A Summery Bundle

I'm following the crowd again and I've just spent the last couple of hours browsing the gorgeous fabric that the lovely Brenda has in her online store Pink Castle Fabric. I've put together a bundle of fabric that I would love to buy for myself and I'm going to enter it into Katy and Brenda's contest

 

 I think this would make a gorgeous summer quilt. I'd call it Summer Haze.

All these fabrics are available from Pink Castle Fabric
1. Annie's Big Dot in Yellow
2. Heath in Tomato
3. Floral Drop Peony
4. Basket Weave Yellow
5. Flower Border in Natural
6. Pearl Bracelet in Red
7. Mono Pez in Yellow
8. Cross Weave in Natural
9. Sheherazade in Orange
10. Hop Dot in Tangerine
11. Town Square in Cream and Red
12. Free Spirit Solid in Salmon

Happy Saturday!
Fiona x

Obsessed?

I seem to have developed a bit of an obsession with Camille Roskelly's quilt patterns. First it was Swoon, which I wanted to make for ages before Katy started her QAL and got me started on it. I spent yesterday basting my Swoon and hand quilting has now commenced :)

Then Katy kept the fun going and announced that Camille's Hopscotch and On a Whim patterns were next up in the QAL. Cue Fiona obsessively making triangles and being unable to stop. Those triangles were so addictive! My Hopscotch quilt top is now finished and I LOVE it! I need to decide how to quilt it. I'm thinking about being brave and trying some fancy FMQ but we'll see.

Then Camille put all her pdf patterns on sale for $5 and I couldn't resist buying one or two (okay 3 of them!)
This is her Jelly Filled pattern, I can't decide whether to add borders or leave it as it is. This was a really quick and easy pattern, and I'll be making more of these :)

You'd think I had enough quilts tops on the go wouldn't you? But I'm itching to start on another of Camille's patterns. I'm planning Wild Thing using either a couple of Whimsy charm packs, or Reunion charm packs. I'm trying to be strong and wait until I've finished at least one quilt but my cutting mat is calling me! I think I have a sickness!!!!

Hope you have a great weekend!
Fiona x

Tagged and a book

So I was tagged the other day by the lovely Susan at Canadian Abroad and then the lovely Sarah at Narcoleptic in a Cupboard tagged me again. Now I wouldn't normally play tag (or Tig as we know it here) because it involves a bit much effort but seeing as Susan and Sarah are both my pals, I'll play along :)

Here are Susan's questions:
1. What is your favourite cartoon from childhood?
Probably the Flintstones. My sister and I used to watch it together after dinner.

2. What is your favourite restaurant in the world and where is it?
I love the Tiffin Rooms in Glasgow. It's an Indian restaurant that serves the most delicious light food. Their Bhel Papar is AMAZING!


3. If you could buy any fabric bundle you wanted right now (someone else was paying) what would it be?
It would be a bundle of Anna Maria Horner's velveteens

4. What is your favourite quilt made by someone else? (Please include a link or photo if that is possible.)
That's really hard! maybe this one by Elizabeth Wright on Flickr. I could spend hours just looking at it 

5. I need a day on the beach. Where would you recommend?
That's hard too! I'm not really a beachy kind of girl. The kind of beach I like is a long deserted beach where you can walk the dog. This is my idea of a great beach 

6. If a sewing retreat could be held in the place of your choice and all your friends would be able to attend where would you have it?
I'd make it some fantasy location in the South Island of New Zealand. We would have a huge wooden cabin on the edge of a lake nestled in some stunning mountains. There would be a vineyard close by and a resident chef (that looked like George Clooney) to cook us up some delicious food. If we ever go tired of sewing and talking and laughing we could go out for a walk in pure fresh air and enjoy spectacular scenery.

7. What is the first sign of Spring for you?
Snowdrops and crocuses starting to peep out

8. Do you have a favourite smell?
I love the smell of autumn, that smell of bonfires on a crisp cold day.

9. If you drink wine, what do you prefer - red, white or pink? If you don't drink wine, what is your favourite drink?
It depends on where I am, what I'm doing and the weather! I really enjoy a glass of wine. In the winter I drink more red wine and in summer I prefer white. I'm not crazy about pink , but I really love sparkling wine and would enjoy a glass of that whenever!

10. What sewing task do your dread the most?
Mending things! I hate sewing on lost buttons, or split seams, or meanding hems on school trousers

11. You are making me a desert - what is it, and will you give me the recipe?
Well I've never actually made it, but I love Cranachan. Here is a link to a recipe on the BBC website 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cranachan_66101 

Here are Sarah's questions:

1  Who did you blame for your last public fart?
My children!

2  What's your favourite TV theme tune and why.
'In the Night Garden' on Cbeebies. All 3 children used to love it and it was on just before bedtime. The tune is so relaxing and it used to mean that my day of running around frantically chasing a 4 year old, 2 year old and 1 year old was almost over and I could actually sit down :)

3  Tell me, what's on your 15 minute mix tape and who are you giving it to?
Errrrr I don't know. I don't think I've made a mix tape since I was about 18. Back then it would have been the Breeders, the Pixies and maybe a bit of Neil Young.....

4  Roller boots or roller blades?
Roller Blades

5  If a cushion is a pillow what's a pillow?
A pillow is what I lay my head on when I go to sleep

6  Who is your Dr. (who)?
I was too scared of the Daleks (is that how you spell it?) to ever watch Dr Who!

7  If you don the ruby slippers and click your heels etc, where you gonna end up?
A fabric shop with a wad of cash in my pocket!

8  What fragrance is your fabric softener?
'Sunshine' for clothes, 'Lavendar and camomile' for bedding

9  Bananas - young and firm or old and soft?
Young and firm with a hint of green

10  Why IS a raven like a writing desk?
I have no idea what you are talking about!

11  What was the last thing that totally grossed you out?
A dead deer that is lying on the other side of a stream on our walk to school. It makes me sad, and sick at the same time :(


Now I do not have the energy to think up any questions, or to find people who have not already been tagged.

I have one question for anybody that would like to answer....

Q. What is your best tip for saving time, or making your life easier?

You can leave a comment here and also let me know if you would like this pre-owned lightly used book by Joel Dewberry. I'm trying to clear out the living room in preparation for the arrival of our puppy and Amazon's trade in scheme offered me £0.85 for it! I'd rather give it away!!!!!

If you would like the book, please let me know your email address so I can contact you, and I'd rather send it within the UK because we are saving all our pennies to pay for the puppy! But if you live elsewhere and desperately want it, would you pay the postage?

Thanks
Fiona x

Swooning and Hopping and a winner!

Last week the productivity continued and I managed to get my Swoon quilt top finished. I'm quite excited about this one because it is for my bed, and my husband actually likes it! I'm not sure yet how I'm going to quilt it. It's pretty big at over 80" square, but I'm thinking about handquilting.

I've been desperate to start making a hopscotch quilt and keep going with Katy's QAL, and I made myself finish my Swoon first.

Then I got cutting :)

and obsessively piecing over the weekend. Those triangles are really really addictive! This morning I got them all pressed (I just finger-pressed them as I went along) and sewn into rows. Now they look like this....

I'm hoping to get the rows sewn together tomorrow morning. Then I need to do some serious basting :)

Thanks for all the puppy name suggestions. I used Mr Random Number to pick a winner for the Curio charm pack, but the prtscn button on my keyboard is not working, so I can't show you.

But the winner is........

Number 40

Nikki at Sew Quine who said

Sew QuineMar 12, 2012 01:50 PM

aww he's very cute! Name wise I'd go for Murphy, I think it'd really suit a springer. My inlaws had a dog name Steven, imagine walking about shouting Steven, Steven!

I'll send you an email Nikki :)

The puppy is still nameless, but we still have a couple of weeks to pick a name :)

Had to show the cute puppy picture again :)

Fiona x

some news

A lot of you know that I've had a very hard couple of weeks. For those that didn't know, we lost our dog Ava very suddenly a couple of weeks ago and the whole family has been completely devastated. Our dogs are not just dogs to us, they are members of our family.

Our home and family has just felt wrong since our little Ava-baby went and after a lot of soul searching and research we have decided to get a puppy.

Here is our soon-to-be new little hairy baby

It's a little springer spaniel boy. He's 5 weeks old and when we took the kids to see the puppies he toddled over to my daugher, climbed into her lap and fell asleep. I took that as a sign that he was meant to be ours (but I had already fallen in love with him when I went to see the pups on my own)

So now we need to find him a name

The short list so far is:

• Baxter
• Bramble
• Murphy
• Dougal

Does anyone fancy helping us out with a new name?


I've got a little something that might help you get your thinking caps on ;)

A charm pack of Curio will be winging it's way to one of the commenters on this post. You can either let me know which is your favourite name from the list, or suggest a new name. I'll choose a winner in a few days.


Here's another cute puppy picture just to get those names flowing :)

Fiona x

Productivity!

Thankyou so very much for all the lovely kind comments, emails, cards and texts after my last post. I wanted to thank each of you personally, but some of you are no reply commenters, so if you haven't received a reply I want to say Thankyou. All your kind words meant a lot.

I've had a wee break from the computer in general (and phone and laptop) so I feel like there's a lot of catching up to do.

I haven't meausred this quilt but that's a 6 foot fence it's draped over

I've been stitching like a mad-woman while the computer's been off. I always thought I loved being on my own when the kids were at school and nursery, or when I finish a late work shift and everyone else is in bed. But it turns out that I was never actually on my own, and the little warm furry body that faithfully snored beside me meant even more than I realised. I've been in a sewing (and cleaning) frenzy to try to distract myself, and I'm amazed at how much I have produced (and how much nicer my house looks when it's had a good tidy up and clean)!

Warning there are quite a lot of photos following!

My FMQ is slowly improving

The back

First of all I basted and quilted a quilt top I made 2 or 3 years ago. As soon as I finished the top I fell out of love with it and put it away, but I put this on my list for Rhonda's Finish Along and I'm so glad I finished it off. My Granny will be 90 years old this August and I'm going to give this to her for her birthday. I love it now it's done and I think she will too. Fabric is Mill House Inn by Fig Tree Quilts for Moda.

The back

I also made this little baby quilt using charm squares I cut from Sarah Jane's lovely line Children at Play. I added some dots and Metro Living circles too. This quilt was sooo quick to make. It only took a few hours. My sister asked me to make it for her new nephew. I've still to handstitch the binding down, but I'll hopefully get that finished tonight after work.

The lovely Ceri asked for Paper pieced food for her month in the Brit Bee and I got to work straight away. She mentioned that one of her kids' favourite food was pizza and I found this brilliant pattern!

After I'd made the pizza I found a great stripey charm square and had to make a drink with a bendy straw.

I've made another 2 Swoon blocks

and jumped on the Granny Square bandwagon and joined the QAL going on over at the Old Red Barn Flickr group. I can't stop making theses little blocks. I had only planned a baby quilt, but if i keep loving them so much I might end up with a Queen Size! As soon as I saw Jolene's gorgeous quilt I loved it and was so excited when Dana and her merry gang decided to do Granny Squares for their QAL.

That's it for now, but I think that's quite impressive for a week's sewing, don't you? :)

Take care
Fiona x