Real life and mug rugs!

There has been very little crafting done in the FairyFace household this week. After finishing the PictureBox quilt I found myself somewhat mentally exhausted from big projects and decided to take a little break for a night or two. But then real life, in the form of my job, rudely interrupted my sewing plans for the week, and suddenly I found myself here this weekend with barely a stitch sewn! It's been truely, exhaustingly busy in work this week; I had a massive deadline to meet for Friday and it took a lot of hours and every last ounce of energy I had to get there. I was completely incapable of even doing some handsewing in the evenings when I got home.

I felt like I barely saw the kids or Himself all week too, so when I finally got home on Friday night, I spent a nice evening on the sofa enjoying my lovey hubbie's company and spent all day yesterday doing things with the kids. We went to Fitzgerald's park - a lovely big park with a great playground - in the city, and then I treated us to pizza in Milanos for lunch, the kids favourites. We have eaten out very very rarely in the last number of months, so it was a real treat. We then went and bought E her long promised big girl's bed, a real milestone! Its all made up today and ready for her first big sleep in it tonight.

All the time supervising colouring/drawing/painting this weekend gave me a little time to sketch out some designs for blankets and quilts, which are still very much work in progress but getting there. I also made some progress writing up my tute for the PictureBox quilt but its not finished yet unfortunately!

Seeing as I'm spending so much time in work these days (that's not looking set to change in the short term either) and I wanted a quick and easy little project to make me feel I'd achieved something, I took some inspiration from my friend Fi and made my first mug rug. I'm going to bring it in to work to brighten up my desk :-) I wanted to try out some free motion quilting, as I'm determined my next quilt will be quilted like this, so this was a perfect size project to get in some practice.

I cut some 3" strips of fabric, then piled them on top of each other (the alternate ones upside down) and ironed them together and cut them into a simple wedge shape, all at once. Once I had them sewn together, I trimmed it into a 7" square. I picked a totally different cupcake fabric for the back, to make it reversible, but actually I'm not sure I really like it now its done!

I got out the free motion foot and off I went. I found it a little tricky and the stitching is quite uneven but I got the hang of moving the fabric around to get the quilting line to flow, so next time I'll focus more on the stitches. I also decided to handsew the binding onto the back to finish (I normally machine sew my bindings) and discovered that I much prefer the look of a machine sewn binding to a "proper" hand-finished binding. Glad I figured that one out on a small project, rather than spending all that time doing a big quilt to discover it!!

Free motion quilters, I have a question: - do you set your stitch length to 0 and control your own stitch length or do you let the machine do its thing and set it to 4 or 6 or whatever? And do you have any tips for a beginner?

And - to all the other mammies out there who craft and look after a family and even hold down a job too - any tips for managing it all? Sometimes, it just gets overwhelming, doesn't it?

I'll be linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory, Stitchin' Weekend on That Girl, That Quilt and some other great blogs; check out the links on my sidebar!!

Blog Awards!

I was really thrilled to be tagged twice this week by two extremely talented ladies, Sheila of Bluepatch Quilter and Noga of Noga Quilts for the Liebster Blog Award



Thanks so much ladies! To accept the award I am to do the following:

1) If you are tagged, and you want to accept, then create a post on your blog and add the leibster blog pic.
2) Link back to the person who gave you the award and say if you accept.
3) Choose 3-5 of your favourite blogs to tag, link these in your post too and tell the lucky people they have been tagged.

The aim of this award is to bring unknown good blogs to light, (less than 50 Followers is ideal), therefore, please don't tag somebody with 3000 followers!

So, here goes - some great, maybe not so well known blogs that are really worth checking out:

1.     Patchwork Delights: I love Fiona's style, she comes up with fab ideas, sews beautifully (I love her little mug rugs!) and even though I've never met her, I feel like I know her, we've had lots of crafty link ups and chats through our blogs and she's been so generous in sharing information and advice!

2.     Lisnaweary Quilts:  Gorgeous quilts, tutorials - most recently on Moda Bake Shop with her fab quilt -  and a lovely interesting blog about quilting and life in general which I really enjoy reading :-)

3.    The Mom Blogs: My friend Lory, a published author and feature writer, blogs about the fun and challenges of being a mom of 2 small boys in rural Ireland. I have lots of "me too" moments when I'm reading her posts and sometimes I even feature in them!

4.   Sticks and Bubbles: I found Diana's blog through her comments on some of my posts and I love reading it - her voice is so distinct, her projects are stunning and she makes me laugh :-)

So, go check them out! You won't  regret it!

PictureBox quilt!

The PictureBox quilt is finished! (*Jumps up and down with excitement*)

I'm really so thrilled with how this quilt turned out. The 3 people who've seen it in "real life" thought it was lovely too so that eased the nerves a little about it!

This quilt is all out of my own head. Its inspiration came from the idea of an I Spy quilt but I had some fabrics with large prints which I wanted to use for it and I jumped from there to the idea of framed pictures - my son has some jungle prints framed on his wall which were part of the inspiration.



As I've said in a previous post, the panels on either side of the centre were inspired by those long photo frames holding 3-4 pictures vertically.

This quilt is made for a baby boy and is part of a two quilt set - the other being for his sister. I quilted the Sophie's Dreams quilt with wonky straight lines and after a LOT of thought I decided to stick with that approach for this one too. I threw around a number of other quilting techniques in my head - it wasn't an easy decision - but I wanted to keep some consistency between the quilts as they're quite different design wise. Plus, I do love the effect of the wonky straight lines, they give a lovely texture to the quilt.

The foundation of the design is 3 large fabric panels. Each one measures approx 10" x 15" and is framed with a 1 inch strip of a calm blue/green print, and then 3" wide strips of fabric in varying prints and colours. I tried to keep the scrappy border prints to geometrical type designs, rather than featuring more animals although I made a couple of exceptions to bring in some prints from the sister quilt.

The 3 main panels are (from top to bottom) Lesley Grainger's Wild Friends - Jungle Animals, Riley Blake's Hooty Hoot - Kangaroo and Ann Kelle's Urban Zoologie Owls. Like the Sophie's Dreams quilt, this quilt is made to be midway between cot bed and twin bed size so that it can be used straight away on baby's cot, and then layered up over other covers on his bed when he gets older, or used as a throw. The quilt sits nicely on a twin bed:

I decided that a solid colour binding would work best on this quilt as there's so much going on in the quilt. I went for a lovely soft blue cotton and it frames the quilt really nicely.

The backing is a white with a blue polka dot and is a single piece of fabric. The little boy's full name is appliqued in the centre of the quilt using some of the navy fabric used in the quilt and raw edge applique.

All in all, I'm really happy with it. The white space created by the sashing makes the design pattern stand out and there's lots of interest there for any little boy - jungle animals, elephants, owls, whales, kangaroos, koalas and more, along with some cars and lots of colour and texture too! 

I was pretty pleased when I put the two quilts together this morning, side by side. I made a conscious effort to try and use some of the same fabrics in the quilts in order to link them, as well as making them the same size and using the same straight line quilting. This is the Sophie's Dreams quilt - you can see the continuity of fabrics and quilting:





Here they are, jumbled together and you can see they work well together:



I brought them outside and draped them across a couple of chairs in the garden, I really like the effect:

Now all I need to do is wash and dry the PictureBox one to give it that lovely crinkly effect!



I'll be linking this up to



- also - Sew Modern Monday, Fabric Tuesday on QuiltStory and some other great sites - have a look at my sidebar buttons to see more!

I'm happy to share the measurements/pattern for this quilt if anyone is interested (I think some of you were when I posted the pic of the quilt top earlier this month). I don't have enough pics to do a full tutorial but just let me know in a comment or drop me an email and I can write up and post the pattern in a couple of week's time.

Happy Birthday little lady!

Today is my little lady's 3rd birthday. It's hard to believe that this boisterous, bossy, mischevious, hilarious little beauty is already leaving toddlerdom behind her and moving on to a new stage. It seems literally only a few weeks since I was sitting in the delivery room with her in my arms, a tiny, calm little baby with a shock of black hair. She was a quiet baby and slept all the time, which was something of a surprise after 20 months of dealing with her sleep-allergic, noisy, attention-loving big brother. But that wasn't to last and if you saw her now, you would never believe that she could ever have been described as quiet! She has the sort of confidence in herself I can only aspire to, wraps everyone she meets around her little finger and I can only hope that she continues to be as charming and happy as she has been since she arrived into our lives. (But if she was a little less headstrong and stubborn that wouldn't be a bad thing!)

E's arrival and those quiet days while she slept her time away were the start of my crafting adventures. First I started to knit, in those snatched few minutes of peace, then I taught myself to crochet. I made a lot of bags, those first few months and decided to take a sewing class so I could learn how to sew some linings to put into them. Of course, once I got behind the sewing machine I was smitten!

I don't post pics of my kids on my blog so I thought it might be nice instead to put up some pics of things I've made for her in the last few years.  Here's a few of the early things I made for E - some of them not brilliant from a technical perspective, but every stitch of each one filled with love!

This hat was the 2nd thing I ever knitted! From a pattern in a Debbie Bliss book and E wore it all winter and looked very cute in it despite the fact that really, it was a little on the big side!

After tackling that I moved on and this was the first piece of clothing I tried - knitted with beautifully soft Baby Cashmerino, again from a Debbie Bliss pattern:

After getting friendly with my sewing machine, one of the thing I was most excited about making was little dresses and tunics for E - these two are a couple of my favourites - simple, but pretty. The top pic is another favourite - I'm just waiting for her decide its a favourite for her too ;-)

I love making softies too for the kids - here are a couple I've made for E - Martha and Ruby (both from patterns):

Next up - I'm going to make a quilt for a move to her big girl bed, can't wait to do that :-)

So Happy Birthday, my darling E - we adore you more than you could possibly believe <3 <3

Scrappy pincushions!


I'm taking part in my very first Flickr swap at the moment and am really excited about it! (Thanks Fi for introducing me to the whole swap concept!) This one is for scrappy pincushions and I've been having lots of fun with it. They're so small that it takes very little fabric and time to make something pretty and I think I might have another addiction in the making!

I pulled out my 2 big scrap bags (note to self - find a way of organising them instead of just stuffing them randomly in bags!) and these were the first ones to grab my eye:

I had a little scrap of quilt batting left over from the quilts and decided to do some stripes - a little like a "quilt as you go" technique I've seen in some table runner tutorials. At the end, I went back and quilted over each stripe for effect.

It's backed with a scrap of Cath Kidston home dec weight fabric. I think it turned out very pretty - in fact I'm not sure I want to give it away!!


The posting date is another 10 days away, so I have a feeling I'll be making another couple before deciding which to send.

I also made this cute little mini-pinnie! I pieced some little squares and then trimmed off the corners to make it into a hexagon. Then I did a little (not very good) free motion quilting to practise as I really want to learn to do this.

Still, it looks ok if you don't examine the stitches too carefully :-) I sewed a back on it and now I have a tiny little hexie pincushion perfect for when I'm handsewing :-)



WIP Wednesday

I decided to take part in the weekly work in progress report over on Freshly Pieced as I thought it would be a good way for me to keep track of everything. At the moment, everything seems very close to running away from me altogether, I'm so busy with all sorts of stuff. Not least how to do a birthday party next week for a little girl who does NOT want to be three and definitely doesn't want to blow out any candles....but who will turn around on the day and throw the mother and father of all tantrums if there is no party. Yay for irrational almost-threenagers. ;-)

So here goes:

Completed this week:


"Sophie's Dreams" quilt which I am super proud of and totally love :-)

Super fabric & general supplies top up!

It's been a pretty good week here, productivity wise! I'm really pleased with all that.

Work in Progress:

My "PictureBox" quilt is now basted and ready for quilting. Should have this finished by the weekend, hooray!

Stuff I'll be starting (and finishing) in next week or so:


My pincushion for my Flickr Scrappy Pincushion swap - lots of ideas, just need to nail one down. This is a fun one, am looking forward to it :-)


Stuff I wish I had more progress on but seem to be on hold:


My curtains - my beautiful duck egg and champagne curtains for my own room - are STILL sitting half done in my sewing basket. Must get done by month end.

Handbags for 2 of my friends - girls, I will get them done in the next few weeks I promise!


Grand Plans!


Kate Conklin's Charm Bracelet quilt for my own room using a Kate Spain "Fandango" charm pack.

A quilt - still thinking about what - with my Origins layer cake

A baby quilt design for which I have a clear picture in my head but need to figure out how to make it a reality!



So that's me - any wonder things are running away from me??!!!! That's not including the full time day job or the husband and 2 kids to look after..... but what do you do when you have a (crafting) addiction? Just go with the flow I say! I'd love to hear what you're working on this week if you have a few minutes to leave a comment .... just so I know I'm not the only insane person out there!

Fabric Splurge!

I love love love fabric! So, I was super excited today when no less than 3 packages arrived from the US for me! I ordered a heap of new fabrics and some old favourites last week and couldn't wait to get them home and have a proper look.

I ordered layer cakes for the first time - It's a Hoot by MoMo which I've seen a lot of in blogland and is a gorgeous collection of fabrics (I can think of so many things to make from it) and Origins by Basic Grey which I bought just because I love the colours and fabrics in it - it doesn't match anything in my house and I can't think of what I'll do with the quilt I'll make from it but its all MINE!!! I got a Hideaway charm pack too, love this line, its really cute!

I also ordered some fresh yardage for my baby blankets and bunting. Aren't these lovely blues and greens? I love the snails!

And I was SO excited to get my hands of some of Ann Kelle's new line Ready Set Go (the trains and the cars) which is extra special being organic cotton. I also love the 2D zoo, the teal, navy and green is so vibrant, and the dino print is perfect for a baby boy's blanket. I found the Amy Schimler owls in a blue colourway and couldn't resist!

I also got some gorgeous fabrics for the baby girls! More Amy Schimler owls, some Alexander Henry Willow on green and I love the Riley Blake umbrella tops in vibrant pinks.

I managed to find more yardage in the cute cats too - this fabric is getting very hard to find! I also got some pretty Riley Blake fabrics from the Quite Contrary and Sweet Divinity ranges - these are very fresh and I am really happy with them :-)

So its been a big week for supplies shopping here. I spent Saturday afternoon flitting around between my 3 local craft shops picking up essentials and spent a pile of money on thread. My kids love looking at thread displays in shops and seeing all the colour shades, and when I lined up my new thread purchases this evening my little boy was over like a shot to have a good look. Aren't the colours pretty?

Time to get sewing again, now that I'm restocked and ready to go!