Keep Calm and Drink Tea!!

I'm pleased to say I've got all my secret sewing projects completed.

2 of the projects will be revealed soon, I promise!

To more pressing matters, a birthday present for a 'fruit tea loving 12 year old' was required for tomorrow!

I know this particular young lady also loves the colour purple (a girl after my own heart!).  You can imagine the bother I had trying to wrap this one up!

I also managed to make a start on my Christmas present making by cutting out pjs for my 3 girls!

3 guesses who the camo is for!!!

And if anyone living in N.I. is stuck for a present idea, how about one of these?

Vouchers in different values are available.  To purchase a gift voucher, just drop me an email justjudedesigns@hotmail.co.uk.

Jxo

I've been Published!

It's only a small project, but a few month's back Irish Quilting magazine saw my Beach themed mug rug and asked if I would adapt it to co-incide with their special American July Issue.

I obliged, and with a limited selection of fabrics, came up with an 'Irish' string of bunting and an 'American' string of bunting.

I received in the post today a copy of the magazine, with my very own name in print!!

 

The text in this pic is a bit blurry, but my name is there, trust me!

To 'Celebrate' this first for me, Irish Quilting have very kindly given me a few extra copies of this issue to giveaway.  

So, to the first 3 readers to leave me a comment, I'll be delighted to send you your very own issue (if you don't already have a copy that is!).

Irish Quilting are interested in some of my other makes, so I hope to soon be telling you of more projects published. How exciting!

A Lovely Surprise!

My very special friend, Sarah, surprised me last night with a belated birthday pressie!

Just look at all this lot!

Sarah knows me so well, and I love nothing more than homemade cards and gifts.

She made the card by creating her own 'fabric' using water soluble fabric & lots of stitchery magic!

Look at my lovely mug rug - there's no way a drippy cup of anything is going near this beauty!  This is going up on my wall!

All my favourite colours!

Mine all mine!

Just look at this amazing stitching.

And Sarah knows that I'm not a 'big mug' person (the old bladder's just not what it used to be!) and bought me this adorable, perfectly sized mug.  It's so cute, I love it!

Finally, as well as making this adorable basket, it was filled with stamping goodies!  I've been wanting to start stamping my own quilt labels, and now I can!

What a lovely surprise.  Thanks friend.  You are one in a million!

Not so fishy!!

Lynne from Lily's Quilts very kindly posted a tute on a mug rug called Fishy Piecing.

I always love the look of curved piecing, but don't usually enjoy the process, but I thought I'd have a go anyway:

'This looks nothing like Lynne's' I hear you cry! And you're right!

When I got mine to the stage where the fishy shapes were pieced, I had an overwhelming urge to slice up my fish!  (must have been a bit peckish at the time!).

After slicing through the fish, I swapped the new strips around and pieced them back together with more white stips in between. 

 Some random quilting lines completed my 'not so fishy' mugrug!

I had a lot of fun making this.  Thanks Lynne for the tute.

Mug Rug Madness Week:

As this 10 day period of madness draws to a close, I thought I'd post one more mugrug:

You can see lots more mug rugs on flickr.

For someone special!

You may remember from previous posts that this has been Mug Rug Madness week!  Check out what the Flickr Group has been making this week.

I've been wanting to blog about a Mug Rug I made for a very special friend, but couldn't until I'd given it to her today (she's a follower of my blog!).

My friend Sarah of SewMe is having a love affair with the colour purple this year.  Check out her amazing cushions and quillow in vibrant purples & greens.

She has also recently taken a shine to paper/foundation piecing, so I thought her Mug Rug had to have these key elements: Purple (a must), green & foundation piecing.  So here's what I came up with:

The little house is significant because Sarah is a true homemaker and her house is full of warmth and love.  She has been a huge inspiration and encouragement to me. 

Enjoy my friend!

Postage Stamp Mug Rugs

A few years back a friend gave me a sweet little bag of assorted 2" pre-cut squares.  They could well have been the ends of jelly rolls or such like.

I was looking at them recently wondering how I could put them to good use.  So play time ensued!

(P.s. despite my best efforts, I couldn't get the photos to rotate, so you're looking at them side on!)

These mosaics were yelling 'mug rugs!' to me, but alas, I didn't have enough squares to make them big enough.  

So I combined a few and came up with these ...............

I thought the two pastel mug rugs had a slight 'Easter' feel to them; great idea as a wee Easter gift with some chocs thrown in!

Mug Rug

Mug Rugs are everywhere!  This phenomenon rapidly sweeping across the quilting world has reached Belfast!

I love gift ideas that are a little bit different, and have been seeing a number of mug rugs appear on various international blogs.  Check out A Cuppa and a Catchup, Pin, Sew, Press, and I'm Just a Guy Who Quilts has a great wee tutorial on how to make one.

My friend's birthday is this week and as she is an avid coffee drinker, I thought she would love her very own mug rug.  As a devoted lover of log cabin, I thought I'd give it a go - and this is what I came up with!

This was so quick to make, I'm definitely hooked!  I have a few more birthday presents to make this month - guess what they'll be getting!!!