Vaguely festive churn dash quilt finish

This quilt has been a LONG time in the making. It started in November 2013 (yes, really!) when I made a couple of test blocks for my Siblings Together Quilting Bee month block. I used some *vaguely* Christmassy fabrics that I had in my stash that I thought I was unlikely to ever do anything with, and rather liked them. 

I pulled together this little stack with a slightly Christmassy red/ green/aqua/ pink theme.

Christmas passed, and so did my motivation to make a Christmas quilt.

The actual Siblings Together quilt got finished.

And still no progress. It became a bit of a FAL rollover item, as I do hate having UFOs lying around. And then at the start of October I realised I was in danger of another Christmas passing without it done. So I got on with it. 

These are lovely big (20" unfinished) blocks which go together fast, and I tried not to agonise too much over the fabric choices while still getting a reasonable balance of colours and values, I think it was this that had paralysed my progress throughout the year. I had collected a few nice little festive prints to go in this quilt and enjoyed using them. Favorites are from Annela Hoey, Karen Lewis Textiles and Kate Spain.

More agonies over layout, which never seem to matter once the quilt is actually complete. I used a long ago won voucher for Button up and Stitch to buy a Christmassy backing:

Quilted with my standard wavy lines - life's too short to try anything new, you know. And (eventually) got it bound in perfect red on white squared elements. And I STILL haven't taken any decent photos of it, this will have to do.

And yes, there has been much festive snuggling. And silly face pulling.

One of those original blocks didn't actually make it into the final quilt due to being the wrong green. I have cushion plans afoot so expect to see it popping up on the 2015 Q1 FAL list!

So here we have it:

Pattern: Giant churn dash blocks

Size: 58"ish by 78"ish

Fabrics: Lots!

Quilting: Diagonal wavy lines in Aurifil 50wt #5007

Backing: Lizzie Mackay Christmas Wish

Binding: Art Gallery Squared Elements

And that's my final FAL post done! Linking up to Katy, just in the nick of time. 

Super Tote finish!

Back in October when I laid out my final quarter FAL plans I pulled out this little stack of fabric with the intention of making a Super Tote.

I hadn't made a bag for some time, and hadn't made a Super Tote for myself at all, just this fun ladybird one for my (ladybird mad) MIL back in 2013.

I didn't really make any progress at all until the start of November when Hannah and I decided to make Super Tote making our project for our Leeds MQG sewing day. I spent a couple of evenings frantically cutting and interfacing and doing all the prep that you have to do before you can actually start sewing a bag. And then on the Saturday, we sewed and laughed, and laughed and sewed. And just about ended up with 2 unlined bags.

We made a finishing date and Hannah came round one evening the next week and we sewed until about 11.30pm. And hurrah! We we all finished. 

Her's is the much more cheerful bag on the left!

Apparently the late finish rendered me incapable of reading the pattern properly and so when I used my bag at the Harrogate knitting and stitching show I was dismayed to find the top edge rolling down. A couple of emails were sent to the lovely Anna aka Noodlehead who very politely suggested I read the last step of the pattern properly. I did so, and four simple lines of stitching sorted the problem out perfectly.

This isn't a day to day bag for me as I need a messenger strap for hands free child wrangling, but it's great if I need a bit of extra capacity and won't need to be carrying it and small child about. I'm thrilled with my fabric choices, it matches my new Seasalt coat perfectly, and I'm pleased that as before I added an interior zip pocket as well as one of the gathered pockets. Every bag needs a zip pocket I reckon.  

The straps, gusset and interior pocket are made from Essex yarn dyed linen in black. The main panels and main pocket are lovely metallic prints from Botanics by Carolyn Friedlander. The piping and main pocket lining are Botanics crosshatch prints and the whole thing is lined in a perfect metallic starry print I bought from Simply Solids (ooh look, it's on sale right now, go buy some!). It is all interfaced with a woven interfcaing (Pellon SF101 equivalent) and some fusible fleece. I have since bought the recommended Craft Fuse for next time though. 

This seemed an unlikely finish at the start of October, but here it is and done.

I definitely have an appetite to make some more of these ... watch this space. 

Happy New Year!

Hello lovely blog readers and Happy New Year to you all!

I'm starting 2015 as I absolutely do not intend to go on, with a ridiculously late night (saw in the new year plus 3 extra hours), a mild hangover and an ill advised Chinese takeaway because we forgot to take the roasting joint out of the freezer. I'm thinking 3 more days of indulgence then back on the wagon next week.

Anyway, sewing. December has been a busy one as for everyone. I have sewn, but as usual the effort of taking and uploading photos to the blog has proved too much. Not helped by the fact I seem to have scratched my phone camera so it only takes appalling blurry photos. And there are no daylight hours when I am unmithered by sweet small children. So as usual some crummy photos coming right up, apologies.

Anyway what did I make in amongst the busyness?

Some dresses for my girls. Two Geraniums for biggest girl and a sweet little Go Anywhere dress for the tiny one. I want to sew more with knits next year and this is an easy start. 

Geranium dress size 6T. Pleated skirt, faux cap sleeves, cut out neckline. Fabric by Anna Maria Horner. Can you just see the awesome blue leopard lining??

Geranium dress 6T. Gathered skirt with extra width, sleeveless bodice. Fabric is Handcrafted by Alison Glass. 

Go Anywhere Dress size 12-18m. Briar Rose knit by Heather Ross

A simple Elsa dress hack too, no way I was making another sequinned lined voile bodice in this teeny size!! This is just a gathered satin skirt on a bought cotton top with a removable cape velcro-ed to the back.

Our vaguely festive churn dash was finished at the start of the month and had been happily snuggled under all Christmas. I need to write a blog post on this for the FAL, watch this space! I'm always very happy to pack the Christmas stuff away, and always before the New Year, but I know it'll be wonderful to get this out again next year among with my Snowy Starry Night quilt.

And the Christmas downtime allowed me to make a start on the little blue bird crewel work project that I bought at Harrogate knitting and stitching show. I haven't done embroidery for many many many years and am having to look up tutorial videos for every step but it is most absorbing and I am enjoying it thoroughly.

I have also bought a lot of fabric. Since Black Friday, I've gone pretty wild. Expect some upcoming Sunday Stash posts, if I can remember what day it is. But that's it, back on the fabric fast as of today. I have great sewing plans for 2015 but let's start with the month of January:

1) Bitches get Stitches swap. This is a fun little sweary swap I've joined on IG. Deadline to post is end of this month. I have a plan ....

2) STQB My blocks have been rolling in, I need to make mine and get this quilt whipped up for Siblings Together. I also have my January block to make of course.

3) Another Geranium dress, this time for tiny girl. Fabric washed and ready, pattern is cut.

4) A 12.5" block for the Leeds MQG round robin. Need to get my brain in gear for this one.

5) Secret sewing commitments which I am most excited about. Looking forward to getting stuck in.

Phew! I have more posts to write in order to be able to link up with the FAL, so expect a flurry of activity here over the next few days.

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day, although today has been a day neither of sewing nor of feeling fresh.

Sunday stash

I may be giving away little bits of my stash for SMS giveaway day but fear not, the Black Friday sales have seen it well replenished.

I am planning to fabric fast again for (at least) the first 6 months of 2015, but it seemed churlish not to shop at this time of year when there are so many fabulous sales and offers on so many gorgeous fabrics. I know my resolve will be greater if my stash is strong, so I'm stocking up now.

I went a bit wild at Pink Castle Fabrics who had a truly awesome Black Friday sale.

First package was filled with yardage of Handcrafted by Alison Glass. 

I've been admiring this for some time and wanting some dressmaking cuts. That beautiful purple border print (3rd from bottom) has already been chopped up to make a new Geranium dress for my biggest girl. Unfortunately I failed to notice that big girls now need 2 yards of fabric for their size of Geranium. My shortfall, plus the constraints of the border print, has necessitated some rather creative cutting, so we will see how that turns out!

Happily my husband gave me the go-ahead to fill a second flat rate envelope, bless him. I wanted to fill some holes in my half yard stash so I once again selected a couple of half yard half stack bundles from the Stash Stack club (pink and yellow/green). Then added in some orange, aqua and grey blender prints to fill that envelope. Pink Castle can fit 10.5 yards of quilting weight cotton in a flat rate envelope, no point ever wasting that space!

This rainbow makes me happy

It is so hard choosing fabrics online so I was absolutely thrilled with how pretty this selection turned out to be.

And then finally a real treat. I am a big fan of Bonnie and Camille fabrics, but own surprisingly little. They are always big collections you see - forty prints or so - and I can never quite bring myself to buy the whole collection bundles. But they are so pretty, and so a layer cake it a good compromise. I've been fancying some Miss Kate for some time, and when I saw that Westwood Acres had some in their sale I couldn't resist.

Sorry, appalling photo taken in the dark!

I know you have to squint a bit to see but that's a half yard bundle of the Miss Kate scallops together with the layer cake. Gotta fill that envelope!

Right, I'm off to sell the contents of my house on Ebay to pay for this lot!

And linking up with the glorious Molli Sparkles too.

Giveaway winner!

I was absolutely blown away by the response to my little solids giveaway, thank you all so much for taking the time to stop by my page and for your lovely comments. I am so sorry I haven't been able to reply to them all on this occasion, but do know that I have read them all.

And welcome to my new followers! I hope you enjoy popping by my little corner of the blogging and sewing world. I can promise lots of exciting developments in 2015 so I hope you'll keep reading along.

Anyway to the winner!

I used the RNG at random.org who chose ...

... comment number 334 which is Jess.

Jess said: "I think most of what I use are subtle prints - interesting when you look up close, but reading as solids when you take a step back."

I love those blender type prints too :-)

Anyway, Jess, I have emailed you just now so please let me know your address and I will pop your bundle in the post for you.

Thanks again to everyone who participated, so sorry there can only be one winner!

Hannah x

Giveaway Day!

***GIVEAWAY CLOSED NOW as it is bedtime for me here in the UK :-) thank you for all your entries and welcome to all my new followers! ***

It's that busy time of year again - Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

Hello to my regular readers and welcome to anyone popping here for the very first time. My name is Hannah and I live in Yorkshire, UK, with my husband, my 2 lovely small girls and a very needy English cocker spaniel. I started sewing in 2011 because I wanted to make a quilt for my biggest little girl! I'd never even threaded a sewing machine before that but I was hooked. Quilts remain my favourite thing to sew but I also love to make bags and clothing - especially dresses for my girls. 

I hope you will spend some time browsing, if not today (busy busy entering giveaways I know!) then another day perhaps. I've only been blogging since the start of this year so not too much in the archives!

Here are a few of my makes from recent months.

I think like many blogs this space has been a touch neglected over recent weeks and months but I have been busy sewing away and have plenty to share with you. I just wrote a post about a mini I made for the IGminiswap and you can often find me over on Instagram.

My IGminiswap mini, now in its new home.

And that brings me to my giveaway. I purchased a stack of FQs to make my swap mini and as you can see only used small amounts of each! I carefully chopped each FQ into fat eighths before I started and so I have this pretty little stack of solid F8s to give away to one lucky reader today.

Aside from a couple of random solids found in my stash these are all Kona cottons purchased from Simply Solids in the UK. Some of them are labelled and they measure approx 9.5" by 22". You will receive fifteen F8s in total. 

To enter, please leave a comment. Any comment will do, but why not tell me what you would make with these, or if that's too hard, tell me which is your favourite - prints or solids? Don't worry, you can still win if like me you have a sneaky preference for prints, maybe these will fill a gap in your stash!!

There's an extra entry for my followers old and new, just leave a second comment telling me how you follow my blog.

I am of course most willing to post internationally so this giveaway is open to everyone Worldwide. 

The giveaway will stay open until Friday 12th December at approximately 8pm GMT. I will then close the giveaway and use a random number generator to draw the winner. If I don't hear back within 48 hours I will draw again.

***I will be emailing the winner so if you are a no reply blogger or if you don't know if you are or not please consider either addressing that OR be sure and leave your email address in your comment. If I can't contact you, you can't win!! ***

Good luck!! I love giveaway week as much as everyone else does and I am so looking forward to connecting with everyone this week. I can't promise to reply to every comment on this giveaway post, especially as it is such a busy time of year, but please do know that I will read every single one and do usually try to reply as soon as I can.

Linking up with Sew Mama Sew, have fun! 

#igminiswap

If you are on Instagram I'm sure you will have noticed - if not participated in - the IGminiswap arranged a few months ago by Sandy aka @curly_boy1. I'm not really one for swaps myself, being a rather selfish kind of sewer, but it felt like *everyone* on my feed was joining this one so I thought what the hell and went for it. 

Here's a quick share of the loveliness I received, all the way from Krystal in Utah.

This is happily one of those minis that I had secretly really wished was mine. It is lots of little Thimbleblossoms mini patterns made with all Bonnie and Camille fabric. In my late night panic I had taken the easy approach on my form and said I loved "everything Thimbleblossoms" so I hoped I was in with a shout. And I was! 

Krystal threw in some perfect extras for me too, a sweet little sewing kit, some cute FQs and these amazing fingerless mittens - one pair for each member of my family! We are all thrilled and they are being worn, thank you so much! 

So that's what I received, but this post is more importantly about what I made. 

I was a bit overwhelmed to receive my partner's information. Maggie is a rather cool NYC girl who loves pink, aqua, yellow solids and low volume backgrounds, so totally the opposite to me then!! At least we share a fondness for metallics! I really do feel that the point of swaps is to make something your partner will love so I stepped out of my comfort zone, ordered a bunch of solids in the requisite colours from Simply Solids (as these were entirely absent in my stash!) and set my brain to work. Inspiration finally struck in the form of this little card that my daughter received from someone at school. The miraculous Kelly whipped me up a paper piecing template and I got on with it. 

It was pretty fiddly, these pieces are 2" by 3" finished. And picking the papers off the back nearly finished me off!

I quilted it with wonky wavy lines with my walking foot in Aurifil #5007 which is a really wonderful neutral blue-grey. Bound it in one of those low volume prints.

And added a label. This is Maggie's own diamond design which I made up in my favourite blender prints and wrote on using a Pigma Micron pen. I was so pleased to discover these pens as I've been really stuck for a labelling pen which doesn't feather and bleed into the fabric. Just wish I had prettier handwriting!

I did some investigating on Instagram to see what kind of extras she might like and popped in a bumper scrap pack from Karen Lewis Textiles (previously known as Blueberry Park). And a couple of Wispas!

This picture is from Maggie's Instagram, I didn't send her a half eaten Wispa!!

Overall I was really delighted with how this mini turned out. It is not something I would have ever thought to make myself, so I am so happy for the inspiration! I was rather sad to see it go.

Some pics.

I hope it is very happy in its new home. I am sure it will be.

And that's a tick off the FAL list too!