Free motion quilting and Lily's small blog meet

Hi there! 

If you have popped over from Lily's feel free to have a mooch around and stay a while. This is my little part of the web and I try to make it a pretty one with a few giggles thrown in because honestly a laugh and a whinge does us all good :D

Well I FINALLY got back to some sewing today and FMQ practice was on the cards. As I've not been able to get to the beach I figured why not go for pebbles (in a beach-esque theme!) I really like how these pebbles give loads of texture and if I hadn't just been using up white bobbin ends I think the thread play would've looked quite cool too! By the way, no pebbles aren't round on North East beaches so neither are they in my quilts :)

Yeah thats a lump of black fluff I hadn't noticed when I was taking the photo.

While I like this filler it takes an age to do so hats off to you ladies that use it all over quilts!

Tomorrow my master plan is to finish up the tops that I showed off last week and to baste up some of that scrummy Christmas fabric to make some whole cloth quilts with....So not much to do there lol (Notice how the house work is no where near my list)

If anyone has any thoughts about quilting patterns for printed whole cloth quilts please do share as I'm really clutching at straws here.

I hope I've got a lot to show and tell tomorrow evening for the day I have planned for myself :)

Have a great week!

Little apples (AKA I love my post man!)

Helooooo!
I am bowled over by the response to Franky. Who knew that wine and fabric could produce such lovely thoughts from people :D Honestly though thanks everyone Franky is glowing with pride, as is Issabella!

Lets face it I couldn't have picked a better time to get sick. I've sat on my, now very rounded, butt and looked over some truly outstanding quilts at Amy's creative side for the WHOLE weekend. Him in doors topped my faboo weekend off by cooking the most outstanding dinner...Well ever! He made Delia Smiths roast tenderloin of pork with cider apple sauce, roast potatoes, roast apples and carrot and swede mash! I was in food heaven :D I will prod him for the recipe and share it out here, yes it was that good! :D If your in the UK, yes it's the one that was on the TV last week.

Ok so fabric and getting onto why I love my postman :) He brought me goodies! These came today -

Tasty Apple charm pack

I may have been drooling after Little Apples for a while when Laura of Quokka quilts ran a give-away and you guessed it I won! I'm embarrassingly excited as these are the first things I've ever won in blogland!

 I don't think my guy, or anyone else I know, can face me waving them in their face with a "How'd ya like 'em apples!?" shake any more!

 I'm lusting after a lap quilt or maybe cushions for my sofa or just petting them lovingly for a while.

So a big THANK YOU!!!! to Laura for sending them from across the planet (and for the chocolate but heck that was long gone before the camera got involved!) 

Hope you get a chance to get some sewing done this week and have a fun night tonight if your out and about! 

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Meet Franky (Again!)

So I'm putting Franky into the Bloggers Quilt Festival, this quilt's name comes from the fact it's a Frankenstein's monster from the scrap bin! How this beast started is documented here and is an utter testament to what happens when you mix wine and quilting. 720 1.5" squares of madness later this is what I have to show for it. My inspiration for Franky was this picture from...you guessed it pinterest! I love how the little squares of colour, not much when alone, came together to create an awesome wall display and I thought "Hey I want some of that action!" 

This little quilt is being entered into the Bloggers Quilt Festival because if you had told me 2 years ago I'd make a quilt with this many fiddly itty bitty squares I would've laughed at you (in a nice way!) But as they say at my LQS quilting is an illness and this is the proof! 

Things I learned while making Franky

I become obsessed with each new thing I sew.

It's ok to be proud of something you worked hard on.

Satin stitch rocks.

Don't throw scraps away there is ALWAYS a use for them and from that...

Keep scraps better organised!

I sew faster with music on. A little Audioslave, Soundgarden and Rage against the Machine really do make the day go faster (And to anyone that knows these bands and their history you can see the musical regression as the wine bottle emptied!)

So here are some arty farty shots of Franky, I got a new iPhone app :D

I want to live my life through a lomo lens, all retro and funky!

Franky is like a grown up fabric hoarders I spy quilt "Oh that is from Amy Butlers line" "Hey that one is a kokka one!" and so one and so on!

And finally after I made her look like Golem in my last post here is a pic of 'Bella trying her best to look pretty while I take a gazillion photos so I can play with the new app!

As some of you know blogger has me confused 50% of the time with it's changing things around when I'm not looking, however thankfully I figured out how to use the "drafts" feature! (Yeah I know, but it was Big Cheese to me!) This post is testament to the fact I didn't mess it up, I typed 75% of it up last night! Go Team Me!!!!

Feel free to leave a comment about Franky, my inability to hold my wine, my *slightly* dodgy musical taste, 'Bella or anything else you fancy then get yourself back over to Amy's place and have a look at the other fantastic quilts on show :D

Have a fantastic weekend

Quarter log cabin quilts and some old school AMH embroidery

That one picture can sum up the last two weeks for me, meds and tissues. Now I'm thinking I need one of those swanky tissue box covers :) I obviously have too much time on my hands as whilst watching yet more TV the Kleenex advert came on and 2 of the quilts look like they have been made from Little folks by Anna Maria Horner.
The other thing I noticed was how stupid and politically correct ads are, two examples Firstly Cadburys fruit and NUT has a "May contain nuts" warning, well I'd bloody hope it does really! Second is the Kinder egg advert (Yes I pay attention to sweets adverts!) that one warns you that it contains a toy! I don't know one child that gets them for the rotten chocolate do you? Anyway enough of my TV ramblings moving swiftly on!
When this came I nearly had a cow!

Do you see that hostage note!?! £93.25 that about $140 I think I shall with hold my customs rant for another day! Once I got over my shock and got the parcel opened this one shot out of nowhere and claimed it for her own

If I spoke Siamese I would hazard a guess I'm being told to bugger off, either that or she has adopted a Golem voice and is warding me away from her preeeeeecious  

Once I managed to actually get into the fabric madam claimed a beautiful pink dot as her own instead of the whole lot

Ah yes those are man feet, the man attached to them was making all of the correct "Oh I like that one" noises so I was a happy woman :) And yes that is a pile of Christmas fabric, would you like a closer look? here you go then

I swore no Christmas themed quilts unless I loved the fabric because as you may have worked out I like some really bright fabric and you don't tend to get much for Christmas time. So when I came across this lot they jumped into my cart before I could say "what will I make?" (Christmas quilts was the answer)


So other than glugging down cough medicine I have made some quilt tops (I'm quite pleased with the 'S' on that!) So as I can't really sew right now I'll do a show and tell of my wip list :)

This is a teeny tiny receiving quilt I say teeny as its 35"x 40" but if i'm being honest I just wanted to play :) I mixed up some Joel Dewberry prints, as they all go really well together, and this little quilt is what happened.

Sorry the blue in this looks really washed out :( it isn't in real life though so thats my photography skills for you. I have always wanted to make a quilt with only one block so this is it. Its lap quilt size I can't remember exactly and can't be chewed going to measure it up again. Again I wanted to play so I did.

This bad girl came from the ladies of the Sew Modern Quilt Bee I have a few blocks left to make into a giant floor cushion which I think will rock when we're chilling out on a weekend. Thank you ladies for helping me put together this quilt :)

If anyone has any thoughts on how any of the 3 should be quilted please let me know, right now I'm toying with ideas but haven't pinned one down yet.

And lastly some embroidery, as I've sat on my bum for quite some time I thought I had better do something more productive than watch crime dramas and shout at adverts. I picked out some fabric and embroidered it to death :) here are the pics to prove it

Again these colours aren't quite right! that red is purple!

My french nots are a little sloppy but I don't really care :) satin stitch and split stitch have been the heroes of the day!
I may have a massive crush on Anna Maria Horners fabrics, I adore what she does with florals! 

I think this will either be a wall hanging or a cushion but I'm not sure yet.

Ok so after that picture heavy post I'm off to cook some tea then get back to my Google reader list because I swear if I watch any more CSI I could tell them how to run a crime lab.

Have a great week :)