quilts and friends

Remember a while ago I showed you this mini quilt? It is now hanging up in the LMQG exhibition in the Brasserie (third floor) of John Lewis, Oxford Street. 

Don't they look great! I love that they are all so different and represent so many aspects of modern quilting.

I took the girls along to see them (and feel very proud and excited) and finally met up with my bloggy friend Flaming Nora, with the intention of having a proper grown up and civilised chat about sewing and crafty stuff. However four over excited children kept us on toes and I came away feeling like I hadly spoke to her, which always seems to be the way with little ones around.

It was great to put a person to the blog and Jane is exactly as I imagined, larger than life, funny and juggling more crazy projects than you can imagine. Generous too, she brought me this great notebook (gotta love a stamp) and a bag of scraps - you can never have too many... hooray! 

We all had a great day and Missy Big took a shine to the Ginger Ninja, I'm quite sure I saw her pinch his bum before we left... 

thank you ma'am

for 60 wonderful years 

Now I'm not really a huge royalist, but there has been something quite special about the Jubilee celebrations this year. People have come together and cheered and celebrated and really felt part of something quite magnificent.

I won't waffle on, but I've loved this Jubilee, and I don't want  this mood to end.  

We had a last minute party with just a few close friends. Which included 5 giggling girls making crowns.

A little too much cake...

and lots of happy memories.

Hope yours was as good. x

a tiny bit creative...

I seem to be frantically chasing my tail at the moment, I don't seem to have had a very productive week. I did manage a string of bunting though. Jubilee fever is taking over, I have more meringue nests than is really necessary now.

I also just signed up for this handprinted fabric swap, so many ideas, so little time...

More creative (and productive) spaces overe here. 

A winner!

Are you ready for a winner? This whole giveaway has been so exciting, I have been beside myself wanting to know who the winner will be. The number of comments and new followers is astounding, thank you all for joining in the fun!

Now this is the prize, in case you forgot...

and the winner, thanks to Random.org is...

which is Cherise, who said:

HA HA! and in her previous comment said  "I love making quilts! :)"

I will e-mail you Cherise, this has been so much fun! x

a little ray of sunshine

The second version of my little reversible apron top, I'm happy with the fit this time, so I'm ready to grade it now. After I made this top I took it to the LMQG and everyone wanted the pattern, so pretty soon I'll be able to share it with them.

Luckily we've had some sunshine too - finally! So little miss was happy to do some posing in the garden. She brought her own prop, the umbrella, she's getting used to this.

Linking up with our creative spaces and don't forget the giveaway if you haven't already entered - it finishes tomorrow night! 


A big hello to all my new followers too, lovely to have you all here, I'm actually feeling a little shy and overwhelmed writing this, I hope to get to know you a little bit soon. x

giveaway day

It's here, and it's massive. Giveaway Day, hosted by SewMamaSew and I'm organised enough to join in and GIVE this year!

I'll jump straight to the best bit - the goodies.

I know you all love this fabric - and thought it mean to keep it all to myself! 

you will get:

- 50cm / 19.5" of stamp fabric (142cm / 56" wide) this is quite a heavy weight cotton, great for cushions and bags 

- a fat quarter of purple cotton with lime spots

- a fat quarter of aqua fabric with lots of coloured spots

- 1m wine velvet ribbon

- 1m brown velvet ribbon

The nitty gritty - 

I will post internationally.

The giveaway closes on Friday at Midnight BST.

to enter:

  
leave me ONE comment telling me what you love to make the most (bags, clothes, quilts etc...)

And I love my followers, so if you are a follower (new or old) leave a SECOND comment telling me so.

If you are a no reply blogger or you don't have your e-mail address on your blog please include it in your comment so I can contact you if you're the lucky winner.

I will announce the winner by Sunday 27th May.

Don't forget to pop over to SewMamaSew to see all the other treasures being given away. Good luck!

GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED

winner can be found here

thanks for entering!

stitching

Somebody stole this week, I'm sure. How come it's Friday already? Just to prove to you (and me) that I have been doing something here's a snippet of the quilt that I am FINALLY quilting. I did some wobbly line quilting on the printed areas and I'm hand stitching on the blocks of colours in yellow, green and teal with cotton perle thread.

It's very slow, but very satisfying. Though I had to stop today as my finger tips are raw and brusied, I don't get on with thimbles, they just fall off or get in the way. 

I feel like I've cracked the hand quilting now (and letting go of trying to get it all perfectly even). I've found that if I work away from me (bottom to top) rather than from right to left, as I would normally hand stitch, it all works out nicely.

Linking up with our creative spaces, oh and I have a yummy giveaway on Monday - make sure you pop back, I think you'll like it! 

Happy weekend people, x

a thoroughly modern mini

We have a monthly challenge at the LMQG, this month saw us all try our hardest, to make a 12" square mini quilt that represents what Modern Quilting means to us. 12 of them will be exhibited in the Bistro at John Lewis, (a large department store) in Oxford Street throughout June.

Yep, we all pulled out all the stops for this one. It's going to be hard to choose which ones to vote for though.

This is my entry, and I'm rather pleased with it. If it's not one of the chosen ones, I promise I won't mind. I love it anyway.

I used freezer paper and hand appliqued the circles and then hand quilted the circles in lots of juicy colours.

I also got to use my hand screen printed yummy labels.

Now that's done I intend to start quilting my actual quilt, it's been basted for quite a while but I have been a little afraid to start it, and wasn't sure how to quilt it. I'm still not, but the fear is subsiding.

Linking in with Freshly Pieced and our creative spaces, in it's new home. What's on your crafty table right now? 

just a week late...

Remember the red scrappy panel I made? I did make it into a dress for Missy Big last week, but was quite unimpressed with it. I thought it looked a bit long and it made me think of a night dress.

I wasn't quite sure how to fix it, I didn't want any fussy embroidery / trims on it, I didn't think any red any where else would balance out very well, what to do???

Eventually, with another try on and a bit of tweaking I added a channel to the inside, just below the waist, then threaded some elastic through.

Voila. It works. The pink fabric is lovely and drapey, I have no idea where it came from but it makes a great play dress. 

While you're here... do you fancy winning these lovely Laura Gunn fat quaters? Glenroy Designs are generously giving some away on the LMQG blog, and shipping internationally! You've got until Tuesday - quick!

screen printing, with Lucie Summers

You may already know that in January this year the London Modern Quilt Guild was founded by Annie. As a complete novice to quilting (and only having received my quilting 'essentials' for Christmas I signed up to join, all eager to learn...

Little did I know just what interesting things I would learn and what fabulous people I would meet along the way. The group itself is full of talented quilters, we meet once a month at Tricolette, a wonderful yarn and quilting shop. We have had a surprise guest - Moda designer Aneela Hoey, who also had a great time and it is so much fun to be around like minded people.

The latest adventure was on Sunday: a screen printing workshop with Lucie Summers. I have wanted to learn how to screen print for years and this was the most amazing opportunity.

Seven of us went to join Lucie at her workshop in Suffolk and she patiently explained how the screens are made, showed us how to screen print and then let us loose. 

We had all designed a Quilt Label and our very own screens were ready and waiting for us. Being super keen we all dived in and Lucie shared tips, gave advice and infused us with her passion for printing. 

As the day went on, Lucie then let us use some of her larger screens for some double printing. We got to use one of her designs and once it had dried, then printed our own design over the top. The combinations are endless and the effects on different fabrics with the juicy colours are fascinating. By the end of the session we had all got to grips with the techniques and were producing some impressive fabrics. 

I have a new obsession....

We also got to see 'that' quilt - it's stunning, and much bigger than I imagined it would be. Lucie's first collection with Moda is hitting the shops right now, get some while you can.

I will be back with some KCWC updates soon - I got sidetracked.