May Queen

It's my turn to be queen in Bee a Brit Stingy for May.  I have chosen a nice easy block (after setting the Hipbees the Lynnebobsquarepants, I thought I'd steer clear of HST's)

I have asked for this Pineapple blossom block plus the bonus blocks.  The tutorial is here - its very easy and scrap friendly and makes some gorgeous quilts: these pictures are from the Quiltville website





and there are so many more on flickr too.  I will make some more up over the weekend.

I also have this lovely fabric to play with at the weekend

Sarah is our queen bee in Hipbees for May and she has given us a free rein to make pretty much what we want this month.  I already have some ideas in mind!

Sewing Meet Up

Yesterday I went to London to the Sewing Directory meet up.  What a fantastic day.  I met people who I have interacted with on Instagram and via blogs, and new people too.  

We had such a relaxed afternoon chatting and sewing. There was a raffle and refreshments.  Fiona did an excellent job of getting us all together

Susan from Sewbox provided us with gorgeous fabrics and I discovered that she only lives about 25 mins from me

Susan has a fabulous website and great deals on Liberty fabrics


We made notebook covers - well, got as far as embellishments: I still have a lot more to do!

I had a quick wander around and then met up with an old school friend for a gossip

A fabulous day.  I am so far behind with reading blogs that I am now going to spend a nice relaxing hour catching up with everyone


and

Weekend plans

I have a great weekend lined up. 
Friday night is a work night out: we always have a good moan and a good laugh: letting off steam
Then I am off to The Sewing Directory London meet up,  on Saturday where I will be hand sewing a notebook cover: I can't wait!
 I don't know who else is going, but Jenna from Sew Happy Geek is the teacher: I meet Jenna briefly at the retreat last year and I know she is a talented lady. Fiona from the Sewing Directory will also be there.  I am really looking forward to it.  Afterwards, I am meeting my oldest, bestest friend who just happens to be in London for the weekend - win win situation.

I don't think the forecast is due to be as good as it has been the last few days: it has been gorgeous, too bad I have been stuck inside all the time!

Beccy has taken up hand sewing.  She needed something different for her art project, so decided to sew - I gave her a few tips and off she went!

SUNday

More time was spent in the garden today.  It was less chilly, very sunny  and I still had a lot to do.  Jenny and I tackled the overgrowing holly tree - she couldn't wait to get the saw in her hand!

 

I am so pleased with what I have done so far, now if it could just warm up a bit at night I can get some flowers out.  When I went to pick Beccy up from a school trip at midnight on Friday, I had to de-ice my car!
 
there has been no sewing today: all garden duties.  But I got this hung up

and I will be sitting down shortly to do some more of this

 

Beccy has the first instalment of her 10 hour GSCE art tomorrow: this has been her day

A few ticks

I ticked a few things off my list today - got my bee blocks off to the post office and finished off my bee blessed blocks (but missed the post office!)

got a lot of gardening done in the gorgeous sunshine (off for a long hot bath in a minute to soak my aching body!)

and also did some scrap busting - which come with added bonus blocks as well.  I have a lot more of these to make and its amazing how you can pick up any fabric and not have to worry if it goes together or not, because it just does

And this arrived this morning

Beccy's long awaited prom dress.  It is stunning and she is thrilled.  I had my reservations, as we ordered it online to save money.  We paid an extra £15 to have it made to measure and it came in at £100.  Now - that is a lot of money for a dress: I know.  However it pales in to comparison to what her friends have paid (£300-£400 for dresses from the prom shops.)  The website were prompt, kept in contact and the dress is first class.  If you ever need a dress made for a special occasion head to diy dresses.  Shoes are next on her list
Now we are on the countdown to July 12th!!

Eureka

                                
A big thank you for everyone's encouraging comments yesterday.  One lady, Audrey, who doesn't blog, but does read blogs, took the time to comment and told me all about fray check

                                                            

Maybe everyone already knew about this but me? But just in case I am going to share.  I have just bought some off Amazon for £3.79 and, as Audrey suggested, I will try a bit on some scraps first to see how it turns out and make sure colours don't run
Does anyone else use this?

Siblings Together all finished

Hurray, I have finished my Siblings together quilt and also completed number two on my FAL (original list here)

I kept the quilting fairly simple as it was such a large quilt and have used a plain yellow to bind it with

 

and scraps of blue to make the backing - this also shows the quilting up a bit better

BUT... I am disappointed as there are two bits of fabric where the seam allowance (aka my sewing skills) are non existent.  This quilt was fiddly to make and in these two areas I obviously didn't match up my two fabrics correctly and the fabric has frayed a little.  I have sewn over it, very neatly I hope, so I know it won't fray any more, but I am really disappointed with myself

Although it was fiddly, I think the pattern is fabulous and I really am tempted to make one of these for myself: although I am not sure where on earth it would go!!

Le Challenging FAL finish

I have killed two birds with one stone this weekend: my first FAL finish this quarter and my contribution to Le Challenge

Now, these poor circles have been lying around, abandoned since the middle of last year and each quarter they got moved to another quarter

When Lucy and Nat announced their challenge I thought about it and couldn't think of anything to do.  So I googled 'geometric patterns' and a whole heap of circles came up.  An idea took seed and last weekend I started to play with the circles

 

and I got really despondent as it just wasn't working.  But the next day was a better day

I blanket stitched the circles on to the pink and then last night started quilting

I only did five lines around the outside, as I was worried that it all might look too busy.  And just a couple of lines on the inside

I am really pleased with how is has turned out and also that I have my first FAL ticked off for this quarter.
Linking up with Le Challenge and FAL

Bee'ing productive

Today has been about catching up on Bee blocks.  This block is for Di, who is queen bee for Be a Brit Stingy this month.  I have never come across this block before and it was very easy to make 

and Karen is our queen bee in Hipbees this month and asked us to do this whirligig block, which again was nice and easy to do (makes me feel bad about getting everyone to do the Lynnebobsquarepants when it was my turn!!)

I have also cut 112 charm squares for Cindys rainbow charm swap.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered I had ordered 3 yards of this fabric and not two :-).  I got this in the $6 sale at pink castle, along with a yard of something else.  With postage included it works out about £5.60 a yard

This time of year is manic for us at work, year end and all.  We are either dashing between schools or manning the helpdesk in the office.  Someone, somewhere decided it would be a REALLY good time to move offices - but we were ABSOLUTELY guaranteed that everything would be in working order in the office on Monday morning ........

........ errrr, are you sure!!  No P.c's and no phones.  Got to love working for local government!!

FAL Q2 list

So, it's time to link up with the 2nd quarter FAL!

I have this project that, I think, may have been carried over every quarter since the beginning of the FAL.  It is well under way to being finished and looks a little different now

My double wedding ring quilt - this just needs a border and to be finished.  I need to decide how I am going to do the border. I am not confident of finishing this as I think the border will take a while and I have big plans for quilting this

My Siblings together quilt - I am sewing the binding on at the moment, so this is a guaranteed finish

My Hipbee quilt - all finished, it just needs some wadding and to be quilted

and finally, I think some more of this Epp, I think I will go for a small quilt

It seems like a lot, but I am confident of at least two finishes in the very near future, and most of the other projects are well under way already. So, fingers crossed