Babysitting circle quilt finish

Part one is here.

It's done.

And heading for a new home...

 ...with Project Linus

There are lots of good causes out there looking for quilts; I just chose the one that is closest in my part of the world.

 

Linking up with 100 Quilts for Kids

Cotton Blossom Farm giveaway winner...

...is

Which was:

Spooky or what - Sheila was my secret partner in the inaugural Brit Quilt Swap on Flickr.

Well done Sheila; I already have your details so I shall pass them on to Cotton Blossom Farm who will send you the lovely fabrics.

Thanks to everyone for playing along. I really enjoyed reading everyone's beach suggestions and hadn't really stopped to think there might be people out there that didn't like beaches!

Can't do a post without a quilty picture so here's a block I finished earlier in the week for Steph as part of the Simply Strings bee. I'm looking forward to seeing this one finished as she provided some fab fabric and I love the pattern.

For The Love Of Solids Swap

(The Cotton Blossom Farm giveaway is here)

I told myself I was going to take the summer off from swaps.

But I didn't.

I saw on Flickr a new swap being announced - For The Love Of Solids and I signed up.
As the name suggests, you could only make swap items using solids, not even a teeny weeny bit of  pattern.

I know.

I tried to be a rule-bender

When I posted a piccy of the fabrics I was going to use, which included a small bit of black and white cross-hatch fabric (which I'd told myself was not really a pattern, I got a polite email from one of the mamas telling me I couldn't use it.

I felt the design I was originally going to use would look pants without that cross-hatch fabric so it was back to the drawing board and I came up with this.

My partner didn't exactly ask for a snake (oh, OK, she never mentioned reptiles of any sort) but as I was putting it together I thought it looked a bit like a snake coiled up and when I had finished it I just felt it lacked something. Six metres of black ric-rac, one bit of red felt, one blue and one of those sticky on eyes raided for my daughters' art cupboard and it was a snake.

My partner said her favourite colour was cerulean. I'm not ashamed to admit I had to look that one up in the dictionary - it's quite a vibrant mid-blue. So I outlined Mr Snaky in cerulean Perle cotton and made sure that the colour gradation lingered a while on more cerulean than anything else.

I wish I'd taken a picture of the back now because it was just plain white with one band of colour to one side - cerulean.
It's reached it's new home and seems to have settled in quite well.


In return, this morning the postman knocked on the door and gave me a parcel from Karen who had made me this

I love those shots of colour - very pretty.
Let's have a close up.

I don't know if you can see but the density of the machine quilting is incredible.

You can also see it better on the back.

She also made me this lovely little pouch.

Not sure what I am going to do with but it will be used, rest assured. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, three different solid pieces of fabric but they've already disappeared into my sewing room.

All gratefully received thank you very much Karen.

I don't know about others in the swap but I struggled with all solids. I thought it would be a refreshing change from going pattern bonkers but it was hard. Each time I put a combination of colours together I wanted to add just a bit of pop to it by adding in a piece of patterned fabric. And for me, when the group was at the early stage and everyone was posting pictures of the fabrics they were going to be using, after a while there are only so many piles of solid fabrics that you can comment on and get whipped up into a frenzy about.

All in all, it was a well run swap with some lovely things made.

Thank you to swap mamas Elizabeth and Megan.

A Cotton Blossom Farm giveaway

I am always snuffling around the internet, looking at who is selling what when it comes to fabric.

A few days ago I stumbled across Cotton Blossom Farm.

If the name wasn't lovely enough, it was the website that got me. Call me shallow if you like, tell me I need to get out more but when you click on 'Add to shopping bag' on a fabric icon to order some of it, as if by magic, right before your eyes, it whooshes upwards into your basket.

I liked that.

I am clearly easily pleased.

Cathy is super friendly and has a really great range of the kind of fabrics I like, which they are adding to all the time.

Cathy is also super, super generous and would like to offer one of you a complete fat quarter set of the new Verandah collection by Amanda Murphy for Robert Kaufman Fabrics.

There is this:

And this:

And not pictured, Cathy will also be including the two other fabrics that complete the collection.

Cathy is willing to ship this generous giveaway to anyone, anywhere in the world. And if you are not lucky in the giveaway she is again, very generously offering a 15% discount off your first order with Cottom Blossom Farm if you type in the word FRESH100 at check out.

So, I like a simple giveaway as much as the next person, and simple it is.

1. Leave a comment telling me: if you could lie on a beach right now; the name of the beach and where in the world it is. (Got to get me some holiday ideas for next year!)
2. Second comment if you are already a follower.

Cathy is offering 21 fat quarters and even with my basic counting-on-fingers maths I have worked out that is over five yards.

I'll leave the giveaway open until 7pm Little Island time next Thursday 22 September, after which Mr Random Generator will work his magic.

Good luck.

Playing with words

I gathered all my fabric with words on and cut into them, making 60° triangles.

No big plan.

No worrying about dark and light placement.

Just cutting and sewing.

As ever, with all my images, you can click on them for a closer view.

I tried to add some interest by cutting different sized triangles. And added in some of my small and precious Heather Ross Munki Munki stash, again, just to give the eye some different things to see.

 Some are 60° triangles made up of four smaller triangles, some are the regular size I chose and a few are larger to show the text off better.

I think I'll add a few more rows and then sandwich it together and start quilting.

Logic dictates that I should machine quilt this one with nice simple rows diagonally either side of the seams.

I am not going to follow logic.

I am going to hand-quilt this one.

I may be a while.

"OMG, it's actually me"

Do you ever have that reaction when you enter a giveaway on a quilt blog, along with a vast number of other people and then a few days later up pops the results blog post in your Reader and you open it up and there is your name?

Admittedly it doesn't happen that often...or as often as I would like it to ;-)

But it did happen last month on the Sewmamasew blog. 

I won this.

Well actually that's not strictly true.

What I won was the chance to choose two co-ordinating fabrics which would be made up into my very own, made especially for me, iPad cover.


Not only is it a cover but it is also a stand.

I really genuinely do think this is such a good idea.

Going slightly off-topic on this one, when you first get an iPad you have to 'sync' it on iTunes. My husband has an iTunes account but I don't so we 'synced' it on his iMac. Unfortunately, what that has meant is that my email account on my iPad appears to have his name on it as the sender of the emails.

'I can live with that' I thought. Until that is I posted about the beautiful Japanese fabrics I bought. Leila
asked me what my plans were for the fabric. 'Heavy petting' I replied.
I think maybe getting an email from my husband mentioning heavy petting is perhaps something that I need to change.

If you think you'd like one too, Leah offers both the option of either having an iPad cover custom made, or you can purchase the pattern and make one yourself.

Thank you Leah, it's been a really great prize to win and I think you have done a wonderful job.

Oh, and she's also got a really informative blog chock full of useful information.

The cross-eyed spider's web quilt

I don't name my quilts.

Never have done.

Never will.

Up until now.

When I first posted my way of doing a spider's web quilt a couple of weeks ago someone who looked at it went and posted the link on a quilt discussion board and over about four days, more than 2,000 people came and had a look.

Up until this point, I had paid very little attention to the 'stats' link on the top right hand corner of your Blogger page. My interest was piqued though and you can click through to the sites that are sending traffic your way, which I did.

It was interesting. No one that clicked through on the discussion board to get here left a comment but a few did leave comments on the discussion board after they had been here.

One person said my quilt made her go cross-eyed.

So may I present to you the 'Cross-Eyed My Way Spider's Web Quilt'.

 It also made me realise that you can completely love something, yet it leaves others scratching their heads and thinking 'what was she doing?'

So if you are one of those, pop your sunglasses on and just embrace the possibilities of doing the spider's web quilt this way, rather than the interpretation you see before you!

I am still fascinated with that secondary shape that appears when you alter the traditional measurements of a spider's web block.

And I still think it makes for a more interesting movement across the whole quilt.

As anyone (I love this one by the way) who has ever made a spider's web quilt will tell you; it takes a long time to get a quilt of any reasonable size.

So although I have it in my mind to revisit this way of doing a spider's web quilt again (but with a more refined colour palette), it may be some time before I contemplate the marathon ahead.

I also love the back.

And luckily...I also love the front ;-)

My idea of a successful quilt show

There was this

Both daughters won their age section for 'paint a pebble.' £3 each. Kerching.

And there was this

Shall I resist the temptation to say the winner certainly knew their onions?

Plus this

And this

These really were ginormously huge

Although these were most definitely bigger

There were these

And lots of ones like these.

See the 'Hedge Veg' sign? Dotted all over the Little Island are road side stalls selling seasonal produce with a little tin in which to pop your money. Unfortunately, not everyone 'remembers.'

Yes I know I mentioned the word 'quilt' in the title of this post. Stick with me.

And there were tables of these

Yet more tents

Victory Row or Death 'Destined For Sunday Roast' Row?

With stuff in that I am clearly no expert on

But the best bit of all for me?

This bit

I'll leave you to ponder how many other entrants in the 'item of patchwork' category you think there might have been...