Splendid swapping!

The Great Brit Quilt Pillow Fight is over!  This is the package I sent to Lynn (Rainingcatsanddogs), my lovely partner.

(which she says she liked - yeay!)

And in return I received this amazing package from Jo (Sewjo2009).  Such a beautifully made cushion in lovely rainbow colours, plus a Moda pre-cut pack and a cool hoop for storing all those sewing knick-knacks.

Jo, I love it, thank you so much!

And if that wasn't enough, Miss Laura (Needles, Pins and Baking tins) and I had an impromptu little swap when, in exchange for some relatively boring but useful furnishing fabrics, she sent me this veritable mountain of rainbow scraps, and her first ever zippy pouch (you wouldn't know it was her first!)

Many thanks LJ, I'm so chuffed with my goodies :)

Oh, and Laura is having a super giveaway for some "It's a Hoot" fabrics, pop over and have a little look!

x

My little lady has been poorly...

It's been a scary few days here.  Felix has had a bad cough all week, which was diagnosed as a virus on Wednesday.  On Friday afternoon her breathing got much worse so we took her back to the doctors.  He sent us straight to the hospital where we spent a long and worrying evening with chest X-rays and nebulisers and antibiotics.

It turns out it was a nasty virus with possible signs of a chest infection, but fortunately she responded well to all the treatments and Saturday morning was spent running around the ward eating the nurses' Quality Street (like mother like daughter!)

We got to come home on Saturday, and have had a quiet time, so hopefully (everything crossed here) she's well on the mend now.  

As you may imagine, my sewing mojo has completely left the building, but I do need to ask for some advice as I have a swap item to finish this week..

Remember my powerpoint designs?

Well, I turned the two on the left into reality...

and for my partner think I'm going to stick with the first option, the random squares in orange, green and turquoise on linen. 

The only thing is, I have no ideas on how to quilt it.  I don't own any hand-quilting thread, and have never hand quilted before, so I think that's out...so machine quilting-wise..what would you do?

Without my mojo, I'm stumped so your thoughts would be very much appreciated

x

Quilting by Powerpoint

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around here...I've spent the week at Mum and Dads and consequently not had much time to sew or read blogs.  I did have marvellous intentions of catching up a little on the HUGE "To-Do" list so on top of all the baby gear, I diligently packed:

• My sewing machine and all the accoutrement's
• Fabrics for the commission I am currently working on
• Interfacing
• Freezer paper
• Thread
• Two pairs of scissors
• My unpicker
• Pins and needles
• Scraps, in case I wanted to start on something else

It was only halfway around the M25 that I realised that progress would be severely limited by the lack of rotary cutter, mat and quilting rulers......DOH!

Grrrr...undeterred...I finished the applique element of the commission (more on that later) and then did some quilting by PowerPoint...

In case you are wondering what I mean, I use PowerPoint (Microsoft presentation software) to draw up designs.  It's probably not totally suited to quilting designs but since I have spent 15 years of my life using it to get messages across I'm reasonably adept at drawing pictures in it!

So first up, here are the designs for the Brit Bee blocks for Miss October.  Laura asked for stars, so I searched my old patchwork books and found the "Eastern star".  A bit of tweaking to use HSTs rather than diamonds and fit the fabrics I have...here's the PowerPoint version

And I have managed to get this one stitched up, so here's the fabric version...

Block 2 is still on PowerPoint only, but I'm thinking something like this...

If I can stretch the fabric,and if it meets the requirements of Miss Laulipops?!

Next I drew up some designs for the Brit Quilt Pillow Swap.  So, mystery partner....do any of these appeal to you?

Number 1: Floating squares, bright prints, sashed in white and all set on natural linen

Number 2: I think you like string quilting, so this design is a trellis of string patches (don't pay attention to the colours, this is the subject of another decision!)

Number 3: Simple but stylish, green and grey rectangles and linen

Number 4:  The Wild card, how about one of those stars above?!

Please help me decide, mystery partner!

x

A comedy make!

Apparently, draft excluders are all the rage.  Could I make them to sell?  Heck, yeah, I say!  I start thinking of a design.  The obvious (and with hindsight, sensible) route is to cut two long rectangles from your chosen fabrics and stitch together, stuffed with something a little weighty. End pieces are optional.   "Too easy" I think  "my draft excluders need to stand out in the saturated draft excluder market.... "

So I set out to ruin a perfectly decent design...

Are you ready for this picture?


Brace yourself....


for the unveiling of....the return of the Hungry Caterpillar!

Stopped laughing? 

Shall I explain? I thought adding gathers and therefore lumps would look interesting...and I also totally  misjudged the size such that only a show-jumper would be able to enter the room if this were in the doorway.

I had an inkling it wasn't right so it was with trepidation that I showed James.....he looked (and his face twitched) and he said that draught excluders were meant to be smaller and not such a "feature" in a room and that I should chalk this up to experience...

Anyone got any ideas on how I can repurpose this?  or do you think there's a market for "ride-along" draught excluders?!

In other news I've taken the plunge into my first ever swap.  I've steered clear of these so far due to the pile of other sewing commitments I've got...but at lunchtime yesterday decided that I'm way more productive when there's deadlines (it's only taken me until 37 to realise this!) so filled in the form and snuck in at the last minute.   For the uninitiated (Mums etc!) a secret swap is where you make something for a partner (in this case a cushion) based on what you think they'll like and someone else (who will be a mystery until the parcel arrives!) will make one for you.   Here's my inspiration mosaic (to help my partner know what I'd like...)

Now I'm excited!
x