Journal Quilts – May to August

At the beginning of this year I joined the UK Quilter’s Guild and signed up for the Journal Quilt challenge.

Each month I create a mini quilt that will form part of a collection of 12.

There are obviously many, many things I could have taken my inspiration from, but I have always been a little obsessed with the stuff that surrounds us.

Key points of inspiration:

• wabi sabi
• beauty in the every day
• learning to love my horrible house!

Quite vague …yes, but to be exact this is the teeny tiny details in mundane everyday things. Therefore rather than focussing on distant dreamlands (which are easy to love) I decided to consider the little worlds waiting to be discovered in what may seem quite ugly household features.

This lovely bit of skirting board flipped round with a little imagination became this……

And these poorly photographed mirrored tiles…..

Led to this……

And some sketchbook work

For May to August I wanted to try a bit of applique so added some little dome shapes, which was nice to try.

Thinking of using some EPP for the last ones based on our quite spectactular fireplace that I’m drawn to. Here it is in all its blurry glory!!

Hoping to get started on something sooner rather than later!!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday

One year on……blogiversary and a giveaway!

HAAAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME !!

Bit late…(no surprises there)….but last week was my blogiversary, yay!

One year on and I can’t believe what I’ve managed to cram into a year.

Here’s what kicked things off………..

This top and thoughts of more quilting led to my best purchase ever, my lovely Janome.

Janome enabled me to produce this baby…..

Patchwork Pillow Tutorial – making memories

Before I start let me just warn you not to expect too much…..this is my first tutorial and I’m no expert (at all)! Just thought I’d give it a go ’cause someone out there may find it useful.

It’s good to be back!

Well, that was quite a long break…what happened?!

Actually I know what happened –  broken computer, school hols, trips away and too much work, but mainly broken computer. Not only that but we switched internet providers which seemed to mess that up too, *sigh*

But…..enough of the excuses let’s get down to the nitty gritty, so here’s what’s been happening:

The Bad…..

The Good……

And …………The Beautiful

Yes, fabric buying and not just fabric buying but buying at the Festival of Quilts..oh yes…. more of that to come…very VERY soon!!

In fact you can look forward to expect many posts to follow over the next week. Not that I have achieved a massive amount, but I feel I need to share what I have been up to.

See you again soon.

simple modern sewing wrap skirt – pattern 5c

So this week hasn’t been a very good week for my sewing machine as it is unwell and has been sent away to be fixed….very sad. It’s got something wrong with the foot pedal which keeps beeping every other second and stopping me from sewing. This has been highly irritating while trying to complete recent projects as you can imagine. Anyway it got taken away the end of last week and hopefully won’t be gone too long…fingers crossed.

On a more positive note knowing it would be leaving pushed me to finish whatever I could and this meant my Simple Modern Sewing Skirt…finally!

241 tote bag….. plus some WIPs for Wednesday

Let’s start with something different this time!

Remember this…………

Well it’s now this 241 tote……………………..yay!

A Lovely Year of Finishes

I have so many different things to start and finish this month that my brain is having a hard time trying to remember what they all are!

As always my solution for this was to write a list (how I love lists!) then I thought why not link it to A Lovely Year of Finishes so that’s what I’m doing.

I seem to to have missed the window for this the past couple of months, probably because I wasn’t particularily confident that I would actually get anything done, but happily I’ve managed more than expected up to now so fingers crossed it continues that way.

My plans for May are:

1. Finish quilting Bloom Bloom Pow……

WIP Wednesday – Bloom Bloom Pow …..again!

I seem to have started a lot of things recently that are lying around unfinished…..the felted balls, QAYG purse, Simple Modern Sewing skirt and the Bloom Bloom Pow.

Really I shouldn’t really talk about them like that… it makes it sound like I’ve just abandoned them, that’s not the case. I keep going back to different projects, I complete a bit then move on. It stops me from getting bored.

They WILL get finished especially as a couple are intended as presents.

The Bloom Bloom Pow is actually coming on really well, I just didn’t want to rush the piecing. I have stitched the half hexagons together but not the whole top yet as I needed time to get the layout sorted. I think I have finally settled on one I like after ignoring my boyfriend’s quality advice of  ‘going with the first one because you’ll never be able to find one you really like’….thanks for that!

WIP Wednesday – more Bloom Bloom Pow and a smattering of confusion

This week seems to have been one of little progress except for the Bloom Bloom Pow which is starting to take shape nicely. The triangles have been cut and tomorrow we’ll have the piecing instructions for the quilt top……yippee, beyond excited…can’t wait to see what the ‘flowers’ look like all stitched together it’ll make such a difference.

Bloom Bloom Pow Update

My fabric arrived over the weekend..yay! I ordered it on Thursday, it was sent out on Friday and arrived on Saturday. How great is that? Thanks Village Haberdashery and Gone to Earth!

Here it is:

Very lovely don’t you agree?