Rain rain... Happy mail day

What an icky day in Sydney- blerghhhh!

So far my day has been filled with tantrums, kids not sleeping, dogs wanting a walk and general coldness. Then my doorbell rang and like a ray of sunshine my postman delivered me 4 packages (well three for me and 1 for hubby - but at the moment I am living a delusional fantasy that it is a present for me - reality it is probably dog worming tablets) anyway back to the three packages. Firstly my Simply Solids Block for May from Adrianne from New Zealand. I have put all the ones I have together and am loving it!

I need to make up a few of the A blocks but I am leaning towards putting all the B Blocks in the middle and the A blocks on the outside as a border. I will certainly need to have a play!
Second package was my order from Craft Depot in their May sale. I needed some fabrics to make some bunting for my sister-in-laws wedding - it will be a surprise so no pics on this one. But I did sneak in some Amy Butler Lark - $7.95 a metre - that is cheaper than overseas! Miss E immediately grabbed it and said "mummy, blanket for ME" so her morning tantrums were all erased. Sorry Elsie - that fabric is for me!
The third package was a prize from the Sew Mama Sew giveaway - all the way from the Netherlands! Muriel from Hopfaldera sent me some awesome little crafty items, including the cutest owl fabric!
Now if only those rain clouds would go away - I have a few quilt finishes I need to photograph so I can share!

Where are the pirates mummy? Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013

Welcome to the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Spring 2013 hosted by Amy at Amy's Creative Side
 

The Quilt I am entering is a modern eye-spy quilt I made for my daughter completely made from scraps. For me it is actually quite a special quilt as every window has its own story for me. There is fabric I have used in my projects over the years. So there are bits that remind me of friends and family and hopefully Elsie will be able to match up the fabrics in years to come.

I have been on a major scrap bust this year. Many hours have been spent in front of the TV going through my scrap box (which was actually 3 boxes!) sorting them into different size squares and strips. I started fussy cutting some 2 3/4" squares. There are a few repeats of fabric - but each piece is of a different story. Again using scraps I created a film strip look with different colours to create the windows.

So that gets me to the title of this post - 100 fussy cut squares for the quilt top and little MissE spent about 10 minutes (which is impressive for a 2 1/2 year old) looking at it excited to see giraffes, owls, butterflies etc and she looks at me and asks "Where are the pirates mummy"? It seems we like pirates at the moment, and while my stash does not contain pirate fabric (how embarrassing!) I did have a pirate ship. So I made another 2 rows for the back and appliquéd her name.

And to make it even more scrap friendly, I used a scrap piece of bamboo batting and the binding is made up of all leftover binding from other quilts. I have used some gorgeous Golden Book fabric for the backing that was leftover from making some library bags. I just love all the little characters from my favourite childhood books!

Thanks for visiting and be sure to drop by some of the other amazing quilts at the festival.

Details
Size: 30"x 38"
Quilting: simply straight lines by me
Category: Favorite Baby Quilt

Oops did i start a St Louis 16 patch...

Mmmmm I started eyeing off the St Louis 16 patch quilt the other day and thought that looked quick and fun. But I couldn't justify starting another project at the moment and I did not think I had any fabric suitable. Then as I was tidying up my sewing space I came across a stack of Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow Fat quarters. They were destined to be a quilt for the bed, but I never got around to it. We have since moved and while I still love the fabric I don't think it is "me" or our place at the moment. Plus I since started my Washi quilt which I am excited about!

Still needed that justification... Looks like my lovely Aunt has decided to get married at the end of May instead of later in the year! Yipppeeee there is the means and the motive!! Got 4 squares done tonight :)

Oh ye fabric gods - I thank you!

I have just spent 2 days tidying my sewing storage space and table. I may have accidentally started at least 2 more quilts as I was putting away my fabric, did bits'n'pieces on some other projects and had at least 2 more quilts on the cutting board before I had a chat to myself about finishing other projects before starting new ones. Anyway fabric is all put away and as I was doing it I made some progress on Miss E's car quilt by finishing fussy cutting all the centre pics.
So I essentially have cut 100 centre bits, with only a few repeats of some of the extra cute fabric (but only if it contained a different picture) Then I started thinking about it - that is pretty much 100 bits of fabric I own, and that wasn't even going through some of my boxes and not including solids. Yikes ... Lets not tell hubby ... He may be right for a change - I may have a ridiculous amount of fabric. I have pretty much been on a fabric ban for the past 2 years as well (with a few splurges!) so I have been entering competitions to try to win fabric! And lo and behold I have been on a bit of a streak! At the end of last year I won a sponsor prize for the Simply Solids Bee - $50 voucher at the Aussie only store Duckcloth (which I heard is now shutting down :( ) So I stocked up on some solids and other cute fabric.

Then I won a $30 voucher at Sew Mama Sew for my Up from here block. I picked up some awesome e-patterns including the Peekaboo Dress pattern which I am going to make for my little girl when she is a flower girl later this year.
And finally I won a $50 voucher through Red Pepper Quilts for Fashionable Fabrics. Which arrived today!
I may have splurged and got a few extras - but hey we have to make that postage to Australia worth it!

Simply Solids : a modern {bee} May instructions for Fallow Group

Yeh, May is my month in the Simply Solids: a modern {bee} for the Fallow group. I am asking the lovely ladies to construct the Scrap Vomit B Blocks in 2" squares using their own stashes. For the layout you will need
13 x 2" squares of Fabric A
8 x 2" squares of Fabric B
4 x 2" squares of Fabric C
24" x 2" squares of random solid fabrics - the more the merrier! I don't mind if there are multiples of fabrics in there but please use at least 6 different fabrics for the random section.
Fabric A forms the bigger diamond but I would also like the very centre square to be fabric A as well. The layout is below

Instructions for putting together the Scrap Vomit B Block can be found at I'm a ginger monkey

April Bees & Blocks

Skill Builder BOM

Hello Woven Star and Woven Chevron





My 6 blocks together so far...



The April block for the Simply Solids: a modern {bee}was for Sally who sent out some fabrics to do a corner block.



May is my month - am thinking scrap dive for solid scrap vomit quilt!

April Showers Mug Rug Hop

Hi Everyone - today is my day for the April Showers Mug Rug Hop.

Thank you to Madame Samm for this fun hop and thank you to our cheerleader Erin!

April to me means cups of tea with my best friends and starting to get ready for the warmer months (mmm wine and cheese). We don't usually get a lot of rain in April in Sydney, but this April has been all over the place! Beautiful sunshine one minute and thunderstorms the next. There may have even been some puddle jumping with my 2.5 year old the other day. I am not sure who had more fun...

Anyway onto the Mug Rugs! I tried some paper piecing for the first time in practice for making a bigger quilt for one of my tea loving friends. I came across this great free pattern at Piece by Number for some teacups and thought some Mug Rugs would be perfect for my practice runs of paper piecing. I decided to make 4 - one for me and each of my 3 best friends.

I am also a fairly forgetful person so I decided to personalise them with some embroidery on how they take their tea. So here they are!

For my Tea obsessed, everything is better in pink, make sure you have an extra litre of milk when I visit friend - a dainty floral number!

For me, a frilly umbrella rug. This fabric was, let's say "borrowed" from my mothers sewing room many moons ago.

For my shoe loving, likes very sweet tea friend I could not look past some gumboots!

and finally my scrabble loving, would prefer a glass of wine friend but is slowly coming around to more cups of tea friend. She is also know to decant the odd bottle of wine in her awesome frog teapot.

And all of them together with our favourite mugs.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have been enjoying the Mug Rug Hop - there is still a day to go! Oh and in roll those storm clouds *as she rushes to get the clothes off the line!  Here is today's schedule

Wednesday, April 17

Jen @ Quilter in the Closet

Marjorie @ Marjorie's Busy Corner

Elita @ A Pieceful Perspective

Green @ So Sew Green

Mara @ Greco Mara

Wendy @ Why Knot Kwilt?

Gmama Jane @ GrandMama's Stories

Debby @ Debby Kratovil Quilts

Britt-Inger @ Hill Valley Quilter

Connie @ Freemotion by the River

Beth @ Words and Stitches

Kathy @ iHeartSquishy

2013 Q2 Finish-a-long

I have decided that I actually need to start finishing some projects and get them out of my sewing cupboard. I have so many quilts that I want to start but then the momentum starts to fade when I think about the other projects... So what better motivation than blogland! I am linking up for the 2nd Quarter Finish-a-long at She Can Quilt. 

So my goals for Q2 

1. Spinning Stars Quilt. According to my flickr stream I actually finished the quilt top back last October and I think I had the quilting done by the end of November so that just left the hand binding. I hate hand sewing and teamed with the Australian Summer and me being in my last trimester of my pregnancy it wasn't going to happen. I have done about a quarter of the binding so I just need to find something on TV that I can bear to watch to finish it up!
REQUIRES: Binding 

2. A Car Quilt for MissE. When I was going through my scraps a few months ago for my scrap vomit quilt I also started to fussy cut some prints to make a car quilt for my little lass. Kinda a rainbow eye-spy film strip quilt. As we are getting towards winter it might be a good idea to knock this one over!
REQUIRES: Finish blocks, Quilting and Binding

3. Washi Bedspread. Oh how I have neglected you beautiful Washi!Shame on me. The size daunted me to quilt. But as I am getting more confident with Free Motion Quilting I am convincing myself I can get this quilted on my good old Janome.Very ambitious for me to add this to my list but I would love to see some progress on it! At least getting it out to photograph is a start.
REQUIRES: I need to add another border for size, Quilting and Binding

 

4. Kids Quilt #1
REQUIRES: Just needs two borders and to be quilted and bound

5. Kids Quilt #2
REQUIRES: Just needs quilting and to be bound

So hopefully this will help with the momentum. Fingers crossed my 3 month old continues his good run of sleeping and my visitors don't mind a messy house!