Summersville giveaway winner!

Thanks to Cindy for sponsoring my lovely giveaway last week. I hope those of you who entered had fun browsing around her lovely shop.

But without further ado its time to draw the winner........over to you, Mr. Random!

And when I went to no. 151, I found myself smiling because it was Rhonda!

Congrats Rhonda - Cindy will be sending out your FQs this week :-)

Purse Palooza!

Today you will find me over at Sew Sweetness where I am sharing a review of The Organised Office Bag from Lisa Lam's !The Bag Making Bible" as part of Sara's Purse Palooza series.

Pop over there to find out more!

A Summersville Giveaway!

So, I'm not sure what the weather is like in your part of the world, but here in Ireland it is pretty awful. Think November. Think wind and rain and cold. Think winter clothes still being worn. Depressing, right? It's hard to believe its mid June. Fingers crossed that we get a few days of sunshine when I get my holidays from work in July.

Then I was talking to Cindy last week and she told me she got a big delivery in of Summersville and wanted to bring a bit of summer to someone out there. Yippee! So, thanks to the great Fluffy Sheep Quilting, I have a lovely giveaway for you, to cheer you up whether your weather is Irish or not!

The prize is 4 fat quarters of Summersville that I picked from her shop for you. I love these prints. They are so whimsical and fun. I bought a few myself over the weekend - I just love the town prints and this fab embroidery is what I want to do with them:

                                                                      Source: blu-shed.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I showed it to my little boy as I think it would be fab on the wall of his bedroom, framed..but he wants to know why there are no trains! (one track mind, he has). Not to worry, I know it will be gorgeous! I love, love, love the Alphabet print too.

So, here is the prize:

Alphabet print in Coal, Town in blue, Flower Patch in Green and Hatch in red - a great, colourful combination.

All you need to do is to pop over to Fluffy Sheep Quilting and then come back and tell me your favourite Summersville print - you can find them here.

For a second entry, leave me an additional comment if you like Fluffy Sheep Quilting's Facebook page

For a third entry, sign up to the newsletter in the bottom right hand corner of this page and then come back and leave a separate comment saying you have.

Entries are open until 9pm (Irish time) Friday 22nd June and winner will be drawn randomly. Please leave your email address in your comment. If I cannot contact the winner (ie. if your profile is not set up for email replies) I will redraw. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Cindy will ship the fabric directly to the winner after I pass on the address.

Ready? Get commenting :-)

Twirly Hexagon mug rug

 

Yesterday afternoon I was feeling pretty tired and lethargic...you know that feeling. When you know you have about 5 projects you should be doing but can't summon the energy to do any of them.

One of the projects was a mug rug - well, actually, a few people had asked me to make some. I was trying to think of an idea for one of them, incorporating the theme of 3 people and wanted to get away from squares, plus give myself room for something really colourful. I pulled out my scrap baskets and happened on the idea of hexagon wedges twirling around. I don't know what inspired it - maybe it was because I was thinking how much I loved pinwheels but they wouldn't work for 3! 

Then Felicity's gorgeous potholders came into my mind and I decided to try and do the hexagon wedges a little like what she had done for some of her piecing - made up of scraps.

So I drew up a template really quickly as a guide, dived into my scrap basket and came up with the three wedges you see here. Pink/red, Orange/Yellow and Blue/Green. As I pieced, cutting randomly without a ruler and flinging fabric around the table in fine old style, I really suddenly felt my sewing mojo return with a bang. In no time at all, they were done, I used my template to trim them back and cut my white wedges and pieced them together.

(Then my hubbie arrived in the kitchen to cook the dinner and groaned. Quote: "one thing I haven't missed about you not sewing so much is the fabric bombsite in this room".)

Later in the evening, I returned to it, pulling out my perle cotton and handquilting 2 lines on either side of the coloured wedges while watching some football with himself. I had stitched in the ditch to secure beforehand.

No doubt about the binding - it had to be black - perfect to set off the fresh colours. I never use black in my sewing, as you will know, and I just LOVE how it works in this. I think you'll be seeing a lot more of black in my binding from now on.

And hey presto - it was done. And I can't wait to make a few more, to be honest. It feels like summer when I look at it :-) I'm not sure whether this is what that original person had in mind when she asked me to make mug rugs, but it doesn't really matter as I have a few other ideas floating around for that order, and I have other mug rug orders to do for someone who I am pretty sure would love this one :-)

Speaking of summer, I have a little giveaway coming up next week so be sure to pop back and check in!

I'm linking this up to Jennifer's Summer Sewing Contest over at Ellison Lane Quilts and {Sew} Modern Monday.

 

Charlotte Bag Pattern

Sorry it's been so quiet around here lately! But I do have a little something for you :-)

Behind the scenes I have been working hard to write a pattern for my Charlotte Bag.

Originally, I made this bag for a friend last year.

Then when Julie was looking for pattern contributions for her newsletter I suggested I write a pattern for it, and I'm delighted to say she is including it in this month's newsletter. This time round I made it with some gorgeous Riley Blake Apple of My Eye fabrics, which I totally fell in love with. And of course, you can order some over at The Intrepid Thread!

This is a practical little bag that you can sling over your shoulder and use to carry your essentials!

So if you haven't already, pop over to The Intrepid Thread great site today and sign up for the newsletter to get a copy of the pattern.

Little Apples "Stained" baby quilt

I've very excited to have a new quilt finish to show you. It feels like the longest time since I actually finished a quilt - a proper quilt, not a mini or a mug rug. It feels good :-)

So, here is my "Stained" quilt done. This was completed as part of Sarah's quiltalong, and in some very good company. It's really interesting to see how the different quilts have turned out - that's always my fave bit of a quiltalong. Same pattern, vastly different finishes.

You will know, from reading my earlier ramblings about this quilt, that I have had mixed feelings about it all the way through. Mostly because of that yellow sashing. Now that its all finished and done, I am very happy with it. I still have a little reserve about it, but I think it works, and I think it is lovely and cheerful and happy. Really, the only reserve I  have is that yellow is not my favourite colour and was a bit of a risky choice for me, but that is purely a matter of personal taste.

I love the detail in the various Little Apples prints - the clothes, the little people, the trees, the little hedgehogs - they are super cute and perfect for a little lady. I think that this fits the brief of not being too girlie - and is the furthest thing from pink - but it still will work really nicely for a little girl.

The other thing I learned when making this quilt was not to use lightweight cotton/poplin for sashing! The yellow is much lighter than the Little Apples fabric, and this did cause me some problems piecing the blocks together, and particularly when basting, it stretched like mad in the strangest of places. The result is a little unintentional wonkiness in the seams - they are not perfectly straight but wobble in lots of places. Ah well, I think it adds to the charm.

I quilted it in a free motion stipple. Because of the aforementioned basting difficulties the quilting was a little bit challenging at times, and there is definitely a lot of differing stitch length going on in there, but it is overall ok. I'm hoping the recipient will look at the overall picture and not examine my stitching in detail! I added in some loops and little hearts for a little girl. 

I used a lovely cheerful Ikea cotton on the back, I really like this hearts print. It's colourful and girlie, a little like the front, without being too in your face.

The binding is Kona Coal and I like how it frames the yellow, it seems to balance it a bit.

All in all, I am pretty much pleased with this one :-) The final quilt measured up at 45" x 55", a perfect child size quilt. Thanks Sarah for a great pattern, I really enjoyed piecing this one. 

Slow Sewing...

It's been more than a little quiet around here of late! I feel like I've barely blogged in weeks, which is, in fact the case. Not like me at all! Unfortunately, life has just gotten in the way of blogging for the last month or so. For some (clearly deluded) reason, I thought that as my kids got older, I would have more time to myself. Apparently not! And now that we are into the long summer evenings and they are itching to be out on our big green and in the back garden, there is no getting them to bed at 7pm and having the evening to myself to sew. But to be honest, even if they had been in bed, most evenings I have been only capable of collapsing onto the sofa and watching tv, what with life, work and everything else!

Anyways, I thought I would show you some of the (very limited) projects I have been working on.

First up, some bee blocks:

April

and May

I have made up a few sample make up bags and pencil cases, hoping I might sell a couple for teacher's gifts to fund some fabric purchasing later in the summer.

And I have been working on a simple pattern for my Charlotte bag which will be available next month.

Lastly, I have quilted and partially bound the Little Apples "Stained" quilt and will be hand finishing it on the sofa tonight. Can't wait to have another finish to finally show you :-)

Hope you are having a lovely weekend, particularly those of you off gallivanting in London for the Fat Quarterly retreat - looks like you are all having a ball!