It Is Finished!

Around this time of year, a very long time ago, these words were spoken and revolutionised the Christian world for the next 2000+ years!

My version of 'It Is Finished' is much less significant and much more of a relief!

I am now officially on holiday for Easter - a whole week off!! Yippee!

Here are the finished projects from Thursday night & Friday morning classes:

EPP Starflower Wallhanging

Value Quilt - pattern available here

Well done ladies for sticking with some technical stages in your projects.   Enjoy your beautiful creations!

On the home front, I have several projects on the go and as many patterns to write for next term's classes!  I will try v.hard not to sneak in work stuff during my week off!

Coming Along!

Today was frustrating.

I have several projects on the go at the moment that require 'a good run' at them.  You know what I mean?  A chunk of time to really progress them to the next stages.

I soooooo wanted today to be like that!  Alas not!

I tootled about on this and that all morning, until I had to don my Taxi driver uniform and start the to-ing and fro-ing with kids (& husband) all over the place!  To make matters worse, road works at every turn and the worst rain we've had in weeks made the journeys twice as long!  Aargghh!

But I was determined to get some proper sewing done today.  When I got back I sewed like fury and got this commission quilt top finished:

The colours are much nicer in real life!

And I also got a bit done on one of my (3) vintage sheets quilts, so fingers crossed I'll have a few more quilt tops done soon. 

I've also decided to give my church pew a makeover!  Here's what it looked liked before my daughter and I attacked it with cream paint!

I need to buy more paint to get it finished, hopefully before our visitors arrive next week!

I hope you've had a non-frustrating day!

Coming Out!

It's time I let you all into a secret!

I LIKE BROWN!

Now some of you will be gasping aloud and frantically reaching for the number of your therapist or psycho-analyst at the very mention of the 'B' word!

Well I'm secure enough in my skin to admit that I like brown.  It seems to sit v.well with my inner Granny, right along side my inner flower lovin' Hippy!  (I might be needing the number of a good therapist if I identify any more multiple personalities though!).

I was recently commissioned to make my Value Charm Quilt for a friend, and the remit was browns, teals and cream.

I found this cute charm pack online, called Late Bloomers and teamed it up with some Kona Cream.

I've managed to get the half square triangles made, but not yet trimmed.  Oh the trimming!

I might be needing porridge for breakfast in the morning before tackling this lot!

I've also cut up a 3rd vintage sheets quilt today, a birthday pressie for a friend, and got another bee block done.  But more on that another day.

For those of you not blowing hard into a brown paper bag in the corner of the room, I hope you've had a great day!

Boys, boys, boys!

Well I got my gorgeous Kona Azure today and got stuck into the binding for the value quilt.

The colours look a bit dull here as this is in my kitchen (& it's been dull and wet all day!).  But I'll do a proper post soon with better pics to link in with next term's program.

I just need to get a hanging sleeve on this as it's ultimately destined for my bedroom wall.

Other things I've been working on today involve the words 'Christmas' and 'boys'!

This will be a cushion for my nephew who received the colour brick quilt earlier this year.

And this will be a cushion for his big brother (17) who plays for Lurgan Tigers Rugby Club, hence the team colours of black, red & yellow.

I have one more 17 year old nephew to make for, but I'm completely stumped! I hate to make a difference between my nieces and nephews (I have 7 on my side of the family alone) but boys are so difficult to make for!  

Any ideas for a typical, football loving, lanky teenage boy?

Happy Wednesday!

Judith xo

P.s. Thank you so much everyone for asking about how Shannon got on in her Mock GCSE Art exam.  All went well, and the nerves were soon replaced with the 2 hour Maths exam which followed the next day!  Another week and a half of mocks and she gets her life back (for a while anyway!). Jxo

Progress (just about!)

This is my 2nd attempt at this post, delayed due to needing a new cable to download the pics from my phone of what I've done today.

And why did I need a new cable?

Let me show you the next 2 pictures and you can draw your own conclusions (I already know what Hadley's going to say!).

Butter wouldn't melt!

Anyway, if you are reading this post then a certain cute doggy hasn't been banished to the outback forever and I managed to track down a computer shop which sold the right USB cable.

And so onto the progress that I achieved today.

Today the sun was out ALL DAY, which means I was motivated to sew despite feeling tired!

Firstly I cracked on with the quilting of my Value quilt which I need to finish & get photographed for my new program coming out at the end of the week.

I've ordered some Kona Azure from River Fabrics for the binding, which I'll get tomorrow.  Then I can get this baby finished and reveal it to the world (well, the few of you who unwaveringly put up with my ramblings!).

Next, I opened up The Sweat Shop and made a start on the unquantifyible make-up bags to re-stock my sister's salon. 

These things are selling like hot cakes & I can't keep up with demand.  Unfortunately my zips haven't arrived yet from RayStitch or Zipit so I've stalled a bit (plus I'm bored to death making endless make-up bags!!).

A bored (yet creative) mind is a dangerous thing, cos then I start thinking up new projects to start.  I have indeed decided on a new, fun project, but you'll have to wait til tomorrow to find out!!

Hope you've had a sunny and productive day!

Judith xo

The Value of Charms

Firstly some post news!

November heralds the turn of my hilariously funny bloggy friend Hadley in our monthly Brit Bee.

My wee fabric package arrived in style yesterday with instructions on how to make a 24" block!!!  

The fabrics are gorgeous and the design is stunning, so I don't have anything to worry about (only a million hsts to match up!).

And speaking of hsts, I sewed 80 of them together over the weekend to get this:

Too big for my design board!

This is a value quilt/wallhanging I want to put up in my bedroom.  Although I just used some scrappy 5" squares (including some items of clothing!) I sized the design specifically so that it can be made from 2 charm packs, a patterned one and a solid one (it might make it's way into my programme of classes one day!).  

I'm really enjoying making this - however, I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to retain accurate points on every sewn hst, without a cutting device like the GO! Baby.  Despite accurate cutting, starching, sewing and painstaking trimming, some of my points just don't match up!  More practise needed me thinks!

I'm not too bothered with this particular quilt, because it's for me, but if I was making it for someonelse I wouldn't feel able to hand it over!

So just the border to add, and then I can get quilting. 

The sun is shining this morning, after a horrendous day of torrential rain yesterday.  The kids are off so no doubt it will be down to the park later with tennis rackets in hand!

Early morning sunshine!

Have a great Tuesday, whatever you get up to!

Judith xo