Christmas swap sewing

I'm swap mama again for the MQG Ireland swap group, and we are in the middle of our Christmas swap. Swappers must make a table runner or table topper for their partner, as well as a little Christmas decoration.

I love taking part in swaps! This time around, having to go for surgery shortly after assigning swap partners was more than a little inconvenient, but being at home recovering has allowed me time to catch up a little, particularly as I decided to stick to hand piecing in the main for my design idea. Perfect for working on while sitting on the sofa taking it easy :-)

I played around with quite a few ideas before settling on the idea of a Christmas wreath made from hexies. And a little Christmas tree in the middle to finish it off :-) I really like how this is shaping up. I'm thinking 3 or 4 blocks side by side will look lovely.

After a bit of sewing this afternoon while rewatching The West Wing for the hundredth time, it's looking good so far. Next, it's back to basting the next lot of hexies for the 2nd wreath.

A little Christmas magic

This year I have been really conscious that I haven't made one Christmas themed thing! Not like me, I normally make something to add to the Christmas decorations every year. But the thought of cutting and sewing pretty much anything in the last few weeks has been too much for me.

Happily, the magic of Christmas decided to sprinkle itself in my direction this week. Some intensive treatment with a brilliant physiotherapist in the last 3 weeks has finally had the desired effect and the basic things like walking and moving have been so much easier this week. Yesterday afternoon, I needed a little headspace and felt up to a little sewing. Having swooned over all the triangle quilts out there online this year, I decided to cut some triangles from my Christmas fabric scraps.

It went along suprisingly quickly, and I managed to finish up this cute table runner this morning. Not too big - it fits our living room coffee table perfectly, or we could use on the kitchen table.

It was a bit of a rushed affair - knowing my back had its limits for sitting at the machine, I rattled through the piecing and quilting without much attention to detail - hence, lots of wonky quilting lines, and the most careless ever machine done binding. But, once it is in use and I am not looking at it from 6 inches away, those flaws will fade into the background and I'll just notice the colour and the lovely little triangles!

I hope you all are ready for the big day, and that the kids are almost at fever pitch of excitement waiting for Santa, like mine are!! I'm not sure if I'll be back posting over the festive season, or into January as I want to spend lots of time with my family relaxing before the new baby arrives - and all the mayhem that will bring.

So I'll sign off by wishing you all a lovely, happy and fun Christmas and New Year, and just to say thank you all for your lovely comments, good wishes and friendship this year. I hope that after baby arrives and settles in a bit I will start to get back to my normal self again :-)

Giveaway winner...calling Ohio......

A huge big thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for Sew Mama Sew! giveaway day. Wow, I had 983 entries, which kind of blew me away! I couldn't possibly respond to the comments but I did read every single one of them and it was so much fund to see where you are all going to spend the holidays. I love how the blogging community is spread around the world, I had entries from so many different countries.

Thank you too to all my new followers! I hope that you come back and visit me often - please just join in the chat :-) To all my "old" followers - yes, I know you're not old, bad choice of words, lol!! - thank you for all the lovely comments.

Ok, so, on to the main event, the winner. Big drum roll please.......

Mr. Random drew:

Who is:

Congratulations Sangeetha, I will be in touch with you to get your address and will send these off to Ohio next week.

I know quite a few people were interested in the tutorial for the phone cozies - it is now up and you'll find it here.

That's all for today folks. Hope you're having fun getting ready for Christmas. Did I mention that I am finished up work till 5th January? Yipee!! I will (hopefully, all going well) have a couple of posts with finishes up before the big day but if you don't get back to visit me before then I hope you have a wonderful Christmas xx

Sew Mama Sew! Giveaway Day

 

Another week, another giveaway! It's December after all! I have put together a little package from my own stash for you today and I hope you like it.

To everyone who is visiting for Sew, Mama, Sew! giveaway day - céad míle fáilte (or, to translate, a huge Irish welcome!) to my little corner of blogland. I hope that you stay and have a look around. This has been the year of quilting for me. I finished my very first quilt on 25th January this year and quickly became obsessed with the whole quilting process. So much so that I have made an average of 1 large quilt a month and lots of minis, table runners, mug rugs and other projects along the way, including jointly hosting the Across the Sea quiltalong with my friend Jennifer. Plus, of course, the 3 quilts that are in my sewing basket waiting to be finished by year end! I love to make colourful, modern quilts - big and small - with gorgeous fabrics and simple, clean design. Here are some of my favourite makes this year:

You'll find more about my finished quilts here. Next year, my plan involves lots of tutes and some quilt patterns so I would love if you came back and visited again when all the madness of the giveaways is over!

Later this week I will be posting a tute for these cute phone/gadget cozies - one for smaller gadgets, one for iPhones. They are super fast, and super easy and you can make them with scraps - perfect, last minute Christmas presents! So do pop back and check it out if you need some gift inspiration!

To all my loyal friends, well, you know how much I love you all :-) But I'll say it again, just so you're sure - you're the BEST!! I love how I have become friends with so  many of you though commenting and chatting via email, and I really, really hope I get to meet lots of you in London in June at the Fat Quarterly retreat, funds and flights permitting (lets talk about that more in the New Year, will we?).

So, let's get to the important parts!  Today's giveaway is all of my own fabric, from my (overflowing) stash baskets. In case you are wondering, my home is smoke free and pet free!

First up, I am giving a way a Fairy Tale Friends honeybun.

 

Nice, right? This honeybun consists of 45 1.5" strips, approx 44" wide. Have a look here for more info.


But that's not all, I'm also including 6 stashbuilding fat quarters. The fabrics are perfect mixer fabrics in a nice range of colours. 

They are, from left to right: Freebird by Momo for Moda, Hideaway by Lauren and Jessi Jung for Moda,  Grand Revival by Tanya Whelan for Free Spirit, Pinfeathers by Carina Gardner for Northcott, Midsummer Magic by Laurie Godin for Northcott, and 1001 Peeps by Lizzy House for Andover.

What do you need to do? I'm keeping this simple... you can have 2 entries. Please leave your email address in your comment in the following format: fairyfacedesigns (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can contact you.

1. Leave a comment telling me where in the world you are spending Christmas/your holidays this year. Mine will be here, at home, just outside Cork city in the very south of Ireland.  (Everyone can enter on this comment, follower or not!)
2. For a bonus entry, let me know if you are a follower, new or old.

Important stuff: I will close the giveaway at 9pm Irish time (GMT) on Friday 16th December. The winner will be drawn using Random Number Generator. Giveaway is open internationally. I will delete duplicate entries. If I cannot get in contact with the winner by Sunday 18th December, I will redraw.

**This giveaway is now closed**

Minimalist trees Christmas table runner progress

After I pieced the top of my table runner for the Modern Christmas Table Runner swap, I posted it up in Flickr and asked for opinions about quilting. I wanted to see if my partner had any preference.

Well, I got a tonne of ideas, most of which recommended following the zig zags of the tree shapes. My absolute favourite bit of advice was from Rhonda, who told me to "quilt the snot out of the white parts" to make the trees puff up a little. I'm still giggling to be honest, mostly because that is exactly the sort of phrase I would come out with myself!  But her advice has been on repeat in my head for the last week and I couldn't get away from it!

I decided that a little hand quilting would be nice, and I had the perfect ruby red Perle cotton for it. So I outlined each of the trees in it this week while watching my nightly doses of Aussie Masterchef and really love the effect.

 
Next I took it off to my sewing machine, and, with everyone's advice ringing in my ears, I started by echo outlining each of the trees and then filling in the rest of the spaces. I decided to go very dense and the quilting lines are only 1/4" apart.

I'm totally thrilled with how its looking! Really love how the trees pop against it.

I still need to straight line quilt the rest of the white space but want to put the backing fabric on before I do that.

So this is on target to be all done and ready to post off next week. I also need to do a little handmade ornament, but I have LOADS of inspiration pinned on my Christmas Pinterest board and looking forward to deciding on what to do at the weekend.

Am I allowed mention the "C" word?

You know...Christmas? Well, what else did you think I meant :-))

So, I've been pondering my table runner for Susan's Modern Christmas Table Runner swap. This runner was probably the worst hit of all my projects when my sewing mojo deserted me a few weeks ago. Inspiration was not coming to me and I was starting to really freak out about the fast approaching swap date. I did some sketches a few weeks ago but discarded them. Then I did a few random wonky Christmas tree blocks. I liked them individually but they just weren't singing for me.

This afternoon, in a stormer of a bad mood, I pulled out my fabrics and started cutting triangles. Aggressively. Lol! It made me feel much better. Then I did a bit of sewing. Then I realised it was pretty close to the very first sketch I did. Doh! All that angst for nothing.

I did have a little freak out trying to get my trees to all sit in a straight line. It involved some swearing and a lot of seam ripping. Or maybe, I should reverse those. A bit of seam ripping and a LOT of swearing :-))) I made sure to send the kids out of the room so they thankfully missed the worst of it. But eventually it all worked. And I smiled. To everyone's relief!!

Then, after putting the kids to bed, and never one to pass up some sewing when inspiration finally strikes,  I decided to do a skiny scrappy border. Its a little wobbly but I'll sort that out with the quilting. And now, as if my magic, the quilt top is done. And I think it looks really nice.

It appeals to the modernist in me. I love the clean lines, the simple shapes. Love the border and how it pulls it together. Love that it is Christmassy without being twee. So, now I'm happy. The question is, what does my partner think? I hope she likes it. If she doesn't, well, I have already tried it out on my coffee table and it will work perfectly there. So, now, having got that all off my chest I'm off to enjoy a little bedtime glass of red wine.

Christmas is coming!!

 I know its still a little bit away, but I'm sure some of you are already thinking about Christmas! Do you feel the need for a Christmas quilt to snuggle up under watching classic films and waiting for Santa to arrive? We might just have the answer for you!

Sara over at Sew Sweetness is coordinating a great sampler quilt along starting at the end of this month, and I am really excited to be one of the 12 bloggers contributing a block to this project!  Each block in the quiltalong will be Christmas-themed and the tutorials for each block will be available on each designers' blog, over a 6-week period, giving you plenty of time to complete and giving you a lovely sampler quilt top at the end!

Sara's estimate is that the quilt top will require 12 fat quarters, or 1 layer cake. You could also pull from your stash or your solids - I know I have some nice big Christmas scraps & FQs right at the back of my stash shelf from last year that I'll be using, with some complimentary solids! In addition to that, you will need approximately 1-1/2 yard of solid fabric for the sashing.

Here is the schedule for when each of the 12 block tutorials will appear on the relevant blog. As you can see, I'm taking a little rest after the ATS QAL before jumping in with my tutorial toward the end of November!

Oct 25 - Julianna @ Projektownia Jednoiglec
Oct 27 - Sara @ Sew Sweetness
Nov 1 - Kaelin @ The Plaid Scottie
Nov 3 - Jennie @ Clover and Violet
Nov 8 - Elizabeth @ Don't Call Me Betsy
Nov 10 - Riel @ The Q and the U
Nov 15 - Jennifer @ Ellison Lane Quilts
Nov 17 - Lindsay @ Lindsay Sews
Nov 22 - Jessica @ SewCraftyJess
Nov 23 - Sarah @ Fairy Face Designs
Nov 29 - Heather & Megan @ Quilt Story
Dec 1 - Kim @ My Go Go Life

There is also a '12 Days of Christmas' Sampler Quilt Along Flickr Group for you to join, where you can share fabric choice, block progress and completed projects. So I hope you'll join in with us!

Felt Phone Cozy

 

I've been doing a lot of crafty blog reading lately and over the last week or so decided to treat myself to a few pattern downloads! I picked out some beautiful quilt patterns to work on in the New Year (my main resolution!) - Alice from Red Pepper Quilts and Skittles and Charm Bracelets from Kate Conklin Designs. I have a lovely charm pack I bought at the Knitting and Stitching show in October that I'm thinking of using for the Charm Bracelets. Then, as I was on a role, I went and downloaded this pattern for phone cosies from http://www.mmmcrafts.blogspots.com/. I've been reading Larissa's blog for a long time and love her crafty style. I saw these cosies when she first posted them and thought they were gorgeous. So tonight I was in need of something completely different and had one sewn up in no time. They are a lovely, easy make and I just love working with felt, it's such a great, tactile fabric.

The pattern is sized both for an iPhone and a smaller version for a smaller phone. It fits my iPhone perfectly and I can attach to my bag using the ribbon loop. I made this with a lovely purple wool mix felt and appliquéd on the poppies in blues and pinks and think the colours work well together. The felt is top stitched with wonky lines and I love the effect.

 I also put on a pocket at the back for my headphones - no more rummaging around in the bottom of my bag.

I put a small snap fastener on the tab closure and I added a little ribbon trim on the inside of the cozy for some extra interest!

I will definitely be making some of the other versions of this phone cozy, using up my large felt stash and it will make a perfect addition to some of my Christmas gifts this year.