Crazy Critters!

Tissue Pouches

These might be appropriately timed for 31st October, but they are actually craft stall items for our Bee Blessed fund raiser next week.

I made the denim/pink one for my young niece, whose birthday is also next week.

She's mad about pink, so I made her a cute wee pouch too!  Inside the pouch is a teeny weeny jar of fimo flumps, made by my daughter!

Well I'm off to class. Fingers crossed it won't be too scary!!

Jxo

Isn't it funny .....

.... when you fall in love with a collection of fabric and you just want to keep making things with it?

I had some leftovers from the Fig Tree Avalon fabrics I used to make mum's quilt. So I decided to make her a matching cushion.

I tweaked Kim Brackett's Overs and Unders pattern a bit to get a section of the quilt pattern to fit a 20" cushion cover, and stippled it to match the quilt.

One of the things I love about this set is that only 26 jelly roll strips (plus some yardage) were used across the 2 items!

The big birthday celebrations and quilt handover will happen this Saturday! I hope there will be lots of smiley faces!

Jxo

P.s. a very talented student of mine has just set up a gorgeous wee Etsy shop. Read all about it here, and go check it out!

Baby No More!

This little cutie .....

turns 18 years of age today!  Wow!  How did that happen!

She is away for the weekend, celebrating with friends. But yesterday we opened her pressies.  Wanna see what I made her?

This quilt is called Log Cabin Circles, made with Amy Butler Soul Blossoms (chosen by Shannon) and beautifully long arm quilted in hearts by my friend Janette.



It's a sizeable quilt at approx. 77" x 77", and one that Shannon wants to take away with her to uni next year.



She also hinted at needing some new pjs, after seeing me making some after FQ retreat in July!



Like the others I've made, these too are made from a charity shop vintage sheet, and she loves them!

I will be spending the day coming to terms with the fact that my beautiful baby is a baby no longer.  I'm so proud of the sensitive and talented woman she has become.   Happy birthday my sweet girl!

Jxo

Ladies Wot Lunch!

Today was about celebrating and having fun with friends!

My 'almost 18' year old daughter opened her presents this morning before heading off for the weekend.  I will blog about the things I made for her tomorrow - her official birthday!

As for me, I dined in style, at the best location ....

Slieve Donard Hotel, Newcastle, Co.Down

...and with the best of friends!



The usual bout of laughter and nattering ensued, a day full of gorgeous wee treats!



I could quite happily be a 'lady wot lunches' every Saturday!

Thank you my lovely friends for a wonderful afternoon.

And while the fireworks go crazy outside and make my dog have a nervous breakdown, don't forget to put your clocks back all you UK peeps!

Jxo

I Read a Book!

I'm chuffed to bits to declare that I have actually read a book, in less than 2 weeks!

I don't get much time to read these days!  But Teje very kindly sent me this book as part of a type of blog hop (read the back story here) and I'm so glad she did.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which explains why I read it quickly (for me that is!). My favourite genre are books with an historical element, and this story fulfilled that remit perfectly!  And I can now more fully appreciate the symbolism of the mini quilt she sent me, which relates to the story.



I now need to get my thinking cap on, not only in deciding who to pass the book onto, but what 'story inspired' project to make for them. 

Geese may be involved - just saying!

Do you like to read 'quilty' books?

Jxo

P.s. For all you UK fabric addicts out there, check out this great offer from Lisnaweary Quilts - free P&P until 28/10!

First Class Quillows!

My Quillow class finished this evening, and what a great final night of oohing and aahing over the amazing quilts!

3 Christmas Quillows

How fabulous are they!  Well done ladies!  I hope you get to snuggle up and enjoy your quillows on these colder nights.

If you're not sure what a quillow is, it's a quilt which folds up into a hidden pocket in the back to create a pillow (or a cushion if you live in the UK!). 

And while I haven't quite got pics of all the messenger bags made in the Friday class, here are the ones I do have.



I love how different they all look!  Great job ladies!

I will be running the Messenger bag class again next term, so if you missed out this time around, you have another chance coming up!

Patterns for both the Messenger bag and Quillow are available in my Etsy shop, and I've also put up a couple of my Christmas Stocking patterns too!

Yes, it's that time of the year again! I wonder could I stay in denial for another few weeks!!

Jxo

Busy Bees

Yesterday afternoon, Bee Blessed met for an industrious afternoon of Exhibition prep.

You see on 9th November, not only will my students from the past 2 years be exhibiting their makes (squeeeee!), we will also be having a craft fair fund raiser for Bee Blessed and Oasis Women's Quilting Group.

This is some of what I'll be contributing to the craft table.

Journal covers and 'boy' pencil cases

Hairbands

I wish I had more time to make lots more (story of my life) but I'll also be submitting some 'no longer needed' class samples.

And today, I hummed along to the Proclaimers in the cinema, feeling really old as my kids looked at me and said 'Who?'

Jxo

Overs & Unders Over and Out!

It's finished!

Yesterday I showed you the quilt top of Kim Brackett's Overs and Unders pattern I'm making for mum's 70th birthday. 

I had a productive day yesterday and got this lap size quilt quilted and bound.

Finished size 60" x 60"

I decided to free motion the quilt, playing it safe with a large organic stipple!  I was going to add some applique flowers to the star centres, but now that I see the quilting through them, I think it would be too fussy.

I machine sewed the binding down for speed, as I've still loads to do before our exhibition on 9/11.

All I need is a label for this quilt and it's another tick off my humongous list! Fingers crossed mum will like it when she gets it in a couple of weeks time.

Jxo

Overs and Unders

It was actually too sunny yesterday when I was trying to photograph this quilt top!

This is called Overs and Unders, and was inspired by this beauty.

My mum's 70th is the first weekend in November so this will be for her.  I made dad a Civil War quilt for his 70th so I couldn't not make mum a quilt too!

I really love Fig Tree Quilts fabrics at the moment, and their nod to vintage patterns and prints.  I used an Avalon Jelly Roll for this one.

I have plans to add a bit of applique to those star centres, but first I need to crack on with the quilting if I'm going to get this finished in time for the birthday girl!

Jxo

Carol Doak is a Genius!

There are a few changes afoot this year in Brit Bee.

Firstly, our precious mate Terri is stepping down for a bit (but as Judith D found out, you never really leave Brit Bee!). 

T Bone - we salute you!

The lovely Di is stepping into the breach, which wasn't a big step for her at all as she was practically a Brit Bee-er already anyways!

Welcome Di! (far right)

This year in Brit Bee we are doing something completely different, and so exciting it will make your toes curl!!

We are going to shamelessly jump on the Medallion band-wagon! 

The 'Clever Ones' in the group have crunched the numbers and logistics of making a medallion design work through the whole group.  This means we start off making our centre block, send it out into the Brit Bee ether, and over a year later we will get back our finished medallion quilt top!  How cool is that!

I love that we will all make a contribution to each others' quilts, be working more from stash, and won't know quite what our finished quilt will look like until it hits the door mat at the end!!

I would love to display my first medallion quilt in my newly decorated front room.  I've taken these fabrics and colours as my inspiration and point of reference, (though the actual fabrics don't have to be used).

From Design Seeds

And using the 'New Jersey' foundation pieced star from this book ....

....I made my centre star and block, ready to pass onto the next person in line!

Unfortunately the colours in this picture aren't very true, but I'm hoping for duck egg greens and teals, creams and taupes, with accents of raspberry red and vintage green.

I really enjoyed foundation piecing this centre star, despite finishing late last night and discovering a wee hole!!! Aagghhh.

But I managed to patch it up, thanked Carol Doak in my head for providing such an ace pattern, and got it swiftly parcelled it up before I found anymore mistakes!!

It will be on its way to you Ceri this week!

Jxo

Finishers!

I love the excitement of finishing night in class!  Seeing the pleasure and satisfaction on the faces of my ladies as they hold up their finishes - aahhhh, there's nothing like it!

This is my latest beginners class.  There are a few ladies missing, but 6 weeks ago, most of these ladies had never touched a sewing machine before!  Just look at what they've produced!

And all of those cushions have concealed zippers in the back!

Well done ladies! I hope you enjoy many more happy hours of sewing.

And here are the finished (& almost finished) Pixelated Heart Quilts from my Thursday night class.

How stunning are they?  I can't wait to see these beauties displayed at our exhibition on 9/11.  If you fancy making one of these yourself, you can find the pattern here.

My Friday morning class were making Messenger bags, but I haven't got pics of them all yet so will show you their fabulous bags another day!.

Jxo

Sunday Secrets!

I got a bit of secret sewing done today!

Oakshott HSTs

A little paper piecing!

All will be revealed in time!  Promise!

Jxo

A Bird from Heaven

A few weeks ago, this amazing, beautiful bird migrated its way to me, all the way from Greece!

I have had the privilege and pleasure of getting to know fellow blogger Teje for some months now!  She is an incredibly talented and considered quilter, and a keen animal lover too! (you should check out her amazing paper piecing! Wow!)

Inspired by this book.......

..... Teje has made this stunning mini quilt, and sent both to me! 

How lucky am I!  Just look at the details!  And the quilting is stunning!

I get to keep the quilt, read the book, and then make something inspired by the book to pass on to another blogger!  What a great idea!

And it's just as well there's no time schedule to this blog hop, as I haven't started reading the book yet!!  I don't have a lot of free time at the moment, but I used to 'eat' books!  So I'm hoping I can soon start to read this book, in a big, squishy armchair, in front of a roaring open fire, with a large wee glass of Baileys on ice! Aaahhhh! Heaven!

Thank you once again T, for sharing and blessing me with your talent and creativity. 

Jxo

Progress!

In Bee Blessed this month, we will be making these Quarter Log Cabin Scrapbuster blocks!

You can get the tutorial for it over on Sarah's blog.  As a lover of both Log Cabin blocks and scrappy quilts, I just love this block!  I hope you enjoy making them too!

And here are some progress shots from Saturday's BB get together!

A Cosmo Cricket baby quilt!

A Girly quilt made with a donated Tula Pink layer cake!

Our Wonky Crosses man quilt!  Thanks everyone for your fab blocks!

1 of 2 16 Patch quilts! 

Thank you everyone for your continued donations each month. I hope you've been able to see some of your contributions here.

It does take us a while to get quilts completed, but we do eventually get there!

Jxo

No Small Thing!

My mosaic of makes for September shows lots of small things, but it took no small effort in getting them made!

Time has eluded me at every turn this past month, with many unexpected hospital & doctors' visits, and the busyness of now being a single parent.

Actually, I'm still in shock that it is October already, especially with the mild temperatures we've been having lately!

For this incoming month I have a 'mountain of makes' to climb!  An 18th birthday quilt to finish, 70th birthday quilt to start (& finish!) and a term's worth of class samples to make for the release of my 2014 programme at our exhibition in November! 

No small thing!  Better get my skates on!

Linking up with Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day.

Jxo