Looking for an out of print book

Hi there everyone!
I'm wondering if anyone can help me hunt down a book, or if you haven't heard about it I'm about to start a stampede of other quilters looking for it :D The name is Patchwork patterns 318 OR 318 patchwork patterns by Kumiko Fujita (The name of the book varies depending on where you're looking) Its out of print and in japanese and I've had no luck at all tracing a copy for sale :( So if any of you ladies know of one I would be super grateful if you fancy pointing me in its direction even if it's battered/dog eared with scribbles in! I have cold hard cash and a fabric stash waiting to buy bribe or barter to get my hot little mitts on this :)

Crushing on voile

I finished project voile, no matter how you pronounce it this stuff is gorgeous! Its super soft and sews like a dream...I may have a new addiction coming on.
I love this quilt that much I had to take it out for a walk to the park (Don't you all do that?) I just happened to have my camera with me so I took some photo's to share.
Obviously I had to introduce it to the plastic rock.

It then wanted an all out photo shoot...it didn't get one due to the funny looks I was getting from people with small children who happened to be playing in the park. It did however get thrown to the grass and slightly flipped so you lovely people could have a look at the backing 

Please ignore the lamp post shadow, I was taking quick photo's  and trying not to look too nuts in front of a park full of kids and their mums! 

I have hoarded that piece of Liberty for ever, but decided to give in and use it as backing on this quilt, sods law it was 8" too short so I had to do a pieced backing. Never mind though I still love how its turned out :)

I did have a stowaway, this little wall hanging wanted a taste of fresh air today and as I haven't shown you all when happened to the Anna Maria Horner embroidery I did a while back I figured why not

I did remember to put a hanging doodad on the back of this one so it can hang up... hence "wall hanging" and not "crumpled mess on the floor"

The backing is super bright, it's an Amy butler print but I can't remember the name sorry!

Hope you've enjoyed a quilty walk in the park!
I do have more projects ready to blog but my camera is taking an age uploading the photo's so I'm going with the flow and going to write about those once's later :)

Hope your all having fun and looking forward to the weekend!

Busy with Bee blocks

I've been running off bee blocks at a rather speedy rate over the last week and a bit due to being horribly late *Sorry girlies!* So pictures are taken and they are ready to post so I thought I would share :) 

Firstly these lovely gift blocks are for Foxflower over on our {sew bee it} bee, I am in love with this owl fabric! 

Next up are  Jessica's blocks, these are for the Sew Modern bee. If you haven't checked out jessica's blog go and have a look at her twin quilt for Liam it's just beautiful!  

3rd up is a block for Sunni From Stash Bee This bee is great, we work from our own stash each month (another way for me to work through those scraps!) Sunni asked for a tree...any type of tree. As I posted on the stash bee blog after some wine and a life long love of Tim Burton this is how my tree turned out. I still need to make a siggy block before this one goes out (Auto correct will call this a soggy block, not quite the same thing!) 

As a side note Sunni has started a 2nd hive if anyone wants to pop over and have a look around :)

Lastly for today is a block I thought I had made and posted before the house move *Hangs head in disorganised shame* This one is for Melisa in Sew Modern. Melisa asked for wonky stars and I think I've managed to get the amount of wonk right :)

All of these blocks will be making their way to the post office on Monday morning, hope you ladies like them and sorry some of them are rather late!

I have also finished *project voile* but can not seem to get any good photo's :( I'm planning on trying again later today so you never know this could be one of those 2 posts in one day type days :D

Hope you have lots of fun weekend plans!

Productivity in progress

So everyone has had time to settle into any New Years sewing resolutions that they have set for themselves, hows yours going? Mine is a little long winded and I'll fill you in on it in the next few weeks but the first step was becoming more organised and productive with my time. With that first goal in mind I procrastinated like a mad thing, looking online for ideas that will make me get up off my butt and do something I love (anyone else out there have that problem?) I eventually...2 or 3 cups of coffee later, came across this site productive flourishing it may be old hat to some of you but, to go all hippy on you here, it resonated with me :) So I had a mooch about and found some free downloads to try out "Hmmmm freebies why not?" so off to the printer I went. After some colouring in (I kid you not) I discovered Him in doors and I are active/creative at totally different points in the day, fun to know but not really getting me anywhere new at this point, so I printed out some more bits and have been trying them out this week.

Told you I got to colour in!

I'm using the Weekly planner and the Daily planner along with a Productivity Heatmap (Yeah I sew late into the night!) You can find them Here if you fancy giving them a try too. I like that they are task based and not time based, if you use the 3 together you get a much better idea of when to schedule things into your day so you'll actually be able to do them. I do have to say I'm not affiliated with this guy or his site in any way, I just stumbled across it and thought it might help some of you out so I'm sharing :)

Like I say I've been using them for a few days and right now they are helping, I'll let you know further down the line how I find them after a few weeks :D If you do fancy trying them out let me know how you get on.

Finally getting through some scraps!

After the house move I had to reorganise my fabric and with that came the dreaded scrap management system! after unpacking Madams room I was kindly left with a toy net from Ikea *Kaching!* An Ikea toy net, it turns out is perfect for scraps...Have a look and see :)

Click on the photo for a chance of reading the teeny tiny text that I swear was bigger when I added it! 

Behind the big old net o' scraps you can see the shelving with the rest of the scrap sitting scowling at me waiting to be used.
The "Rule of thumb" is anything smaller than a FQ goes in the net, which is right next to my cutting table (so no excuse not to use it) and larger than a FQ but less than a 1/4 yard is stacked on the shelves....I'll let you know how long I keep it up for lol

With this scrap management in mind (and the small issue of loosing the fabric I had planned to use for my month in the house move) I'm sending out my scraps to my sewn together bee mates for my month with the hopes that when they come back to me they'll be quilt blocks rather than a storage pain :D
The blocks I'm asking for are from Elizabeth Hartman's blog Oh Fransson which if you haven't checked out yet you really should as it's choc-a-block full of inspiration. While I was putting off doing the house work  researching I came across these mod mosaic blocks and knew straight away these would kill the scrap bin :) Here's the Link for the downloadable pattern  and here's a pic of the test blocks I ran up

 I'm leaving them wonky until I get all the blocks back and fingers crossed this should, given the amount of scraps I have, end up big  enough for my king size bed once I'm done :D

And lastly here is a sneak peek teaser of the fabrics I'm working with on a new quilt

Yummy yummy voiles! 

Spoonflower rock and a "I need sewing help" post

A small amount of back story is needed here....

A good few month ago Heather Ross had a studio sale, which I totally forgot to blog about and will at some point remember to do so I can share the goodies with you! So yes as I was saying Heather Ross + Sale basically means I'll be there...and I was with bells and whistles on :) ordered my bits and sat back happily in the knowledge that pretty fabric would be coming through my post box. Then I got an email saying sorry but everything was taking a little longer than anticipated but to make it up to people Ms Ross was reissuing some prints on Spoonflower...Hmmm yummy! So thankful for the opportunity to get some OOP fabric and a gift for him in doors all in one go I headed over to Spoonflower and ordered a couple of FQ's (and if you believe that you'll believe anything!) The timing was not good. Spoonflower were running an offer so shipping was lagging but I ordered regardless (Well wouldn't you?) and I waited some more. On the 23rd of December my Heather Ross package arrived (and yes I was over the moon!) and time went on. By January I thought I had better check on the Spoonflower order, yeah I'm rather chilled about delivery times, so I emailed and a lovely response came though in under 24 hours...small reality check for me here - They are on the other side of the planet and as much as I would love to shop with them all the time I can't or I'd be swiftly single! So these guys basically owe me not a lot. However they went beyond great and really made me smile, they ran a reprint for me and shipped it signed for. I got it, taking time zones into account, in 5 days and it was perfect. I don't know many companies that will do that and as you guys know I like to shout about good customer service so this is me shouting a big *Thank You* To Spoonflower and incase your wondering this is the Heather Ross print I ordered :)

Next up is the me needing help part of the post, Hollie if you're reading this look away now! 

People I can't sew Yseams for toffee! I have googled and YouTubed and this is what keeps happening -

Can anyone tell me what the heck I'm doing wrong?!? I leave the seam open 1/4" from the end, it's the part when I'm turning the fabric with the needle down and foot up that it goes all problem child on me. Any thoughts, advice or even commiseration's will cheer me up right now as I'm at the point of doing damage with a seam ripper! 

Hope your sewing is going better than mine :)

D-Day plus 1 :)

Hi everyone!
I had intended to post yesterday but time ran away with me so today will have to do :)
The Japanese x and + block swap is off to a flying start with some ladies ready to post out already! This is my progress so far

I'm having a blast making these and they are finally eating up my scraps! 

If your interested in joining in but haven't signed up yet you still have time, you can sign up right until the last day for postage (18th fab) just here

In other news I've been embroidering like a mad thing. I've made 2 wall hangings -  one is child friendly, the other...not so much! If your adverse to swear words best skip over the next pics!  

and a close up of the birds

I decided I am going to use the embroidery books and patterns I have around the place rather than just looking at them keeping my fingers crossed that they'll embroider them selves!

Also on the to do list this week has been Hollies Lone star block for our Sewn Together Bee

Progress so far - 

plus some Christmas socks 

I'm having a lot of fun with this, so expect a lone star quilt making its way onto these pages sometime this year!

Hope your all recovering well from the holiday season and fitting in some time to sew!