Finish Along Q2 round up!

Seriously, how are we half way through the year already? Time is flying, and has run out on my grand plans for finishes in quarter 2.

I looked back at my initial list with some trepidation as I have been very distracted sewing-wise lately. Things aren't as bad as I feared however!

1) Playground Quilt.
All finished and blogged here.

2) Sparkling Cider voile quilt.
Also finished and blogged here.

Both these only needed the binding sewing down so were easy wins really, but much appreciated ones as they are both in daily use and much loved. The "silky quilt" as my daughter calls it is particularly adored.

3) Travel Duffle too. No progress. At all. And I go on holiday in 2 weeks. With too much to do to even consider tackling this. FAIL.

4) Dottie quilt.
All finished and blogged here! 

This was just a pile of fabric when I wrote this list so particularly pleased to have it done. And I've finally decided to gift it to my daughter's lovely reception teacher as she has been so wonderful for her this year. Watch this space for a truly touching hand embroidered quilt label .....

5) Vaguely festive churn dash.
This was a bit of a wild card so unsurprisingly, no progress whatsoever.


So 3/5 for my first ever FAL. Not bad, but as a self confessed completer-finisher I feel I could/ should have done better. Time for a bit of focus for next quarter, the WIPs are piling up here.

Off to link up with Katy at The Littlest Thistle for the finish along party!

Many hands ...

... make light work of turning a huge pile of scraps

The leftovers of my Moda Potluck bundle from the Siblings Together Quilting Bee 2013

All fo these, plus some extras from mine and Karen's stashes too

and a couple of yards of Kona Snow into 48 granny square quilt blocks.

Yep, 48. With the addition of sashing, that's enough for 2 quilts. Thank you all so much Leeds Modern Quilt Guild!

I have lots more yardage of Kona Snow from Simply Solids for sashing and kindly donated backings on the way from Lisa and Hannah and I'm going to whip these up into 2 quilts for Siblings Together.

Siblings Together is a UK based charity which promotes positive contact between siblings separated by the care system. They may be separated foster care, residential care or adoption. The charity hosts yearly summer camps to reunite the children and all who attend are given a quilt to take away, filled with precious love and memories. I have heard that the numbers of donated quilts have dropped off slightly this year, so it is super important to keep talking about this and urging everyone to get involved. You can donate a quilt, some blocks, a single block or even just some fabric. More information in the Flickr group or please feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions or want to offer any help. This is an ongoing concern for me. Our Siblings Together Quilting Bee is starting its second year and Leeds MQG will definitely be putting this back on their agenda for next year.

I am going to *try* to get these two done by the deadline of the Fat Quarterly Retreat in July. After all, as Justine said yesterday, I don't work and I only have 2 kids. Ummm, that's an oxymoron, right?! The baby seems to have taken against naps and sleep in general (still up and playing at 9.20pm here ...) so I may be putting out a call for help in a couple of weeks! But I've felt in a bit of a slump sewing wise lately and this is giving me some great focus. On with the sashing!

Checking in

Oof, look at that, we're over half way through June. Not quite sure what happened there, maybe the Elsa dress finished me off. Well I am still here, and I have been doing bits of sewing, but June is a super busy month for us with birthdays and parties and family stuff and, ugh, I just seem to have lost my chat somehow. 

Anyways. here's what I've been up to.

I've been doing a little pattern testing for the lovely Jess at The Elven Garden. A more exciting blog post to come on that in the not too distant future but in the meantime here's a sneak peek.

I've also made a little set of pressies for a dear friend who had her second baby a couple of weeks ago. 

These simple bandana bibs are my go-to baby gift these days, assisted by my handy dandy snap press. I decided to add in a little taggy blanket too this time and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I absolutely love this Fanfare flannel, just perfect for things like this. I have yardage of the pink foxes stashed to make pyjama bottoms for both my girlies when the weather turns cooler again. It seems to be pretty much sold out now but fret not, gorgeous new colours are coming in the next couple of months. 

I read on Instagram this week that the lovely Aneela Hoey has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is currently awaiting surgery. Aneela is one of my absolute favorite designers. A Sherbet Pips jelly roll was one of the first fabric lines I ever bought. My eldest daughter has a Posy quilt on her bed and my youngest has a F8 bundle of Hello Petal all waiting to be made up into the same. Her designs are just the right side of sweet and girly with adorable details and perfect colours. I don't know her, but as a human, a woman and a mother I am sad that she is going through this at the moment. 

So Chelsea has put out a call for blocks to make a #quiltforaneela.

Simple x and o blocks in a couple of size options using Aneela's own fabrics and any white you happen to have. All the details are on her blog. She's asking for a pretty quick turnaround, with blocks mailed by the end of June. Which means that a) I need to get my last 2 finished and b) if you would like to make some blocks you should get a wriggle on.

It's our Leeds MQG sewing day on Saturday (hurrah!!) and we're going to be giving a little back then too. Remember the quilt I made for Siblings Together as part of the Siblings Together Quilt Bee?

Well that was a sponsored bee and the bundle of Potluck fabrics used for the quilt was very generously provided by Moda. It was a big bundle and even after those giant churn dash blocks I had plenty left over, so I've been sorting and chopping scraps

and we're planning on making some granny square blocks all together on Saturday.

So, I'm going to quickly link up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

and I'm off to cut 266 3" squares of Kona Snow for those little grannies .....

End of May, start of June

May has been a bit of a funny old month for me and rather slow in the sewing department. I've been doing a Whole 30 to try to clean up my diet and curb my sugar addiction (day 28 today :-)) and so I seem to have spent a significant part of my usual sewing time on meal planning, food prepping and cooking. So in truth, not much to show for this month. Not even worthy of a mosaic, sadly! But anyway.

I did manage to finish up this block from the everlasting WIP that is the Pile O Fabric Skill Builder BOM from 2013. This is an EPPd and hand appliqued block and as such had sat prepped but unsewn for some considerable months. A lovely sewing day with the Leeds MQG gave me a kick to get it all finished and it has now joined the pile of pieced but as yet unquilted blocks ...

I also continued my theme of racing ahead with my Bee blocks. Our lovely Siblings Together quilting bee had its final month last night, but several of us have decided to continue for another year! Un-sponsored this year after an incredibly generous year of sponsorship so we will be working from stash and we've had a little shuffle around with some new members too. Jo volunteered to be first up and asked us to make these sweet scrappy little Rocky Mountain puzzle blocks. So I did, even mastering the inset seam in the tutorial (easy once Jo had pointed out to me that's what it was!). Nice to have June's blocks out of the way before June even starts and an absolute pleasure to be involved in making quilts for this wonderful charity for another year.

Oh yes, and I made an Elsa from Frozen costume. I won't go on again, but you can read all about it here.


That's it for finishes for May, but the WIPs are starting to build up and I am no fan of having things hanging over me. June is always a busy month for us with birthdays and parties but I am hoping my new found energy will enable me to make a good go at this list:

• First up is some pattern testing for the incredibly lovely and talented Jess. I hope that this colourful stack will do justice to her fabulous design. This is my priority WIP this week.

• Travel duffle 2. Poor travel duffle is in the same untouched state as last month.

• And of course, my Aviatrix Medallion. I am looking forward to getting back to this one once I have a bit of headspace to do so.This is where I'm up to so far.

So that's me! Linking up with Lynne's Fresh Sewing Day. Rather excitingly, thanks to the success of my Sew Mama Sew giveaway and all my super new followers I no longer qualify for the Small Blog Meet! But I'm going to pop off and visit a few new little blogs anyway - every month I find someone new and lovely to follow and I hope you do too!