I'm Featured.....on The Name Game!

Ever wonder about my blog name? Want to find out more? I'm really delighted to be featured today on Cindy's lovely blog Live a Colorful Life where she finds out where my blog name came from. I'm really honoured to be in the company of some really great blogs that I read regularly who have also featured on The Name Game - including Crazy Mom Quilts and verykerryberry. You can read about other blogs who've played here. So pop over and find out a little more about FairyFace Designs!

If you're visiting from Live a Colorful Life, welcome! Please have a look around and stay a while :-) You'll find my finished quilts this year in the tab at the top of my blog and you'll find what I'm working on at the moment - a super colourful mini quilt using crazy blocks, the Kaleidoscope quilt and my Skittles quilt - if you scroll down the page further!

More scrappy blocks!

Glad so many of you liked my crazy scrappy blocks yesterday!! So, here are the other 3 scrappy blocks for my mini:

Blue:


Teal (ish)!:


Purple:


Which is your favourite? I love, love, love the purple one! These, together with the green block make up my cool colours:



and I love the red one and the pink one from yesterday. These blocks are so fun and filled with scraps of my favourite fabrics - I can tell you now this mini is staying in my house!


Now I need to put together this mini quilt top. Hoping this all works, it could all go horribly wrong this morning! I'm linking this up to {Sew} Modern Monday - go have a look at some of the other lovely projects :-)

I'm really back now....sewing fun with some crazy blocks!

Well, I'm sure its been more obvious than I hoped that my quilting and sewing mojo has been struggling a little lately, what with work stress, general life stuff and all. When I look back over my posting the last month or 6 weeks its been a bit thin on the ground. But a break is maybe the best thing for you in situations like that and when I got back on Thursday morning I was all refreshed and ready for action! After cutting all my Kaleidoscope triangles on Thursday afternoon (in betweeen catching up on the mountain of holiday laundry - how does that happen, when you are washing when you are away too?? It's a mystery to me!) I was chomping at the bit yesterday to get sewing again. But I wanted something fresh, not a big project, something fun, something I didn't have to think about too much that would inspire me! I rumaged around in my UFO box and found this crazy scrappy block that I did back in April:


Officially I'm supposed to be doing this as a QAL but I kind of fell off the wagon. Not least because I really struggled to bring this block up to 11". And I just couldn't see myself doing a whole quilt of them, for whatever reason. But it was in the back of my head, and when I saw Hadley's GORGEOUS crazy scrappy quilt and realised she had done her blocks smaller, it made me think a bit more about it. Then, the other day, it jumped into my head and I got an idea for a mini quilt I could make with the scrappy blocks. So last night I took out my scrap basket and had the best fun running up these 4 blocks in my warm colours:







I did them to 8" square and it worked so much better, they flew together and it felt completely different to the last time I did this block. I then trimmed back my green block to 8" to match.


Now I'm off this morning to take out my 2nd scrap basket with the cool colours and get going with the rest. The kids are fully occupied watching Jake and his pirates and the coast is clear for some serious Saturday morning sewing. Bliss!!

I'm Back!

Did you miss me, my friends? I suspect not! I've been off on a little break with my family - and it was really lovely to catch up with them. We visited my parents and caught up with my siblings and gorgeous niece and nephew and while I was there I even got to visit a very special person - my friend's brand new baby boy. He was so adorable! While I was there I talked to N about the quilt she wants me to make for him and I think that the Kaleidoscope quilt might just work out perfectly!

I am a little behind on this quiltalong having been away but catching up as quickly as I can. When I got back today I got out my cutter and got to it and ended up with this little pile of triangles:


I now need to cut my white solid (well, I need to go buy some first!) and play around on my design wall/bed/floor to get it working and flowing. Then its time to crank up the machine for some chain piecing and hopefully by next week I'll have caught up with the group!



The surprise of the week was our visit to Johnstown Castle in Co. Wexford which is home to an Agricultural Museum and Famine Exhibition. I was not terribly excited about going to this museum but thought it might be fun for the kids. Much to my total surprise, it was really really interesting and we all really enjoyed it - the kids adored the old farm equipment! A lot of the exhibitions were social history centred and there was a lovely exhibit of old country furniture upstairs - including some replica quilts. But the star of the show for me was this unfinished Famine Quilt which was part of the Famine Exhibition.



Isn't it amazing? Its paper pieced and as you can see, the newspapers date back to 1847.



I can't believe the tiny stitches, the tiny hexagons, and how much time and work this must have taken! I also just love the colours and how this pattern was put together. And all by hand...



It was made by a lady called Mary Stedmond who lived in Co. Wexford and its quite amazing to think that something this beautiful came out of such a terrible period in Irish history. Seeing as how I was blown away by it, I thought some of you might be interested to see it!

Summer Dreams Quilt

The Summer Dreams quilt is finished! Another summer sewing list item done :-)


This is a commissioned quilt for a Christening gift for a baby girl. It is based on my Sophie's Dreams quilt, using the same simple square pattern but with a slightly different selection of fabrics. I did stick with a similar colour palette though. I think for little girls the red and green combo is a good one. It avoids too much pink but is still girlie and pretty - but I did get some pink in there (of course!), especially some stronger pink values.


The backing is a pretty cream fabric with a small floral print with reds, pinks, and greens which I found in my local fabric shop. (They stock it in a number of colours and I love it, its a great backing/lining fabric). I appliqued the baby's name on the centre of the backing using raw edge applique - you can see the first few letters here. I like to make the letters a little wonky to match the wonky lines of the quilting.


Its quilted using the same wonky straight line method I used for the original Sophie's Dreams quilt, but I spaced the lines a little further apart this time. I do like the texture they give. This quilt fought me all the way when I was quilting it. I originally tried to do alternate straight & wavy lines but 5 lines in, it really wasn't working and I had to unpick all the rows :-( Even on the straight lines, nothing really flowed, I don't know why! Maybe because I took so long to baste it - it was on the floor for 3 nights because of my work schedule and I think that the fabric loosened out - the masking tape I used to hold the backing taut on the floor had come away in a few places but because I was almost done I didn't think much of it at the time, but I could feel it when it came to quilting.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with this one and I hope that it is well received by baby's mammy and J who ordered it.

Quilt Stats:

Name: Summer Dreams
Made For: Commissioned quilt for J - a Christening gift for her niece M
Fabric: A mix from my stash including Riley Blake's Rainy Days & Mondays and Bloom & Grow, Michael Miller Ta Dot, Ann Kelle Remix & Urban Zoologie, Alexander Henry Willow Wren. Momo's Freebird, Laurie Wisbrun's Tufted Tweets, Amy Schimler's On A Whim II (Owls & Cats) and lots more
Batting: Warm & White
Size: 59" x 51" approx
Quilting: Wonky straight lines
Pattern: Simple 7.5" squares

I'm officially on my holidays now so I think that posting might be very sporadic for the next couple of weeks as I spend a little quality time with the kids :-) But I will be posting an update on my Summer Sewing project the first week of July so if you linked up in May, get your posts ready for the mid-term review!! I can't wait to see what you've gotten done from your lists :-) You can also join in at that point if you want! I also have a new button for it if you want to grab it.

I'm also linking this up to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day - it's my fave make of June!

A Long Overdue WIP Wednesday!

It's been 3 weeks since I posted a WIP Wednesday update. Despite it still being busy, despite evening games of football with the kids, a constant battle against the creeping intrusion of the sandpit into my kitchen, children who can't go to sleep until it gets dark at 10:30pm and a little evening away with my lovely hubbie at the weekend, I still managed to get lots done this week. I kind of suprised myself! So here goes:

Completed this week:

Box pouch and coin purse:


I'm going to make a couple more of these for my kid's preschool teachers for next week, they were so easy to make and so lovely finished! This project also got my sewing mojo back in action - nothing like a quick, easy and fun project to inspire!

Work in Progress:



All of a sudden I have a lot going on. I am at basting stage with this commissioned quilt based on my previous "Sophie's Dreams" quilt. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions on names! I was going to name it after the little girl it's being made for but decided to go with "Summer Dreams" instead. After seeing how Becky quilted her Little Man quilt and how gorgeous it turned out, I think I might just steal that idea for quilting this one - hope you don't mind Becky? I reckon it will really work with this quilt!

I've finally got back to my Skittles quilt and have all the fabric cut for the quilt top. I also got the first 6 blocks made up:


This pattern uses the Stack n Slash method. At first, I got really confused sewing up the strips and was convinced I hadn't organised them correctly or had mixed up my layers of strips. Then about 1/3 of the way through, I suddenly "got" it and once I knew what I was doing, it was a breeze and I chain pieced the rest at top speed. I didn't manage to trim these blocks yet so the photo is a little messy, but you get the idea. There's another 3 fabrics to make up the next 6 blocks and then I need to make up another 12 the same as the first 12. I'm very excited about this one now.

I've another very important project going on which I'll tell you more about in a few weeks (*nothing like a bit of mystery, eh??*)

I finally got the blue fabrics I bought for Jennifer's Rainbow Charm swap in the post this evening - need to decide which one to use, cut it up and get back in the post before the end of the week. No pressure!!

I signed up for Elizabeth's Kaleidoscope Quiltalong (not being at all busy of course!)

Lastly, I signed up for Cindy's Japanese import fabric swap which is the first Irish fabric swap I've seen hosted - and I'm really excited about it. Its also open to people in the UK - I can't wait to receive my fabric. I'm always admiring the Japanese fabrics but find them a little pricey. This is such a great way to start a little stash of Japanese fabrics!

Ok - lots there despite the fact that I'm supposed to be taking it a bit easier! I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced with some super talented ladies!

Great new fabric swap!

My friend Cindy has just posted a great new fabric swap over on her blog, Fluffy Sheep Quilting! It's a Japanese import fabric charm swap and I'm really excited about it :-)

It's open to Irish and UK based peeps so click on the button above to get over there and sign up fast!!!