Better late than never... I hope

I hope you agree Jo, firstly I have to say sorry that this block is soooo late (as I should have had it in the post over a month ago) but I knew I would have trouble finishing it on time as we were away at the end of april, and half of may. But I hadn't anticipated the chaos that we would come home to.

Enough with the excuses, this is April's Brit Bee block for Jo who simply asked for "circles," any circle technique, any size as long as we used some linen in the block. How open can you be?! She even trusted us with some Heather Ross Far Far Away - forgive me if I don't know whether it is series 1 or 2.

I have never understood why everyone seemed to go gaga over FFA, as up until this block I have only ever seen it online,  but it is such a lovely material to hold and play with (Jo you are sooo lucky to be getting this back as it kept trying to jump into my stash box, don't worry though I have rescued it all and sealed it in the envelope)

After coming back from the FQR last weekend, I could not resist trying out the newest technique in my arsenal for this circle block, can you guess what it is yet...

PORTHOLES!

I was so excited to try this out again and it worked even better than it did in Lucie's workshop, it also came together really quickly, but this was probably because I didn't frame any of the circles. I had to piece the backing fabric as my linen piece wasn't big enough, hope you like it Jo!

J x

ps. Terri, you are next on my list ;)

Home time

I got home this morning after two full days at the Fat Quarterly Retreat and it turns out I haven't taken nearly as many pictures as I thought so I will try to keep this brief.

We got to Baden-Powell House about 9 on saturday morning and had to start the day playing a version of bingo in which we had to talk to as many people as possible until we had successfully spoken to all 6 people on our assigned cards. I only managed to get about 2 of mine crossed off as I had too much fun chatting to the wrong people and didn't end up finding the rest on my list.

My first class on saturday morning was freezer paper piecing with Kerry, where I got to chatting with Lucy and Lorna, but I was still too excited about the whole event and forgot to take any photographs :(

Then after lunch with Lorna, Tanya and Cara, I went to embroidery with the very friendly, and only a little quiet, Aneela Hoey.

In the class we were given a copy of Aneela's sketch of a robin to practice with, i managed to finish my first robin but had only just started my second when the class had to finish as I had been having too much fun chatting to Caroline and Jo. I would love to learn more pretty stitches and this was a great start, see how pretty all the robins look together...

Terri brought her P51 quilt for us all to see, although some of the Brit Bees had seen it in its various stages as it was finished off, I hadn't seen it at all since I sent my blocks off last summer so it was great to see it all together.

After a huge Fat Quarterly raffle, I had drinks with the London Modern Quilt Guild, who put up with me until it was time for us to go to dinner, where we finished off the day with a Brit Bee + Friends dinner around the corner from Baden-Powell House where Judith, Shevvy, Tanya and I set the world to rights. After a day of light hearted small talk, it was a great contrast and I have a lot of respect for these fabulous women (quilting skills and brains; who could ask for more?!)

Sunday morning was the Designer Challenge with John in which I didn't take ANY photographs at all, and I have nothing to show for it as we all handed in our sketches, but you can take my word that there were some great designers in my class!

 I had a somewhat Brit Bee lunch with Ceri and Jo and learned a little about colour theory, before I went to sew portholes with Lu Summers (a class I had been waiting for all weekend!) It is such a fantastic technique that comes together really quickly once all the cutting is done- but that always takes me forever anyway; even cutting my 12" squares ready for the class the night before took me hours.

This class definitely made me want to make more and I would love to make a whole quilt of these (after I have finished all the others on my to-do list; namely my Curio and Brit Bee quilts, but it is definitely on the list)

At the end of the day the fat quarterly gang judged the 6 iron man quilts and our group won!

(left-right, team 2 are: Tracy, Sue, Emma, Lynda, Me and Teresa, unfortunately we could't find Nicole for the photograph) The granny square idea came from Sue, who has been making quite a few of these lately and started us off with the blocks.

It was a great weekend; it was lovely to put faces to the names of all those blog authors I have been following this year and I am so relieved that we were all wearing name tags! Thank you to everyone I was able to chat to, I don't think I have ever spoken to a nicer group of people who all felt like old friends by the end of the weekend. 

I'm off to unpack now and will share my retreat goodies and workshop bits and pieces later in the week, in the meantime I have a fair bit of blog reading to catch up on!

J x

Too excited

There has been a lot of umming and ahhing this week, and quite a few days when I thought I wouldn't be making this trip at all but here I am. I got to London last night and couldn't believe how easy he traffic was- despite it taking 45 minutes to get on the motorway, at least the route was scenic and from there I was on the north circular in under an hour- it feels so little when you don't have to do it everyday!

I am staying with my friend Helen for the weekend, but I abandoned her his evening to do some much needed cutting and organising, this is me cutting when I should have been socialising.

At long last I think I am ready for whatever the weekend brings and I am pretty certain it's going to be great. I am particularly excited about the portholes class- but that's not until tomorrow and there is plenty more to do before then.

Like swapping!

Can't wait to see everyone in the flesh and read a huge amount of name tags. See you all in a few hours.

Back for good

We got back from our holidays this week and it feels like I haven't been online forever! Looking at the last date I posted, it kind of has been.

Chris and I went to Orlando for a few weeks and have completely worn ourselves out with the adrenaline rushes, fried food and walking too far every day, but it was awesome.

And Shep went to stay with my parents and it seems he was spoiled rotten and has also had an awesome time.

It was so good to switch off and forget about the outside world for a few weeks but I have also loved coming back and catching up with everyone. Plus, I also came back to some great post; thank you to Terri, Trudi and Sarah for completing my collection of Bee blocks.

Terri's Block

Trudi's Block

Sarah's Block

I love how different all the blocks have turned out and all the extra little details everyone has added to make each block really special! Thank you so much to all my wonderful Brit Bees, I have some big ideas for piecing them all together that I will share with you once they are out of my head and onto some paper, but suffice it to say that it will not be done before the retreat as there's still a lot more work to do.

But I did get my schedule for the retreat I have everything I really really wanted to do; freezer paper piecing, embroidery and portholes. I'm also going to be in the Designer Challenge and the Iron Man contest (I'm in group 2 and looking forward to meeting the rest of my group.) Now I just have to figure out how to cart my machine around for the weekend; I am thinking of a trolley case from Amazon then hopefully I can fit all my bits and bobs in one handy wheeled container so I don't have to worry about carrying any of it.

There's still no sign of my name tag though, I was hoping it would beat me here but it's still early in May I guess, I'm just excited having seen a few others cropping up on flickr. I sent mine off with my mum's help while we were away, but I haven't heard anything to say it has been received so partner if you are out there please let me know in case it has got lost in the post andy you need a replacement!

Unfortunately I also missed the cut off for submitting our Winter Stitching Lists :( but I will finish my list for my own sake this week, I don't think it has changed much since the midway point though as I have been distracted with other things.

As it is now only 19 days to go until the retreat I better get started on my sample swapping!

And I need to go buy a cat flap, because it's cheaper than buying a new door...

J x

(Brit) Bee Happy

This morning, when I was already running alightly late for work I couldn't stop thinking about the bee blocks I received last month that I still haven't blogged about; February was my month in the Brit Bee and I now have most of the blocks back (although I still haven't done my own!) so I wanted to share some images of the blocks I have received and be warned that you will be impressed, these girls are seriously talented and the level of detail surpassed everything I had imagined!

1. Hadley @ Flying Blind
2. Jo @ Life In Lists
3. Judith @ Just Jude
4. Fiona @ Poppy Makes
5. Judith @ Needles and Lemons
6. Ceri @ Inspired By Felix
7. Laura @ Needles, Pins and Baking Tins
8. Susan @ Canadian Abroad


Don't they just make you smile?! I love these blocks as each one reminds me of the year we have been having :)

 I am really looking forward figuring out some random sashing to tie all the blocks together and the extra blocks to complete this top, I will keep you posted with my progress, I hope I can do it justice!

J x

Quilt in a Week

You may have noticed that I haven't checked in for a while... I have been busy sewing for a change! Ok, so it's not quite a "quilt in a day" but for evening sewing while working full time it's not too shabby.

I present to you, "Grandad's Quilt," sorry for the lack of a fancy pants name but I was exhausted by the time I finished the binding on this one (and apologies in advance for not taking any process pictures of this one as it was definitely dark by the time I finished each night!)

The story starts before Christmas, when my grandad was first diagnosed with stage iv lung cancer, and time seems to have whirlwind-ed since, but to cut a long story short; the various treatments he has tried have failed him and the inhibitor has made him really ill without really having much of a positive effect so the new course of medicines are designed simply to remove his pain.

With this in mind, he was informed that he was on a waiting list for a bed at the hospice so that they can observe him and prescribe his painkillers effectively and I decided to stop putting off making a quilt for him because I could not let him stay alone in a hospice without a quilt for company.

I thought I would share my week with you;
D-1 / Sunday: Figuring out fabric requirements, shopping at the Fabric Guild and cutting, lots of cutting.
I was supposed to get started straight away, so I got to cutting out all the pieces but it was a beautiful day and I got distracted by planting vegetable seeds in the garden. Ooops, I will regret this later!

Day One / Monday: Piecing blocks
I scheduled out my week, as I am a great list maker and planned to complete 6 blocks a night for the next 5 days as each of my cut fabric strips would make 3 blocks. First 6 blocks done!

Day Two /  Tuesday: Piecing blocks
I took Shep to his obedience class, which takes up most of my evening on a tuesday and then sat at the machine until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer; 9 blocks done.

Day Three / Wednesday: Piecing blocks
While lying in bed last night (thinking about quilts, not sleeping) I decided that if I could get 9 blocks done on a tuesday of all days I should puch a little harder and be aiming for 12 blocks a night, that way I have a chance of finishing by the weekend, when I plan on going home for Mothers' Day - then I won't need to post the quilt and could hand deliver it. 15 blocks done.

Day Four / Thursday: Squaring all blocks and sashing to make up quilt top.
My grandad had an oncologist appointment today, as he does most thursdays it seems and was asked to go back in tomorrow for observation so now I really had a deadline as he was due to go in much sooner than I anticipated, but I am feeling in control of this monster with the quilt top now finished, although now the hard work starts.

Day Five / Friday: Quilting.
This is my first adult sized quilt and I had no idea how I was going to make the sandwich when I was drawing up my fabric requirements on saturday as I didn't think I had a table, or a floor or even a wall big enough, (to be honest I don't think I realised quite how big it was going to be either!) but I had decided to just get on with it and I would figure it out when I came to it. Luckily, it turned out that the finished quilt *just* fit on my living room floor for pinning- I knew it would turn out right! Quilting was fun with such a big quilt but I stuck to my tried and tested straight line quilting in the ditch around the blocks and I managed it... if you don't look to close :)

Day Six / Saturday: Binding, labelling and stray thread trimming.
I have always planned on labelling my quilts but never really know what to do and usually leave it so late that there really is no time left to figure it out, but this time it was important so I found some instructions online and printed my little message to add to the bottom of the quilt. Half an hour after finishing I packed up the car and headed for the m6 to stay with my nan as this was the first night she was going to be home alone as my other family members had all gone home.

Day Seven / Sunday: Wished my mum a Happy Mothers' Day and we all headed out to visit Grandad, quilt in tow, to find out that he had been given extra blankets as the room was too cold- how fortunate that we were bringing something to keep him cosy (and as an extra bonus the colour scheme even matches the room- although I think this may be a bad reflection on my colour choosing skills.)

I am so glad I pushed hard to get this quilt done so that I could hand deliver it, mostly for selfish reasons because I loved giving it to him and watching him glance down at it and smile while we were there, but I am also glad that he received it when he really needed it and I hope it can provide him some comfort, because it was a great comfort for me to know that I was doing something useful and productive and now I hope he realises how much I am thinking about him, everytime he sees it because even though I may be far away, I always am.

J x

Full of useful information

As you probably know, the Ellison Lane Modern Mini Challenge ended yesterday and after much deliberation the finalists are availble for us to vote on today. So head on over there to vote- but bear in mind that you WILL have your work cut out for you as there are some great contenders!

None of my favourite mug rugs made it to the voting stage, but 2 of my favourite mini quilts did and they both happen to be rainbow coloured;

From The Blue Chair's New York Beauty, the colour selection is perfect (I don't know how people manage this) and I love the accuracy in the details but I am partial to a NYB block;

and Jen Johnston's Rainbow Compass which I spotted on Flickr last week and imediately fell in love with!

Head on over to the competiton pages to check out the rest of the contenders and place your votes!

I also got an email this morning from Fat Quartley to remind me that the groups are closing today for the London Retreat sample swap and the name tag swap. I have been on these lists for months now and I am crazy excited about the quilty weekend, but I popped back on over just to double check. If you're coming along have a look at the discussion boards!

And to top it all off, I am avoiding flickr today as the lovely Susan of Canadian Abroad has told me that her Brit Bee block is done and in the post, so I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the surprise.

 I will have most of them back soon and will be showing a lovely group photo asap.

After my mini challenge weekend, I had a night off the Maple Leaf Rag last night while I took Shep to his obedience class but should be back on it tonight with pictures to share soon.

J x