Quotes of the week

Most weekends, we have James' two kids to stay. They are super gorgeous and say the most hilarious things.  This weeks collection includes:

Pip (age 5) - "I'm not supposed to be in the deep end of the pool, I stay in the shadow end"
George (age 8) lecturing his little sister - "You're not the boss of me, or Dad, or Ceri, or Felix, you can only be the boss of yourself"

Quite true, hee hee.

I'm making slow but steady progress on a baby/ little person/ lap quilt at the moment, using some of the colours from the Starburst cushion.  I can't quite decide which of the above it will be as it's not classic baby colours. Will decide when it's finished I guess!

Anyway, have decided to document progress here in order to keep momentum up!

Today's picture - The fabric cut and arranged.

Tomorrow, the white sashing between the coloured slices. Am halfway through so this shouldn't be too big an ask :)

By the way, those comedy phrases from the kids reminded me of a cracker my brother came out with when he was little.  When asked what his favourite music band was he promptly replied "The Ketchup boys"...

It was some time before we realised he was referring to the Pet Shop boys!

x

A day of mini disasters and a Starburst

Yesterday, Nikki and I went for a trip to Eastbourne.  It turned out to be one of those trips of silly comic disaster with:

• miserable, sniffy babies who grizzled (aww)
• half-term queues
• food so bad we sent it back
• getting the price of things wrong and then having to change our minds at the till 
• oh, and a friend who joined us managing to drive her car with roof box into a multi-storey car park only to find, there was NO way it was going to be able to get out again.  This little event required us to stand in a multi-storey for half an hour whilst the security guards were sympathetic (with thinly veiled amusement).  Dragging the husband home from London with the roof box key was, it appeared, the only answer.  No one ever likes to confirm the "baby brain" reputation, but for a moment that's how we felt!

Anyway, I was determined to finish the Starburst cushion for Nikki, to make up for the day, and finish it I did, aided by Paella and half a bottle of sparkling wine :)

(You can see my earlier progress here - using an excellent tutorial from Film in the Fridge).

Thanks for your comments on how to finish it.  In the end I opted for a rectangular cushion with the starburst set off-centre.  James also persuaded me to quilt it, to make the colours stand out, and he was right! (amazing for a guy who really does NOT do fabric).

It's backed with a piece of Valentino cashmere (I know!) which I picked up for £2.50 in a charity shop, and a little touch of purple.

Oh and I'm linking up to Sew and Tell Friday over at AmyLouwho!  I know it's Saturday, but I did finish it yesterday, honest!

x

One World One Heart prize received!

Big thanks to Sam Bonney at Cornish Contemporarys: "Flotsam and Jetsum" who hosted a One World One Heart giveaway on her blog. Sam is super creative, and does some lovely seascapes and really cute inchies. I was lucky enough to win her second door prize, this gorgeous vintage tag, which came lovingly wrapped in the post today.

Thanks Sam!

I am in love with this...!

Check out this fantastic machine raw-edged appliqued work by Aneela Hoey of Comfort Stitching ...  I found it blog-surfing whilst eating my cereal this morning via Quilt Story.    LOVE LOVE LOVE this style!   It's going to get added to my ever growing list of things to do, which I have now decided to publish on the sidebar on my blog...just to keep the impetus going  :)

Ceri x

Your views please!

I've offered to make Nikki a cushion, and thought I'd try something different.  I found a gorgeous Starburst quilt on Film in the fridge, so I followed the excellent tutorial that accompanied it, thinking I'd make one block for the cover of my cushion.

Apologies for the poor pics (midnight in our kitchen on an iphone!)

Here is the block in progress...

and where I'm up to now. 

The thing is, I can't decide whether to:

a) follow the tutorial and trim this to a square.  I'd then need a border for a square cushion or I could put the square onto one end of a rectangular cushion (I'm thinking I'll use my grey flecked cotton for the borders)

b) or trim this block to a circle and applique it onto a square cushion?

Hmmm it's a dilemma I can't face tonight so I'm going to bed, but your views would be very much appreciated!  (including yours, Nikki!)

x

Curtains, and number 2 in a series

Not as much productivity as I would have liked on the stitching front.  I spent yesterday evening hemming a pair of curtains, which is possibly one of the worst sewing jobs ever.  I moaned all the way through and consumed copious amounts of vodka and diet coke. As a result, when I hung the curtains today there is a centimetre difference where they meet in the middle. Hmmmm... I figure they'll be open most of the time so no one will notice :)   

The saving grace for these curtains was the fabric - check out this lovely bird print I got in the sale at C+H fabrics. Prestigious Textiles - Berkeley Square. It's SO yummy that I made matching cushions with red velvet backs!

Other than that the only creation this week has been the second cushion I've done in the stack of books design. I reversed the colours on this one, and am pleased with it, but prefer the first one. See below for
both.

I can't resist leaving you with another image of said cushion. When I ventured into the garden yesterday to take a picture of this cushion, our lovely builder Dave insisted on modelling it (I did check if his hands were vaguely clean first!)

Da-dah!

Ceri x

PS That's our house in the background - eek!

OWOH - and the winner is....!

One World One heart is over!  Thank you so much to all you of you who visited by blog and left lovely comments - they really made my week!   To top it all, I managed to win two giveaways!  Yeay! these are my first wins since I started blogging and I can't tell you how excited I am!   More about those later (they deserve a post of their very own!)

And now for my door prize which was this heart cushion, a completely one-off creation by InspiredbyFelix.

I received 123 comments and have used http://www.random.org/, as follows:

It's pretty small so in case you can't read it, the result is...103!  The 103 comment was left by..........(drum roll)......
....................................................................

Ellen from Shimmer and Tulle in Canada!   Ellen, I will email you separately for a mailing address

Congratulations!!!

Ceri x