From me to you

Do you like this?

I LOVE it.

It came to me from Fiona at Poppy Makes. I love the stuff that she does, so much so that when she announced she was doing Pay It Forward, I was first in the queue to say 'yes please.'

What that now means, is that in return I have to Pay It Forward.

How does it work?

The first 3 people who comment on this post and say they want to play will get a handmade something from me.
It will be a surprise and it will arrive when you least expect it.
I will have 365 days to do it in...and please note...I won't be surprising you this side of 2012!

What's the catch?

To get a handmade present from me, you have to play too. This means YOU pledge to send a little handmade something to 3 readers of your blog (but remember you will have 365 days to make and send it too). It doesn't have to be quilty - just handmade.
You must have a blog.
Once you receive your "little something", you must post about your Pay it Forward on your blog to keep the fun going - be sure to use the Pay It Forward badge.

 

So what do you reckon.
Want to play along?

I know I'm glad I did.

Drunkard's Path Quilt

Ok, it's done.

I'm not sure the hand-quilting shows up too well in this image but it's basically a circle that got bigger and bigger and bigger, placed slightly off centre.

I am from the Winging It School Of Hand Quilting so I didn't mark anything; just eyeballed it as I went. Completely inspired by this and this; both of which I think are fab.

Back is just one piece of fabric (Anna Marie Horner) which, on reflection, was possibly too busy as you can hardly see any of the quilting at all.

But that's fine because I still like the effect of the backing fabric with the black and white spotty dotty fabric I used for the binding.

And it's hopefully going to get well used as it will shortly be on its way to a Little Island baby due any day now.

I completed this quilt as part of the Drunkard's Path Quiltalong on Flickr hosted by Kristie and Kate, the latter of whom has a rather scrummy recipe for pumpkin muffins on her blog at the moment.
Looking at all the other variations, it has whetted my appetite to try another DP quilt but perhaps mixing in some solids this time.

Yet more quilt ideas to add to my Bucket List.

Linking up to Amanda Jean's Finish It Up Friday.

An unbridled dancing on the table moment

Do you ever have one of those?

I have.

Because guess what these are?

The new fabric line from the same person who's past fabric lines I have used to make these.

 

It's the new organic fabric line (and 4th) from Laurie Wisbrun called Modern Whimsy which will be available to buy from next month.

And just like Laurie's previous fabrics lines, I happen to think Modern Whimsy is that little bit special and different to what else is out there at the moment and consequently I have lots of new quilt ideas spinning round in my head.

There are 16 different designs in the line, divided into two colourways; Meadow (kelly green, pink and yellow) and Park (blue, pink and chartreuse green)...

...and as well as what I regard as some absolutely gorgeous feature fabrics, there are some extremely useful supporting spotty dotty numbers.

I'm off to make magic with them now.

Can you imagine how I feel at the moment?

Easily distracted

I thought I would just do this...

...because it has to be finished in the next couple of weeks...

...but then I got sidetracked by this and needed to make it...

...but that's OK because I'm going to machine quilt this one...

...which means I'll probably finish this one first.

If you're looking for a simple quilt pattern that shows off your fabrics, that can be put together relatively quickly...this is The One.

Drunkard's Path quilt top

It's sewn together...

...with a slight adjustment to the placement of the blocks; left hand column is circles, 2nd column half a circle facing down, middle column circles, right hand column half circles facing up, final column circles.

It's been a great way to use up scraps, including ones that I had long since fallen out of love with. All they needed was to be sitting next to something more modern and they soon perked up.

All cut with my Go! Baby. Accuquilt have been extremely decent and a new one is on its way.
What is really fun about this quiltalong  is that everyone is choosing different pattern layouts for the Drunkard's Path...the drunkard must have been well sozzled for there to be the amount of possibilities there are.

This quilt is destined for a baby that should be putting in an appearance in the next week or two, so on with the quilting it is.

Works In Progress

I've never really done a Works In Progress (WIP) post before, mainly because I've always thought it would be dull as dishwater for you to see bits of random fabric floating about the place and also mainly because I am generally a one-project-on-the-go-at-any-one-time kind of a person.  I am always astounded when people rattle off a working list of a half dozen or so projects at any one time.

Although I do have two projects on the go at the moment I treat them as one; one upstairs, one downstairs.

The one coming together in my sewing room at the top of the house is being assembled by machine and is part of the Drunkard's Path Quiltalong on Flickr being hosted by Kristie and Kate. It's not too late if you want to join in now. So this is my Upstairs Quilt.

I went scrappy.

Full on scrappy really.

To the point where I am thinking that the best layout will be to make the Drunkard's Path with the circle pattern.
There are so many different permutations but I felt unless I had gone less scrappy and made a greater definition between dark and light, some of the patterns made would get lost.

My Downstairs Quilt is always some portable hand-piecing and at the moment is a BOM (Block of the Month) except in my case it isn't a BOM but a BAAO (Blocks All At Once). My sister lives a 10 minute drive from here so on her recent visit to me she brought me the whole 10 months worth of blocks.

So far I have hand pieced this...

...and this...

...which might look familiar to you because I used the templates provided to make this...

I have plans to change the BOM slightly as there is an appliqued centre medallion which I want to swap for a Mariners Compass type block.

It is a slow but enjoyable progress.

And that's it. Quite restrained really isn't it?!

I am going to link this to Lee at Freshly Pieced who is celebrating a whole year of Wednesday WIPs.

Click on the link to see loads and loads and loads of WIPs...it's quite good therapy if, like me, you feel your WIPs are a little on the small size.


PS. To those of you who have left comments in the last 24 hours and I have not replied, there is an island-wide problem with our email server and no one is able to access their emails at the moment.