Happy dance - happy mail

Just a few minutes ago, the postman rang the door bell for me to sign for a parcel. it didn't look like Lizzie's last present from Amazon and I was puzzled as I didn't think I'd ordered anything. What's in the package? It was very innocuous looking. No customs declaration. Hmm. Then it dawned on me,  I send off my Summer mini quilt last week and the final posting date was today. Happy dance.

 

 

Look at the little packet of shrink plastic tags in the personalised packet. This is going to be good. :) Lynn has this topper as a download on her blog.

 

And here is my beautiful summer mini quilt made by Lynn B. Lynn blogs at  www.happinessiscrossstitching.blogspot.com. She has used a pattern by Elefanz and it is gorgeous. Such beautiful stitching. Every stitch the same size as its neighbour. I am just delighted. I hope the person receiving from me as also delighted. I'm surprised it hasn't arrived yet.

 

Time to finish my ALYOF project for June and finish and write a tutorial for Littlest Thistle.

 

Aliens love Underpants - Brit Thursday linky

 

 

My last bee commitment for June is now finished and packaged ready to take to the Post Office. I still need to make a start on my June cross stitch block and the binding on my social tote before claiming any success for June.

 

The theme for this month's blocks for Liz was Aliens love Underpants. We were asked to make a star on a blue background. I like a good star and worked out the cutting scheme for this on the back of a scrap of paper.

 

We were also asked to make a 6" block of pants. The starting inspiration for this was a tutorial at Sewtakeahike. I borrowed inspiration for a pair of boxer shorts from Teresa.  Sorry for the bad photos again but I dropped my camera and it needs to go to the menders. I was thinking of going for something a little more skimpy but didn't know if Liz's family would appreciate the block so went with something modelled on my own underwear - big!!
 

 

Here they are together.

 

 

And in other news we have an appointment for Lizzie with the consultant neurologist on Monday. All of the blocks for my Siblings Together bee quilt have arrived home. Just three weeks before that needs to be finished.

 

What have you been working on this week? The linky party will take a summer break from next week until September.

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Neapolitan ice cream

Don't  the colours of this quilt remind you of Neapolitan ice cream? a very ordinary jelly roll race quilt made more interesting by the quilting. Jane had mentioned this pattern when she sneaked another quilt into the house and it  was quick to do as it is quilted in vertical strips down the quilt. No thread breakages as I reverted to my usual King Tut, colour Mummy's Dearest.

 

Now what to load next - Jane's big quilt or Susan's small quilt which I can finish in a morning?

 

 

Butterflies

Another bee finish for June. These are for Anne from a tutorial at Fresh Lemons


I wish someone would teach me how to get a good photo from my ipad. Too late to retake this as the blocks are already packaged ready to post on Tuesday. Today Lizzie and I are celebrating the end of her exams with a day trip to St Malo in France. Just an hour trip by ferry.

Procrastinating again

But at least there's a client's quilt on the long arm which I'm going to finish this evening, ready to trim it tomorrow morning. I'm very annoyed that in an attempt to update a blog address on my side bar, that I managed to delete the whole list. Before I deleted it I did see on Cheryll's blog that our summer minis have to be posted by 30 June. Eek, that hadn't got near to the top of my list yet.

 

So how come I have blocks for Stash Bee for June and FQR also for June and I've sewn up the Stash Bee blocks for July?
 

 

I did finish a tea cosy yesterday though and sent off the photos to Fat Quarterly. A late Father's Day present for Nick and he even threw out the old one.

 

 

Probably the reason why I've sewn these blocks is they are a quick easy make. I am the bee mama for the Siblings Together quilt bee for July and I am now planning to ask for two of these Bento Blocks. I will post a link to the instructions once they are live on the Stash Bee blog on 1 July.

 

Tomorrow I plan to make a start on my other commitments for June and hopefully be ready to mail a few out on Tuesday. Not Monday as Lizzie and I are spending the day in St Malo.

FNSI June 2014

I don't know where that week went, but gone it has. It's not that I haven't been doing anything. I eventually finished Jane's quilt and yesterday Lizzie did the ironing to enable me to finish a project which I need to write up now.

Tonight it's Friday Night Sew In. Nick is going to Air cadets, so I plan to stitch some binding on one or more mini quilts and perhaps sew two bento box blocks. The blocks are all cut out so in theory should be a quick finish.

Little and large

Today I have been quilting this large Scrumptious bear paw quilt.





And getting these ready for quilting on my Bernina.





And both of these pieces have Bonnie & Camille fabrics in them.

Nested churn dash - Brit Linky 12 June 2014

   

Another confession coming up ... I threw out a UFO. Yesterday I decided I should make a start on my sample swaps for the Fat Quarterly Retreat. I had already decided to make three mini quilts out of some embroidered blocks I'd started. when I opened the box, I realised there was more work to do than I had expected. None of the blocks were finished, I decided there and then to bin the blocks and instructions, put the layer cake I was using back into my stash and start making four Nested Churn Dash mini quilts.

 

In a day I made four of these mini blocks.

 

 

You can see just how small they are compared to my rotary cutter, then I added another row and made three into this:

 

 

Getting a little bigger, then one more row onto two of the blocks and I finished with this:

 

I temporarily lost one HST and ran out of one fabric so I've pieced some leftover fabric and hope that once it's quilted, it won't be so obvious. Today's job is to finish cutting out the pieces for row three and finish piecing the blocks. the pattern calls for an extra row, but these are big enough for my purpose.

 

This pattern is a bargain at $2 from Craftsy. You can pick up the pattern here. And if you haven't registered with Craftsy before, do consider signing up through my affiliate link button at the top right of this blog.

 

What have you been working on this week? Please do include a link back to this page in your blog post.

An InLinkz Link-up

Aviatrix border 4

Border 4 of the Aviatrix Quilt Along at Oh Fransson has been attached to this:

 

And it now looks like this. A subtle change with a row of 1.5 inch squares. This border gives the eyes a break between the busyness of the X and + blocks and next week's log cabin blocks.

I should really make a start on a couple of the butterfly blocks for the last border as they are the most challenging of the blocks for this quilt and although the strips are cut out, that's as far as I've progressed with border 6.

Linking to:

ST2 June 2014

Teresa is the last bee mama for this first year of Siblings Together 2. Half of us have signed up for another year, so if you would like to participate in this stash busting bee making quilts for the charity Siblings Together, let me know and I'll pass your details onto our bee mama Teresa.

 

 For this trip around the world block, I dug into my box of scrap strips from FQR 2013. We swapped 18" strips which were all 2.5" wide, perfect for this block which was trending at the time.

These quilts will end up in the hands of children so bright fabrics fit the bill perfectly.

 

I also picked prints with pictorial designs such as the flowers, princess adornments dolphins and stars.

This quilt is going to look great when it's finished. I made an extra block in case anyone is unable to complete a block this month.

Sunday stash

Having pretty much stayed on the wagon as far as fabric purchases in 2014, I fell off the wagon this week with a bump!!

My first purchase was last weekend whilst in Winchester. I bought the red fabric from a quaint little shop and at 11am I was her first customer. no pressure then. The map fabric I purchased for both myself and Jane. Not that I've given any to Jane yet.

Whilst in Winchester, Jenny was buying backing fabric for me from Ikea. That means I now have four quilts backings ready to go. However the multi coloured fabric is for my Siblings Together quilt and not all of the blocks have been sent to me, yet. I'd like to deliver this one to the charity at the Fat Quarterly retreat in six weeks time.

 



And lastly a purchase from Pink Castle fabrics in their Super sale 40 sale. However I input my order a couple of times and my last attempt, I forgot to input the discount code. A quick e-mail and it was sorted with a $30 refund. This order was mainly tone on tone pearl bracelets, bake sale by lori holt and text fabrics again.

ST2 blocks so far - updated

I'm loving how these blocks are coming together so I thought I'd share them again as I've received two blocks from Teresa. The tutorial is from http://flutterkat.com/2012/01/reverse-rainbow-starburst-block/ If you'd like to contribute even one block, I would love a red, pink, orange, blue or purple block at the moment. The quilt will be donated to Siblings Together - a UK charity for children separated by circumstances who come together for a summer camp.

Wishes quilt - Twelve blocks done - Brit Sewing Linky

 

 

I've been a naughty girl and sewn all of the blocks for the Wishes quilt along. Having discovered the pdfs for the remaining months of the year, I substituted two patterns from quilterscache.com These blocks are quick to piece so I added them into other things that were on the go and they were soon finished. Next I need to sash it with two inch strips.

 

 

What have you been working on this week? 

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Coffee United

 

After three days at Denman College in Oxfordshire my travels continue this week with a cheap day trip to our sister island, Guernsey. £15 for the day was a bargain Jane and I decided we couldn't pass up. And I will be delivering a customer quilt too. We are meeting on the quayside if all goes to plan. Flingers crossed for a smooth crossing.

 

Can you see the football in the quilting pattern. Leila has used the little coffee panels perfectly and put together a lovely quilt.

 

And a pieced back. The next time I see this, it should be hanging in the Festival of Quilts. Jenny kindly picked up some fabrics at Ikea for backings, so I need to pick out one of my projects to finish next.

 

Aviatrix sew along - border 3

How did I forget to share the progress on my Aviatrix quilt? Border three was Japanese X and +s. I've made a few of these blocks before so these came together quickly!!  Next week's border is a simple one before the butterflies need to be tackled. I think we had two weeks to complete this border so I have a week's grace.

 

 

Social tote ALYOF June 2014

This month I've chosen a simple project to complete as I'm doing three day trips this month and there's prom and Lizzie's birthday. This item also features on my Q2 to do list.

 



 

 

It's a social tote - pattern by Anna of noodlehead for Carolyn Friedlander.

 

Today I hope to be acquiring a little more fabric at John Lewis in Southampton. We may even have time to pop into Ikea too.