Mastering curved seams... maybe

Aaaargh this month was a scary one! I kept looking at all the pretty fabrics all perfectly pre-cut for me by Miss September; Susan (thank you for being patient!) but no matter how they gazed lovingly back at me I could not be tempted and kept putting them back in the box.

It suddenly dawned on me that the end of september was fast approaching and I had procrastinated long enough, so in 3 gruelling evenings I sucked it up and got on with it. With the help of a lovely video tutorial from Very Kerry Berry whose sewing and flipping was so easy to follow I almost got them all right!


And it wasn't long before I had enough to start piecing them together...

Once I got into it I figure it took me about 10 mins per little block to line up and sew (and then all the extra time I spent pressing and playing with the possibilities)

(don't worry, this one hasn't been ironed yet- i'm sure it didn't end up all wrinkly)

And I finished off with two of the loveliest blocks I have seen (not trying to make my sewing sound any good, I just love this layout) ... I am now a complete drunken convert and think I may be needing to make a substantial investment in the near future as I NEED a table runner of these guys!!!

I am hoping they make it you soon Suzi-Q, I think they should be there by now

J x

Thanks, Steve

A real post will follow soon, but in the meantime I just wanted to say;

Thanks, Steve

J x

vizualize.me - Jennifer McMichael's profile

I have just been playing around with my linkedin cv on vizualize.me

vizualize.me - Jennifer McMichael's profile

what do you think?

Jx

edit- thank you for the helpful suggestions; the original image was automatically generated by the vizualize.me website, but this morning I have been working on my own infographic cv based on their concept.

I will be sending it out with a standard formatted cv with all my details on it and a couple of portfolio pages, now just to cross my fingers and hope I triple checked it well enough for spelling mistakes!

Mystery Mix Tape

This week I finished the 6" blocks to make up my new Mystery Mix Tape quilt, which is based on the Mix Tape pattern by Oh Frannson, this was my original inspiration from The CraftyBlackbird.

for my God-daughter's new brother or sister. Making a gender neutral quilt was really difficult to choose the colours for, but I decided that I couldn't go wrong with a variety blues, yellows and lime green and the simple 6" blocks should be easy to make a semi-matching quilt for the new big sister.

I broke Oh Fransson's pattern down into 4 block types
Block A

Block B

Block C

and Block D

I made a variety of these blocks from my 10 materials until I had a total of 30 blocks and rotated some of them 90 degrees in the layout so it didnt end up too regimented. (Please excuse the colours on this one, it was dark, honestly they aren't quite this vivd!)

Now all that's left is to choose the sashing colour, I am thinking a light grey, but I am not sure. I think it needs something to give your eyes a break after the yellow and green, but white doesn't sound sensible for a baby quilt. Then I can make my binding from this fabric;

I absolutely fell in love with it when I first saw it, and to be honest the colour scheme for the whole quilt was taken from this fabric!

J x

Holiday Time

It's been a while! I don't think I can even remember the last time I wrote a blog post, but a lot has been going on in the last few weeks; we have celebrated two birthdays and been on holiday! It was so great to get away, even if it was just for the weekend - it involved...

A few hours of this...

For one of these...

Lots of these...

Admiring these...

Plenty of playtime...

Some of these...

A bit of this...

And loads of these...

And finished off with some blocks of these...

(which I will blog about soon, with better quality pictures!)

Happy Holidays!!!!

J x

Finished one in time!

After the furore that was last month I really didn't think I was going to make the august bee blocks in time because I have had so many commitments and have been trundling merrily up and down the m6 again, but in an effort to at least get them constructed by the end of august I started madly scribbling last night and I am pretty pleased with the result this morning.

And ready for their close up...

All packaged up and ready to go in the post after the bank holiday :) yet! ...that's still august right?!


I have to say thank you to Sarah (Miss Queen Bee) this month for the awesome snacks and music that she sent, each month the package gets bigger and I am kind of dreading what will be in it by the time it comes around to my month, in February!

Jx

Hoop Trio

Mum stop reading NOW!!! (just in case!)




I don't think that anybody that I know IRL reads my blog, I tried to keep it quiet; it's kind of like having a secret identity, but you never know what mum's get up to! :)

I worked all weekend on a present for my mum's birthday and I am pretty pleased with the result (isn't it great when that happens, I hate it when you work on something FOREVER and you just can't get it right - that's what work is like at the moment for me)

My dad has recently converted the back bedroom in their house to her new sewing room, but despite it now being filled with all the requisite crafty stuff it didn't seem quite complete... which is where I step in! I decided that what she really needed was some artwork, so I planned and planned and researched and planned and came up with these...

which quickly turned into these...

and not so quickly into this...

which I am little disappointed with as my sketch was so much better, but transferring it to the patchworked fabric was really difficult (I can tell you that it was NOT my best idea, I should have listened to Chris)

So together they read "karen's sewing room"

Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope that she likes it when I give it to her this weekend!

J x