If you've seen my sewing mojo anywhere...

Send it this way please! Seriously, I have barely sewn a thing in the last week and a half and worse still, I've been struggling a bit to work up the enthusiasm to do *anything* except sit in front of the fire at night watching Australian Masterchef, my new fave tv viewing and wishing I was out there in that sunshine. Not like me at all, and no reason for it either, seeing as I'm working on some great projects at the moment that I am totally in love with. I suppose life is getting in the way a little on the home front but hopefully with me having a week off work next week, I can catch up with myself and do some daylight sewing (and taking pics).

Anyway, feeling a bit sad I had no finishes to show you this week and no post since last Friday, I decided to just do a quick progress post.  This is for the quilt that is no 1 on my Winter Stitching list (by the way, I am blown away by how many people have linked up. The linky is open till Monday 31st so there's still time for people sitting on the fence about it. Not thinking of anyone in particular.... really....)

This is a quilt for our friends' daughter - its going to be bigger than a baby size quilt, more a toddler bed size quilt. I suggested a red pink and aqua palette to her mum and was really pleased she liked it - seeing how its my fave colour combo at the moment. And I have GREAT fabrics in these colours.

I drew up a rough sketch but only sat down to work out the details last week of the cutting requirements. Then I did some trial blocks. Its pretty much a square within a square design. There are 3 different blocks, with 3 different sizes of central square (or rectangle for one of them). I was really pleased with these blocks and happy this will work.

 

 These blocks will work in lots of different ways and can be turned around to change the placement of the centre block to really add interest to the design.

I did not give much thought to the cutting that would be required. The acres and acres of cutting. Silly me.

This quilt will have 56 blocks at 8" square cut, 7.5" square finished. Each square needs 5 pieces. That is 280 pieces to cut for the quilt front. Now those of you who know me know I like to take shortcuts. I cut all my fabric for the ATS quiltalong in about half an hour flat - I normally cut lots of layers together. But the square centres really cry out for fussy cutting and the other pieces are all different sizes so its not really that straightforward. I cut for about 2 hours today and got about 2/3 of my centre pieces cut and a small number of the surrounding strip pieces for the blocks. I really love the fabrics and I'm hoping they sew up as well as they look when they are cut!

But the bad news - there's still a pile of fabric waiting to be cut! Oh well, just writing this has made me look forward to it ;-)

 Bring on Tuesday morning when I will be shooing the kids off to play a game, or even watch a dvd (yes, bad mammy moment in planning) and get the rest of these in some kind of order! I won't get to do my FMQ post this week for Cindy's practicealong unless I manage to squeeze an extra hour into tomorrow, which is unlikely. But I will link up next week on the double! And hopefully, by then one of you will have figured out how I can recover my sewing mojo and crank up the productivity again!

PS - there is another giveaway running over on the Sew Irish Facebook page for the last pair of tickets to the Dublin Knitting and Stitching show for Irish peeps - pop over and leave a comment on the giveaway post to enter.

Birthdays All Round.....

It's been a week of birthdays here! There are 6 birthdays in our family in June, and 4 of them were this last week, including my son, my sister and myself. So I decided today to make a little pressie for my sister using this gorgeous Tanya Whelan fabric that my friend H bought me a little while ago.

I used this great tutorial at The Plaid Scottie that I found through Elizabeth and it was really a very straightforward make - even though I was, as always, afraid of getting the zip ends all messy. It takes only 2 pieces of 8" x 10" fabric, the same of lining fabric, a zip and some twill tape. Oh, and interfacing of course! But for a simple, gorgeous little bag its a winner and I'll definitely make more of these, I can see lots of use for them. Even the zip was easy!


The outer fabric is Darla Rosie Dot in Red (although I would see the colour more as a cerise pink) and the lining is Darla Rose on a pale blue background. I love Tanya Whelan fabrics and this is so girlie - its perfect for a makeup bag.



Then, when I had made it I felt it was a bit lonely - so I decided it needed a little purse to go with it - something that would work for coins, or some lipstick & eyeshadow - just a little handbag purse. I looked at the coin purse pattern in the Amy Butler Style Stitches book, but, to be honest, wanted something quick and easy and those patterns tend to be over complicated. So I cut a couple of 6" squares, made a small pleat and kind of improvised as I went along. I had a bit of a panic when it came to sewing up the side seams, but it turned out ok. I lined it with the same fabric as the pouch and its pretty much done, except I need to do a tiny bit of hand sewing to close the lining at the zip ends.

I think the two of them make a nice pair and I hope you like them M, if you're reading!


Even though I'm supposed to be working from my stash only at the moment and not buying new fabric, I was browsing through the shelf of fat quarters in a little city centre craft shop yesterday and, to my total surprise, came across these:


They are Penny Lane by Riley Blake fabrics and I've never before seen Riley Blake fabrics sold in any shop here in Cork! I just couldn't resist them, it being my birthday, so I bought them - aren't they pretty? I also was very naughty (as I would tell my kids!) and did a little internet shopping on Friday evening (I felt I deserved a little extra present!!). I bought some FQ bundles - 1001 Peeps by Lizzie House in 2 different colourways, this blue and also in dusk/orange:

Source: etsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

And Just Wing It by Momo for Moda, also in 2 of the colourways, this lovely pink and the blue also.

Source: etsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I just can't wait for these to arrive - lots of plans are flying around in my head for what to do with them!!

I'm linking this to {Sew} Modern Monday and Fabric Tuesday as well as some other lovey blogs - links in my sidebar -->

Missing in Action

It's been more than a week since I last posted.....can't quite believe that! I've definitely been missing in action this week. Not only have I not posted, but I've barely been online, have only been able to read a small number of blog posts and have done only a small amount of sewing. And I'm afraid that, for the next few weeks, that's probably going to continue although I hope not to the same extent - I should, at least, be able to read my favourite blogs! This time of year is pretty much my busiest of the whole year in work, and it doesn't ease off until mid to late July. That means increased hours, increased stress and - definitely - increased tiredness. Plus, with the long evenings, I want to be able to spend time out in the garden with the kids, and they're definitely going to bed much later these days, which means my evening sewing time is much reduced. So I hope you'll understand if I'm not around as much as usual and bear with me - I have no doubt I'll be back to my usual self by the end of the summer. So please - don't go anywhere, I'm here, I'm just a little quieter than usual!!

What I was doing this week, in between planning & hosting my little man's 5th birthday party this weekend, was catching up on some customer orders which I have outstanding. One was a sweet baby buggy blanket, and this little tag comforter:

The other fun project I finished was some pillow cases/cushion covers for Anna. These are to coordinate with
the quilts I made her earlier in the year. They measure 50cm x 50cm and I'm pretty happy with them. I found it a little funny working in metric, having gotten really used to working in inches, but I soon figured it out!

There are two to match the PictureBox quilt:

and two more to match the Sophie's Dreams quilt:

After making these and the Pinwheels pillow for my daughter E I'm suddenly addicted to cushions (or pillows as my non-Irish friends call them) and when I was ordering the fabric for Jennifer's Rainbow Charm swap I ordered a small amount of Bliss yardage to make some fresh cushions for my sofa to match my Bliss charm quilt. Can't wait for that to arrive!

I'm really excited about this swap. My colour is blue and over the weekend I was guilty of totally overthinking it - getting freaked out about shades of colour and how badly colours appear on screen - so, unable to tell if a particular fabric was blue or teal or aqua or navy.....and, obviously, it all assumed a significance beyond a few fabric charms in my little brain :-) After all the angst, today I decided to pop into the city and visit the only store that carries designer fabric here in Cork (and that's confined to a limited selection of Amy Butler prints and a small range of Tanya Whelan - both double the price I can buy it for online, of course!) in order to properly see the colour values. But the city marathon was on today (its a public holiday here) and of course, it was closed when I got there. Sigh. So I ordered two different blue fabrics online today and can't wait to get them to see which I'm going to use! One I have already and love but the print is a tiny bit bigger than I wanted. The other I thought looked about perfect for what I was searching for but I need to see what the colour is like. (See what I mean, TOTALLY overthinking it!!!!)

Ok, so that's been my week. I hope you stick around, and don't mind too much if I slow down a little over the summer - I promise I'll do my best to keep in touch!

I'm linking this to Fabric Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday and some other great blogs... Check out my links on the sidebar!!

Calling all Irish quilters & sewers.....

I think that its great, but kind of sad in a way, that I discovered several Irish sewing blogs I didn't know about through the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway. I've done lots of searches for Irish blogs but it can be hard to find them in search results. Plus, I have been watching the Brit Quilt Flickr group taking off and thought, really, its time for us to have one too!

I'm also conscious that not everyone who quilts, or sews has a blog of their own, and if you're not blogging yourself it can be hard commenting and interacting. I thought it would be really great if we could get a little Irish sewing and quilting community going on Flickr where people could share photos of stuff they're working on, or have finished, where we could have discussions on sewing related stuff- like where to find supplies etc etc, and - even better - organise fabric swaps and more.

What do you think? Interested?

If you haven't used Flickr before, you should definitely check it out. I have really only become active on it since Christmas - at Fi's suggestion - and I love it, there are lots of fun things going on including swaps, e.g. the scrappy pincushion swap. It doesn't require the same amount of time commitment that blogging does and its a little more instant in some ways. You upload your photos and then contribute them to groups you are taking part in, and within the groups there are discussion threads etc. Check out http://www.flickr.com/groups/britquilt/ to see what I mean.

So, please, if you are interested (and I hope you are!) no matter how much, or how little you know about sewing or quilting, whether you're super-experienced or just starting out - please come over to www.flickr.com, set up an account (its free!) and join the Sew Irish group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/sewirish/and lets get a little community going.

If you need help getting to grips with Flickr drop me an email to fairyfacedesigns@gmail.com and I'll do my best to help you out.

First WIP Wednesday of the Summer

 

Can you believe its Wednesday again already? All those bank holiday weekends and holidays in the last few weeks have made it hard to keep track of the days. Here's this week's progress!

Completed:

My Dresden plate mini quilt - really happy with this one, its very pretty in real life. It measures 30" x 30" and is a perfect wall hanging!

I also got my Summer Sewing plans straight in my mind and blogged them to give me a little focus. For those list-makers among you, I'd love if you had a look and joined up your own summer sewing plans at the linky here. I've tried to do a button for you to link back your posts, let me know if its not working!

<div align="center"><a href="http://fairyfacedesigns.blogspot.com/2011/05/summer-sewing-plans-add-yours.html" title="FairyFace Designs"><img src="http://i1085.photobucket.com/albums/j433/FairyFaceDesigns/summersewinglogo2.jpg" alt="FairyFace Designs" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

In Progress:

I have the Walk in the Woods/It's a Hoot quilt just about ready to baste, I'm hoping to get that done tonight. I had some issues with fraying on some of my seams that I've had to spend some time repairing (why? its never happened to me before. I used a layer cake, but can't imagine that's a reason? I'm not having any similar problems with the Pips layer cake.)

I also got a lot done on my Pinwheel Pips quilt for E. Not least because I can't cope with the constant "is my quilt done yet Mam" questions. I've done all the piecing using a chain piecing process for the first time, which made me be super organised to stop getting everything mixed up, and it was surprisingly quick - I've only a few more seams to do to have all my blocks done. I'm loving the pinwheels - I was a bit worried about my points all matching up but so far its going better than I expected. And I just love the movement in the blocks. Looking forward to laying out all my blocks next and piecing the quilt top together. I used quite a few white solid charms in with my half layer cake to keep it fresh, as there's a lot of pink and grey and to get a decent size.

That's pretty much it for this week, it's been productive! I'll be linking up as always to Lee's WIP Wednesday and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar for the links :-)

P.S. - I've got a button!! For those of you who asked, feel free to grab it for your blogs. It's on my sidebar :-)

Summer Sewing Plans - add yours!!

So here we are, the 1st of May and the first day of summer. Here in Ireland, where we rarely see anything but a rainy summer, we seem to have been bathed in summer sunshine for the last month. So it seems a little funny to be talking about the start of summer, but that's what it is. Even if the sky is threatening rain for the first time in weeks here in Cork.

I love the summer months, the long, bright evenings and the cheery light of summer mornings, even if it is raining! I always feel more positive and really motivated. I've been thinking for the last week or so about what I want to achieve this summer, sewing wise, taking into account the great light and increased energy I always have. And I thought it would be interesting to see what other people plan to do too. So, I've listed my plans for the summer here and I have set up a linky below for anyone who is interested in doing the same on their blogs and linking up. Please do! I'd love a sneak peek of what I might expect to see on your blogs this summer :-) And its a great way to discover new blogs. If you link up, please go and comment on other people's links. Let's have some fun!

1. Finish my Walk in the Woods/It's a Hoot quilt for my goddaughter's First Communion. That's coming up pretty fast now, I need to get it done in the next 10 days.

 

2. Make a quilt for my daughter, the most demanding customer in the world ever. I'm making this from half a layer cake I won in a giveaway of Sherbet Pips and I'm trying Pinwheels for the first time. It'll be a Pinwheel Pips quilt!! I have all my HST sewn up and waiting to be pressed and pieced. Every morning she wants to know is it done yet so I'll be sewing up a storm on this one. I did a trial block last night (top pic!) and love the movement in it :-)

3. Another version of my "Sophie's Dreams" quilt for a Christening gift for a baby girl which I'll be starting to cut this week.

4. Quilt for my son D. He's now feeling a little left out of the action and asked me this morning could he have a train quilt. I have lots of lovely boy's fabrics and I think I'm going to do a simple strip quilt for him.

 

5. My Central Park Skittles quilt. This is for ME! I love these fabrics, I love this pattern, it won't fit with any decor in any room in my house and I don't care, its just for me!!!

 

6. Finish making my bedroom curtains - they've been sitting half made in my basket for almost a year now and they need to be done!

7. Baby quilt - I have a pattern idea for a baby quilt that I want to try to make up and if it works, write up the pattern for.

8. Bottled Rainbows QAL placemats. One done, bar the binding, 3 more to go!

9. Crazy Scrappy QAL - I'm going to see how many blocks I do with this and then decide how I'll use them. I might do a quilt, I might use them for pillows - I'm not sure yet.

10. Quilt for my new niece/nephew when he or she arrives in August (please God, all going well). 

11. Simple Sewing tutorials - I know that in addition to a lot of super experienced followers I have who I go to for advice, I also have a lot of readers who are not very experienced at sewing or quilting and get email questions about sewing questions, how and where I buy my fabric etc. So I thought that it might be of interest to do some tutorials on how to sew simple items - e.g. pincushions, bunting, simple baby blankets etc. I'm also going to do a tute on how to find and buy fabric on Etsy for those people who are interested - particularly people based in Ireland who can't get access to the lovely fabrics available overseas. If you are interested, please leave a comment saying so, or drop me an email to fairyfacedesigns@gmail.com with ideas you would be interested in me covering in tutorials.

So, I'll be busy this summer. How about you? Please link up your summer sewing plans below. I'll run a little mid-summer catch up at the end of June, and a final "review" of how we got on at the end of August and will do a little giveaway for people who participate over the summer.

Dresden mini quilt - finished!!!

Here it is, my Dresden plate mini-quilt, all finished and looking quite cheerful if I do say so myself!! This was the first quilt-along I've ever participated in, and I really enjoyed it. I can't recommend Lynne's instructions highly enough - it was the first time I've pieced a circle in quilting and she made it a doddle! If you want to do similar yourself, you could do worse than head over to her blog and follow along.

I am glad that I only did the one block mini-quilt. I think this will make a super pretty wall hanging but as the blocks are so big (30" x 30"), I'm not sure if a whole quilt of these big blocks would be entirely my taste, although I'm very tempted to adjust the pattern and do a quilt with smaller size blocks in the same style!

I backed it with plain white cotton. I used poly batting on this one as its for the wall, but its very see-through and anything coloured or patterned would have shown through batting and the white outer circle on the front. And when I came to bind it, although I would have preferred to use the blue or brown fabrics I have in the circle, the only fabric I actually had enough of was the Riley Blake Love Birds, so I used that. It turned out nice though and the blue, green and red running through it coordinate quite well with the pieced circle.

When it came to quilting, I was seriously tempted to do spiral circles all the way round, as in Lynne's original block for the QAL - but I wanted to practise my free motion quilting for the It's a Hoot quilt which I will be starting to quilt next week, so decided to go with this. I'm getting better all the time at the FMQ. It took me a while to get going on this quilt but once I got a rhythm going with it, it went well. I now have a good feel for the speed I need the needle to work at, and the speed I need to move the quilt at. But I need to figure out a better way to move the bulk of the quilt around particularly for the bigger quilt sizes. I was so pleased with the improvements I've made, I even took a closeup!! What do you think, its looking ok, isn't it?

So, all in all, a good Saturday's work! Now I just need to see if my mother really does want this.... if she doesn't, I'll be quite happy to keep it for myself, but I think she just might! I'll be linking this up to Fabric Tuesday and some other great blogs - check out my sidebar links!

Lastly - I want to say a huge WELCOME to all my new followers! I'm stunned and amazed at the response to my giveaway, and so pleased to have so many people join me. I hope you enjoy reading my little blog. I couldn't possibly respond to the hundreds of comments left for the giveaway, but I did read each and every one and I want to thank you sincerely for all your lovely words on my blog and my projects. It was so nice to realise that people had explored my previous posts and liked what they saw. I hope that you continue to read and, please - keep commenting!!

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......