Jubilee kindle

As some of you may have read on in Sundays post, I bought myself a kindle at the weekend.  Having spent money on that, I wasn't keen to fork out £30 for a cover: so I made my own

 This is the jubilee edition, especially for taking on the train with me this weekend to FQ2012.  As a first design there are some changes I would make and when I do my next one (I have decided that you can't have too many kindle covers) I will make the changes

I used thickish wadding and a heavy bag interfacing for protection.  My kindle is nice and snug in there.  And you know that its ok when your 18 year old says 'cool, can you make me one'!

Chilled out

I honestly can;t remember the last time I had such a lazy weekend: it's been wonderful!  I had a night out on Friday as one of our team was retiring, there were about 20 of us went out for something to eat and we had lots of laughs.

And the weather... how lovely has it been! But not at all condusive to a lot of sewing!

 All of this I did last weekend, but didn't get to blog.  This is the (nearly) completed quilt for the Farleigh Hospice ladies.  I basted it and FMQ'd it in big loops, I was really pleased with how it turned out. Just need to bind it

 And then I got out my spray baste again (amazing stuff) and made a start on my Stained quilt (please dont look at all that ironing on the side!!)

 I also started to quilt it, which you can just about see: I am just going to do waves going across, as this has a seaside theme

I bought a kindle this weekend, just the basic one. I am hooked!! I have downloaded heaps of freebies, one of which I have finished this weekend and was unputdownable. I need to make a cover before the next weekend as it will be great for the train, when I am feeling sick with nerves & excitement......!!

FQ Linky party

so, this time next week ......

I am ridiculously excited to be finally meeting all my virtual bloggy friends for real!  I am taking this opportunity to introduce myself via the FQ London 2012 link. This is me

 .... but I don't think that photo will help you out, so try this instead..


I would like to think I don't always look this gormless, but who knows...



I have been blogging for about 18 months now and have loved every minute of getting to know folks and learning lots of new techniques. I live in Essex, up in the North part, near the sea - in Tiptree, where the jam comes from.  I am a single mum with two fabulous teenage daughters, 15 and 18, and live is good.  I have a great job, although at the moment the hours are long.  I am also studying for my AAT exams and am in my last year, with two exams left to go!!

I am taking the framed purse class on Saturday morning and the paper pieced pillows on Saturday afternoon.  I am only there for the day, but a whole day is so much better than not being there at all.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lynne and Tacha for helping me out today with my supplies list.  They both must have thought they were dealing with a complete idiot (which they were) as I began to panic today when reading about everyones supplies list.  I didnt have one.  I checked back on my original email and on the attachement and could only see a basic list and which classes I was doing.  Several emails back and forth and I still wasn't getting a list.  It wasn't until I actually opened the attachement on my laptop INSTEAD of my blackberry that I realised there was more than one page to the attachment and the other pages listed everything that I would need.  What a complete idiot I am - I need to do some panic buying now.  Thank you so much ladies for your patience.

So, thats me .... thanks for stopping by and can't wait to meet you next week

Loooong week

Well, I am glad to see the back of last week.  I worked a 49 hour week, on top of having Beccy at home not well for two days, Jenny with a severe chest infections resulting in steroids and antibiotics and a very long parents evening!  I get cross with my long weeks as I am just too tired to do anything by the time I get to the weekend. Hopefully the end of our ridiculously long working days is in sight!

I have managed to sit down for a couple of hours over the week and crack on with my ferris wheels

 I really like how this is turning out

I have also started making a quilt for the farleigh hospice sewing ladies.  I was given an old quilt cover to do something with. Its majorly uninspiring and I have had it for ages:

 I used some of the blue sheet from my stained quilt and turned out some blocks:

The quilt is not great to work from, it is very thin and the circles are not all the same size and shape, but once they are framed with the blue, I think they come out ok.  I will try and crack on with this too as it seems like an age since I did anything for this group!

Two weeks today and I will be in London: I sooooo can't wait. And the forecasters say that the weather will start to look up soon too - fingers crossed!

Bloggers Quilt Festival-Starburst

There are heaps of very amazing quilts over at The bloggers quilt festival.  I thought I would add mine as I love it and thats what counts!!

This is my very recently finished 'mystery quilt' - a QAL put together by the very talented Sheila at Bluepatch quilter

I hand quilted, by stitching in or around the stars using variagated perle cotton

 This was my first time paper piecing and thanks to Sheila I discovered that I love it and have gone on to do more-the mariners compass in the top left corner is my favourite

I would probably have never picked these colours out, but as I was on a strict fabric diet at the time, I used a small fat quarter bundle that I have been given (I did end up buying more fabric later, but ssshhh)
So, this is my Starburst quilt.  If you have popped over from Amys, thank you for taking the time to visit - and if you havn't been over there yet, go on over and take a look at all those lovely quilts!

playing with coloured pencils

Having completed my practise ferris wheel, and finding it a nice easy project to put together:

......I decided that I would continue with some more to make either a cushion cover or a wall hanging.  I got out my coloured pencils.......

and decided how I wanted it to look. The first block is done

This is such a great project to keep me busy whilst chilling in front of the telly and I am looking forward to getting the rest done

I have also finished off the 2nd block to send to Jude for her bee blessed project 

 One pink and one blue. 

 The sun has been shining here today: what a relief.  So I managed to get out in to the garden and catch up a bit on the gardening - the garden now looks lovely but my back is suffering!

Hope the sun has been out with you too - it really makes such a difference

Ferris Wheel

So, I decided to join the Ferris Wheel along after seeing I'm a ginger monkey's post

the flickr link is here and there are some great fabrics and patterns on there already!!

I have decided to do a practise run 1st to see if this is 'doable': I only want to make a cushion cover

The colours are not what I want to go with, just for practising.  Tonight I will try and sew all these together and see how it goes and whether I have the skill to carry on with the ferris wheel!

Mystery quilt - Starburst

Ta da... my mystery quilt is finished!! And it has a name - starburst.  I love the zingy colours that I went with and love how it has turned out

 The mystery quilt along was started by Sheila back in April 2011: so its taken me a year from start to finish

Sheila introduced me to paper peicing through this quilt along, something I hadn't done before and discovered that I love doing it. My favourite block on here is the mariners compass (top left hand corner)

 I hand quilted this, stitching around the stars in variagated green or orange.  Its been hard going as I used an old duvet for the backing and on further inspection it was egyptian cotton (a charity shop purchase)

The hand quilting shows up really well on the back

And I also included my tippa canoe block that I did all wrong, which Sheila renamed 'capsized canoe'.  Luckily I only made one!

I will make a label for this quilt and sew it on the back.  This was also the first quilt that I spray basted and I will never use safety pins again!!

A great big thank you to Sheila for putting this together and getting us to try new things.

This also counts as my 2nd finish for Rhonda's FAL!

Scrappy weather

The weather here today has been grey, rainy and cold: miserable. (perfect sewing weather!) Jenny and I went out for lunch as Beccy has gone to Westfield with a school trip today (the trip is to Sadlers Wells this evening but they decided to add the shopping trip in as well)

So, once Jenny had taken herself off to work, I had the house to myself.  I made a couple more of these:

 I have loads of scraps so I can make loads more of these, they will make a fab quilt.

And I added a border to my Stained quilt

The blue is perfect and is a single sheet that I got from Asda for £5!! I have enough for the back as well - very pleased with that purchase. 
Tomorrow will be revision for both girls and if my head feels less fuzzy I will crack on with some of mine as well.  We have two/three weeks left at work, where we are working to tight deadlines and then hopefully it will quieten down for a while and I can really crack on: I only have two more exams to do.

scrappy

I am still hand quilting my mystery quilt, not long to go now.  I wanted to sew something today though so I started on these:

 The tutorial for these came from A Little Bit Biased

Hmm, may have to do something with that bottom row!!

 I didn't want to start anything huge as I have so many other things on the go, but this is great for using up scraps and the blocks don't take long.  I have cut some others out and will run them up tomorrow

I also did a block for Bee Blessed over at Judes.  I havn;t done any since the wonky stars, and knew I had to rectify that! This is another great scrap buster and I will get a blue one made this weekend too

 Just in time for the long weekend, I am full of cold and feeling rubbish.  I think all the long hours are catching up on me - so the only answer is to keep sewing!
Hope you're all enjoying your weekends