I'm going to buy a golden ticket...(but could do with a little advice)

Ok. This year, with neither a bump nor a newborn baby, I am planning, for the first time, on purchasing a ticket for the Fat Quarterly retreat in London. (Eeek. How exciting!!)

But I need some essential info from you more experienced ladies.

First up, who's going this year?

And almost as important, what do I do re: my sewing machine. Should I bring it? If so, do I bring it as hand luggage (I'm not sure what weight it is....better check). Or are there machines there I can use? I need to book my flights so I want to figure out the total cost if I have to bring luggage as well.

What should I expect? Is it worth the money? Please, someone give me the idiots guide to attending.

Bees and Spiderwebs

 

Last month, I was the Queen Bee in the Modern Irish Bee. This is a scrappy Bee and we use our own stash to make the blocks which I am really enjoying. I decided on a Spiderweb block as I've wanted a spiderweb quilt for the longest time. I asked for bright, bold strips of fabric against a grey, low volume central star, and I also asked that the strips forming the star all from one colour group on each block, to highlight the secondary pattern of stars. Like this:

I used Heather's tutorial which is really easy and fun to make. In the last 10 days, my blocks have started to trickle in (we are a very relaxed Bee which I love!) and I was not disappointed!

I tried to spend the afternoon playing with the layout, I have about half the blocks at this stage. But I was thwarted by a small lady who wanted to eat them help.

Can't blame her. They look scrummy so far, no matter what way I lay them out. I have a feeling this one will be sewn up as soon as the rest of the blocks arrive.

My very own fabric heaven....

 

A little while ago, my good friend and enabler of my fabric addiction, Miss Cindy, asked me if I would put together a blogger bundle for her shop. I think she heard me squealing in glee all the way up in Galway while I did a little dance of happiness I gave it some mature reflection, then went back and told her that I would be delighted.

Ever since blogger bundles started appearing in fabric stores a few years ago, I was fascinated by the process of putting a bundle together. I've taken part in blogger bundle challenges, and, of course, I love putting together selections of fabric myself. I've never been hugely into buying bundles from one line of fabric (obviously there have been a couple of exceptions) because I much prefer to pick out fabrics myself.  So this was a little bit of fabric heaven for me.

I browsed and I picked, and I tried out various combinations until I arrived at this

 But you never know how its going to look till you see the fabric, really, do you? Screenshots aren't the real thing ;-)

Cindy sent me some lovely photos - I thought it looked great. 

And then I got this lovely bundle in the post (cue more squealing)

I stroked that bundle quite a lot the first few days I had it in my possession. You know when you really, really fall in love with a bundle of fabric? This was it, but even better. This bundle is everything I love about modern fabric. Bright, vibrant saturated colours. A mix of different print scales. Delicate prints, big bold beautiful prints. A colour mix that is totally me.

From ever before I had the bundle in my hands, I had plans for it. My sofas are in need of a bunch of fresh new cushions. And I had the perfect pattern in my sights, this one by Little Miss Shabby for Sew, Mama, Sew!

Saturday morning, I got cutting. Then I got sewing. (Eventually, I tore myself away and fed the near-starving children, then banished them outside into the spring sunshine so I could sew in peace.) I finished piecing and basted it, then settled in beside the fire to hand quilt it.

I had done some playing with my perle cotton, and come up with these thread choices. The following evening, I did the back and sewed on the binding. (I even did a lovely zip insert and for the first time ever I think the back of my cushion looks great but I forgot to take a picture in the excitement and I'm too lazy to go do it now.) And I got this:

 This was the proof in the pudding for me. I love how those fabrics play together.

I hope you like it too - you can buy the bundle here.

March Scrappy Finishes Link Up!

I know I was not so hot on the blogging front this month so you're going to keel over at 2 posts in 2 days, but I couldn't let the last day of the month go by without the {Put Your Scraps to Work} Challenge link up.

How has your March been? Have you been scrappy happy?

This month, beside my Butterfly Medallion quilt which was made largely with scraps, I tackled a scrappy project that I have had in my sights for a LONG time.

I have a little IKEA ironing board that sits on my sewing desk beside my machine. I love it, it's so handy when I'm piecing. But it is stained and horrible and ugly now, after a few years pressing and fusing interfacing. So it needed to be prettified. And I had the perfect plan: a return to basic, simple, patchwork squares. Let the fabric do the talking.

I used the method in Randi's tutorial - it was easy to adapt it for my little board. I used some cord to do a drawstring closure which was very straightforward, and I added a layer of cotton batting underneath it so now it is lovely and padded and just about perfect. I love how nice it looks on my desk.

 So, I am looking forward to seeing what fun you've been having this month. Link up below :-)

Butterfly Medallion Quilt

Happy Mother's Day everyone, I hope you're having a lovely day. (Not sure my friends on the other side of the Atlantic are celebrating today but this side certainly are.) After a mega busy few weeks here in lovely Cork, I'm finally catching up on myself with some blog writing. First job is to finally post my Medallion QAL progress, which is happily a finish.

I had decided from the start to make this medallion in a baby size. Originally I was planning to stop at 40" square, but as the design-as-you-go process played out, I found that I needed to go a tiny bit bigger, so this stopped at 43".

The central block was a butterfly block, inspired by Megan's tutorial.

 

We used the process outlined by Melanie in her great tutorials. Alas, quilt maths is not my strong point and only a couple of borders in I managed to mess up my border width giving me a very challenging quilt top width to work with on the next border. After a LOT of trial, error, ripping and ranting, I finally got a triangle border to work.

 

Inpired by Cindy's border, I did square-within-square cornerstones on this border, fussy cutting some little girls for it, and I think this is the detail I love the most about this quilt.

 

 Each little girl is different.

I finished off with a skiny border and progressed quickly onto basting and quilting. I did wonder how the basting was going to work out, as I've found medallion quilts can look a bit ripply and don't lie quite flat when you're piecing the top, but I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was.

Love that crinkly texture that quilting with Aurifil 50wt gives my quilts. It just sinks into the quilt when you wash it and feels so lovely.

I used a bright and cheerful print on the back. One of the reasons I stopped at 43" rather than adding more borders was that I didn't want to piece a back because it would break up the effect of that lovely geometric pattern. (Plus, obviously, I'm lazy when it comes to piecing quilt backs).

You can see the third cornerstone in this picture too - I think that girl is my favourite.

Lastly the binding - what else but pink hearts for a baby girl?

This quilt has gone off to meet its new little owner, and I know that it will be very loved. It was a lot of work, with a lot of tiny piecing in it, but so very worth it. I think it is one of my favourite quilts I've ever made. It was made almost entirely from fabrics in my scrap basket and stash, with the exception of the binding and some of the background fabric. Just goes to show that scrappy doesn't have to mean mismatched and random but can be bright and pretty and together.

 

I'm linking up with the Medallion Quiltalong over on the MGQ Ireland page.

February Scrappy Finishes {Put Your Scraps to Work Challenge 2014}

So, did you have a good February? Did you make any progress in reducing your scrap basket and stash?

Mine was good :-) I probably worked more from my stash than my scrap basket but that's good too.

My properly scrappy finish was this lovely little Kindle cover for a friend of mine. I used the Whipstitch tutorial for the dimensions on this one as I'm pretty sure that the model my friend has is the same one, and I just changed up a couple of minor construction aspects to suit what I wanted to do - like the quilting and the closure.

My friend loved the scrappy look of the fabric basket I made last month, and the matchstick quilting on it so I went with a similar style here. I kept the front cover colours relatively cool and make this little birdhouse the main focus. The quilting shows up nicely - I used my absolute favourite Aurifil thread which is 2600, a light, silvery grey colour. It works great with so many fabrics and I love how it looks here.

I used a covered button and some ric rac for the closure and think it finishes it off nicely.

On the other side of the panel for the cover, I used some brighter colours - just to switch it up a bit. Love how bright and cheery this is, and there are some of my favourite prints in there.

For the interior fabric, I used a Lotta Jansdotter Echo print. This cover fits my Kindle very snugly, and mine is slightly larger than my friend's, so I hope it will be a good fit. 

 
 I can't wait to see what you've been working on! Link up below :-)

An old favourite (Across the Sea nostalgia, anyone?)

Last week I was off with the hubbie and kids for mid term break, and in the course of not having to get up before 6:30am, lazing around the house in the mornings and generally taking it easy and having fun, I appear to have found my "sewjo". My brother in law had asked me to make a couple of quilts for him to gift to good friends who had babies recently and when I was trying to figure out what to make for one of them, I was hit by a genius idea.

I got cutting, then I got chain piecing. Almost overnight, I had a quilt top and before I knew it I had a quilt. An Across the Sea quilt. Swoon, swoon, swoon.

I was surprised at the wave of nostalgia I got in comments on Instagram about this one - I think it was a lot of people's first quiltalong, or even their first quilt. I had a bit of a trip down memory lane myself.

This is such a quick and easy block to make, and so striking too. It allows the fabrics to shine, which I always love, and I had lots of lovely FQs in my stash to use for this quilt. Like the retro flowers one, it just came together effortlessly in terms of fabric selection - I always think that's a giveaway as to when you are in possession of your sewjo - when it's absent, fabric selection seems like such a massive hurdle to get over and nothing flows.

I really am happy at how the two amber coloured prints worked with the rest of the colours, they just keep it fresh and vibrant.

I backed this one in some red flannel I had in my stash and I absolutely LOVE it as backing. It's snuggly and soft and the quilting shows up so nicely on it too. I will absolutely be investing in flannel again for backing, its wonderful. It did have a LOT of shrinkage though - I was glad I prewashed, which was more for the red colour than the perceived shrinkage.

 The binding is a fabric from Marmalade which marries the front and back nicely with the pinks and red. I did a stipple quilt on this one using white Aurifil thread.

And all rolled up in squishy perfection!

 All ready to go off to its new home :-)

If you want to make an Across the Sea quilt, Jennifer and I did a quiltalong for it a few years ago, you can find all the pattern posts here. I'll be linking this up to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, and don't forget to come back here tomorrow to link up your February scrappy projects in the Put Your Scraps to Work challenge.