I started with Ready Set Go Planes by Robert Kaufman. Its organic, so it has a lovely feel. Silky and supple.

I pulled a stack of fabrics that I thought picked out the aqua, green and orange, and also continued the spots and stripes theme of the print. Then I cut 2 squares from each print and made some 5.75" HST's (I had intended them to be 6", but a couple were on the small side... what's a quarter inch between friends anyway?).

I quickly sewed these up into a top, and Bob's your uncle. As they say.

It was at this point (about 5pm) that I broke my very last sewing machine needle, realised I'd forgotten to buy more, and I also didn't have any basting spray, or suitable backing. Gah. Looked like the quilt wasn't going to get finished. 


I did the only sensible thing after a long day sewing... cleared up (in a fashion), made some dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and watched Criminal Minds reruns. And that, my friends, was my Saturday.

Paper - Winners

The winners of the Fat Quarterly Issue 8 - Paper are:

Congrats Lynda and Janelle, I will be emailing you with your patterns later today!

Excuse me while I swoon again

It official. I'm actually mad.


I mini-swooned again.

Yep, thats a penny.

This time I made it into a pouch, for my partner in the mouthy stitches swap. I tried to get a sort of colour wheel thing going, but picking prints was so difficult! I am seriously lacking in the tiny print department. Like with the gold seeds, one of my favourite prints ever, it just doesn't do it justice!

So the pouch is mostly linen, its about 9" square, with a 7" cherry red zip. I lined it in the same orange Moda Chrysalis print that you can just about see on the zipper tabs.


Oh the zipper tabs! This was the part of the pouch I was most scared of! And while they are not perfect, or perfectly even, I am pretty proud of how they turned out, considering some of the shocking ones I've made before!

I perled to my hearts content on this one, picking out the 4 primary colours (yes, I know green isn't a primary... lets gloss over that shall we?) around the outside and inside of the swoon block, and again on the back.

I really like the back. Its simple, just using a few of the left over teeny tiny HST's for a pop of rainbow loveliness.

There might be another mini swoon in my future, because I seriously love this. Can you imagine how great 9 rainbow mini-swoons would look together in a mini quilt? I'm not sure I  have the strength for 9 more though, so maybe just one more, for a pouch, for me!


I hope my partner loves this as much as I do!

Paper - A giveaway!

Today I bring you a giveaway I am more than a little excited about!

As y'all know I am quite the fan of foundation paper piecing.

{Exhibits A B and C}

Last week the latest issue of Fat Quarterly was released and its all about paper and its incredibly infinite applications! I've leafed through my copy several times and there are some truly inspiring projects in there. I think I'm gonna start with the clock:

And I have dreams (waaaay above my status  ability) of one day achieving something like this from my scraps:

Thanks to the lovely guys and gals at Fat Quarterly, I have 2 copies of Issue 8 to giveaway to 2 lucky readers.


Just leave me a comment below telling me which style of paper piecing is your favourite, foundation, freezer or English.


This is a follower appreciation giveaway, because there quite a few of you now, and I appreciate every single one of you :-)  If you are a follower, you get an extra entry, simples!


I'll draw the giveaway sometime next Wednesday. Make sure you have an email I can contact you by!


P.S. If anyone doesn't know about the Fat Quarterly Community Retreat yet, a) where have you been?! and b) there are still tickets left... go get one, stat!!

The fun has well and truly started in the Flickr group... we've got name label swaps, Fat Quarter swaps, some people have even started making their own luggage! I'm so excited to meet you all in London Baby!

Fugly Winners!

As in, the winners of the fugly fabrics... not that they themselves are fugly ;-)



Winner of the purple and green ensemble is Camile:

Winner of the florals is Sallie:

Winner of the blocks is Ella:

I'll send you all an email sometime today!

Modern Mini Challenge - Blog hop

Hello friends, old and new! Welcome to my stop on the Modern Mini Blog Hop!

♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Valentines Day ♥ ♥ ♥

I was thinking about making a valentines themed mini for you today, but I was hit by a sudden wave of inspiration and went off in a different direction... you'll see!

First of all, what is a mini?

Well for me, its anything bigger than a coaster, and smaller then a baby quilt. I've made some teeny tiny mini's that are more like mug-rugs really. And some big big mini's that finish about 24x24".

Why make a mini?

I love the fact that you can practice a little bit of a technique, without committing to a full size quilt. Most of the mini's I've made have been for other people actually, so they are really good for swapping, or showcasing a particular style or design element.

My favourite mini?

Well, it used to be this one, that I made for the first round of the Brit Quilt Swap, last summer. I love the movement and the colours. I love the quilting, and I love all the scrappy prints. This one is big though, at about 22x22.

But, ladies and gents, I might now have a new favourite. Its a mini swoon!

I made this block last week as a trial for the mouthy stitches swap, and I knew all along I would turn it into a mini for me. Its barely 9 inches square, but full of awesomeness. I quilted it simply, with just 3 lines of perle, and bound in a black pinstripe. Don't you just love it??

I actually think you need to see this picture, to get a really good idea of the scale:

This is mini swoon chillin' like Bob Dylan with regular swoon. Mind blowing huh?

So... I hope you've all been inspired to get busy creating some mini masterpieces! I can't wait to see them all in the contest! 

Just in case you've not seen before, look at the crazy awesome incentives:

Source: fatquartershop.com via Laura Jane on Pinterest

Prizes:

Both Viewer’s Choice Winners will receive a fat quarter bundle of the FULL LINE of Flea Market Fancy reprint by Denyse Schmidt.

OMG!!!

James’ Choice Winner will receive a $100 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop

DOUBLE OMG!!!

Both Luck of the Draw Winners will receive a $75 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop

OMG OMG OMG!

Thank you Jennifer for organising such a fun Blog Hop!

I hope to see you all soon for the linky party!


P.S. Come back tomorrow for an awesome giveaway ;-)

Solids - A finshed quilt!

In an unusual turn of events, I have finished a quilt. Not unusual because it is finished, but because there is not one print in sight! I thought I would find it really boring when it was finished, but you know, I actually think its awesome.

The sun was not playing nice for the photoshoot, so the colours look a little off here.

Its so different working with solids. The layout/pattern is everything I think. Equilateral triangles are actually really interesting to look at. Your brain tries to rationalise the shapes you are seeing, and picks a million and one different things out from the jumble of colours. For example, I keep seeing snowy topped mountains, radioactive symbols and hexagons of all shapes an sizes.

This quilt was done on commission, through my etsy store, for a lovely lady in Canada. She was very specific about the colours that she wanted, which was actually really helpful. I didn't have to second guess myself too much, which I do all the time when making for others.

I straight line quilted either side of the diagonal lines, but not the horizontal ones, to create a diamond lattice pattern on the back. I really like this aspect, and I think it ties in with the bold geometric feel of the front.

One thing I did notice about using only solids is that it creates a much stiffer and heavier quilt. It must just be down to the weight of the fabric. My Love Bento quilt is much much heavier and stiffer than my Snowball Quilt and they are about they same size. I think personally, I prefer the softer quilts, but at least you can tell it is good quality fabrics.

I'm kind of dreading how much the postage on this will be, from the UK to Canada. Does anyone have any experience? (Paging Susan here!) 

Fugly Fabric Party

I'm having SUCH a laugh reading everyone's posts about their fugly fabric, so I had a little dig around in my stash and found you some delights!


These lovelies are free to a good ANY home. Should the crazy situation occur where more than one person wants them, I'll let Mr RNG decide next week.


Okay, to open the bidding we have this delightful set of FQ's in the popular purple and green colour way. My 2 favourite colours... who knew they would make such an awful paring in fabric.

Secondly, we have these 2 beautifully floral FQ's. The blue one has some chunks missing... oddly I can't even remember what I used it for. They're not all that bad actually, just not my style.

And finally, after reading Fiona's posts I thought I would offer these partially sewn quilt blocks. I had every intention of making them into a baby quilt, but I kinda went off the idea.

Some are sewn, some are not so sewn... I got the idea from the one yard wonders book; cut a yard of stripy fabric into strips, make some HST's and sew them back together. Sadly, it just didnt float my boat. The green and yellow are much more vibrant in person, by the way.


So, if on the off chance anyone does want these, just leave me a conment below! (make sure you leave your email if you are a no reply blogger). Also, check out all the others in the linky party, because its down-right hilarious.