Blogiversary Thoughts and Giveaway!

I still can't quite believe that I have a year's blogging under my belt. Back last August when I started, I had NO idea of where it would take me, or how much fun it would be. I didn't even tell anyone about my blog for a couple of months and then spent quite a few weeks with just 4 followers - two good friends H and L, my sister and her good friend. Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that in a year's time I would have close to 2000 followers!

It's been a huge learning process - there have been great times and stressful times. Blogging is fun, but very time consuming - all the more so because I love following blogs myself and all that reading takes time :-)

In the year that I've been blogging, my blog has changed quite a bit. I feel now I have found my niche as I've become more and more obsessed with quilting - and I love the little community of quilters that I've become a small part of, and the great friends I've made - even if I've only met 1 of them in real life :-) Its been so, SO much fun, and I hope it continues to be as much fun next year.

But now to the important stuff! I want to say a huge thank you to every one of you who reads, checks in, and comments on my blog - I really do appreciate your support and I hope that you continue to read and enjoy. So I have a little giveaway! Something nice for your stash :-) Amy Butler was the first fabric designer whose fabric I used to swoon over back when I started out sewing, so its appropriate that I'm giving away some of her "Love" fabric line.


I have 6 pieces of fabric from this range to give away. Each piece measures approx 12" x 20" - a little bit smaller than FQ size.

A nice little addition for your stash - you wouldn't have to add too much to it to make a baby size quilt (like my Across the Sea QAL quilt!), or they would be perfect for a pouch/purse or bag.

I'm keeping this one simple. Enter by leaving a comment if you are a follower - tell me your favourite quilting/bee block/sewing tutorial or resource.

If you want an extra entry blog/Facebook/Tweet this giveaway and come back and let me know in a separate comment.

I'll leave this open until 1pm on Friday (Irish time) and will draw the winner over the weekend. International entries welcome as always. Please make sure your have an email address associated with your profile (or leave your email in your comment if you're not sure). If there is no email address for me to contact you on, I will redraw immediately. Entry by blog comments only.

Enjoy!

Amy Butler's Style Stitches Bag Challenge!

One of my aims for this year is to get involved in some online sew-alongs and quilt-alongs. They seem like a great way to challenge myself to learn some new things, broaden my technical knowledge, get to know other bloggers and crafters and also to have some, hopefully lots, of fun! So I was really excited a couple of weeks ago when I saw a bag challenge over on JemJam, particularly because I had just bought the book the day before. So I entered there and then, bought my fabric and then did precisely nothing on it till tonight!

This challenge is to make all the bags from Amy Butler's Style Stitches book in 2011. Yes, every single one! All 17 of them. Eeeek!

Pretty challenging, not least because some of the bags look to be quite difficult technically, and Amy Butler's bags tend to be huge so I foresee a lot of money spent of fabric this year. (*sigh* I suppose if I have to I'll just force myself to go online and find some. No, I am not secretly doing a dance in my head. Really, I'm not. Really. OK, so I am!! I am going to start a new Pinterest board with fabric ideas for these bags. More anon....)

The first bag is the Cosmo bag above, which is listed as an easy make although I'm not sure, from reading the instructions if I would think it terribly easy! Although this might be because I realised (too late!) that the instructions in the book are not accompanied by pictures or diagrams for the most part. When I'm working with fabric and patterns I tend to be a very visual person so fingers crossed that I will be able to get my head around the written instructions. So possibly this will be just fine and striaghtforward to make, but I freaked out a little at the pages of instructions!

This is the fabric I am using:

The main fabric is "Memento" from the Amy Butler Love range and I adore it, the colour is deep purple blue with aqua, lime green, red, cerise and orange flowers. I have cut the main pieces tonight and happily have enough left over to make another small bag & other bits and pieces. The lime green solid is the contrast for the handles etc, and the small floral print is for the lining. This fabric is more lavender in hue than it looks in this pic (where it looks pink for some bizarre reason.) I'm hoping to get the remaining fabric and interfacing pieces cut tonight and then to start making up tomorrow for the deadline of the 31st January.

I also finally got around to getting my Pinterest account up and running this week. Have you heard of this site? It's my latest favourite thing! It is, in essence, a virtual pinboard where you can save pics, links, and all sorts of things. I have set up a few boards already - one for keeping track of the tutorials I love, or want to try. Another for my favourite fabrics. Also, an essential, an inspiration board. And an Owls board because, as you know, I love owls in my fabric and little softie owls (will have my own design coming soon!) So, a board for keeping track of my ideas for fabrics for the various bags makes perfect sense :-) I have a link on the sidebar so pop over and take a look at my boards! And join up, its great. I have had so much fun browsing through people's boards - and there is so much to explore, fashion, art, interiors, food, all sorts really.

Right, back to the cutting board here......