Design Seeds

I'm not the only person to struggle with picking colours for projects, but I'm sure I'm one of the last people to find Design Seeds. Several colour combos are published each day along with the picture source.

I love this Neighbourly Hues



This combo reminds me of Sweetwater Sunkissed so I may pull some out and use them for Lily's Quilt a Long. Not that I should be starting more new projects - I should be doing things with Allen keys and a spirit level.

Another quilt top finished

I have been awaiting impatiently the light blue patterned fabric to finish the blocks for this Quilt Book Club quilt called Modern V from Modern Basics. I picked up the fabric from the Post Office yesterday morning and it is so quick to go together that it's now done and just needs to be quilted!!



Today I want to trace Elephantz Block of the Month - block 3 to take to quilting tomorrow to handstitch. Not that I've finished months 1 or 2 yet. No change there.

Holiday photos

I think this photo tells you a lot about the weather we had for most of our two weeks in Saumur. Even Lizzie had a go and made a block. She's very good at selecting fabric in combinations I wouldn't have chosen but they do work. Time to update the spreadsheet for those I have finished, I think almost two thirds are now complete.

Foundation piecing

Jenny, Lorraine and I had a fun morning doing some foundation piecing. Even though the plan for the Farmers Wife Sampler Quilt at our guild is teach foundation piecing again in March, someone couldn't wait!! Here's my block for today.

94 tall pine tree



I will be taking this project on holiday with me so I hope to have some more photos for you in two weeks time. Meanwhile there'll be more blocks on the Cottonberry blog

Back from the Festival of Quilts

My feet are very sore and my purse a little lighter, mainly due to several trips into Birmingham. The winner of the Festival was a beautiful piece called Octopussy. There was a huge variety of quilts to view, including many hexagons and union jacks. The group winner featured meerkats which was very amusing.



My purchases from the Festival of Quilts comprised of some raffle prizes for Caesarea Quilters and the following for myself:




A jelly roll and layer cake of Ruby by Bonnie and Camille which I have waited for impatiently so I snapped it up on our second visit.
Fusible wadding for some bags
Big reel for rolling binding on
A subscription for Irish Quilt & Craft Magazine. A great size to pop in your handbag and has similarities to Vignette in that it combines garden, cooking and other articles but at a great price. Look out for this one in the CQ raffle in December. They also sell kits for the projects in the magazine which is very useful. This is a quarterly magazine.

I've even used some of the layer cake in some Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks. These three block make 37 blocks done in total - a third of the 111 blocks. Unfortunately they are the easier blocks in the book!! I hope to get to 50 by the end of the school holidays as my sewing machine is coming to France with us.

54 kitchen wood box



95 temperance tree



102 whirlpool

Mini design boards

I have just made some of the design boards shown on Lori Holt's blog To see the instructions on how to make them go to this post.

I have made two small changes to the construction of the mini design boards:
1. Her tutorial calls for foam board which is hard to get and expensive so I used some free mount borad which I got from a local framer and for that reason I also reduced the binding to 2" as the sandwich is thinner; and
2. I am not an expert with a glue gun, so I just used fabric glue and popped it under my cutting mat when finished to dry.




I have made eight boards in all, four for myself with trim to match my Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt fabric (Bliss by Camille for Moda), one each for Jenny and Lorraine, and two for our guild raffle for September (if they want them).

More Farmer's Wife blocks

I have been busy prepping some blocks and sliding the pieces into a binder ready to sew them up. It's lovely to be able to sit down for 15 minutes and sew up a quick block. However I know that I'm coming to the end of the easier blocks so progress will be slower.

In other news, my long arm machine came home on Friday. I took less than five minutes to fix it. It is still in the box as I am more than a little nervous that I will kill it again. We have nothing planned for tomorrow and I should have recovered from the sleep deprivation of ten 13 year old girls sleeping over last night.

69 practical orchard

68 postage stamp

111 wrench

73 rainbow flowers

55 Linoleum

29 Economy

21 Contrary Wife

12 Broken sugar bowl

5 Bat Wing

Scrapbook Generation July kit

Saturday was our monthly crop (note no crop in August)unless someone else organises it. I just picked up my July Super Sketch Club pack and printed some photos at the last minute. I have to say I thought the 4th July themed layouts of which there were three, were going to be hard to use. However I used all three on Saturday. All complete including any journalling. I was particularly pleased with the Kennedy Space Centre page as I'd forgotten there was a stars and stripes flag on the building.




Two layouts of our recent trip to Coutances via Granville and that was three double layouts done at the crop. I even finished constructing the other two from the kit on Saturday evening, so I just need to add the photos.

Farmer's Wife Quiltalong

Yes another project, but it'll be done two blocks a week over the next year. The group are on week 5 so have finished 10 blocks. Here's those I've done so far using Bliss by Bonnie and Camille by Moda with any white on white scraps I could find to use up.

Block 1 attic windows


block 2 autumn tints


block 3 basket


block 4 basket weave


block 6 big dipper


block 9 box


block 10 bow tie


block 11 broken dishes


block 14 butterfly at the crossroads



block 16 calico puzzle


block 48 homeward bound


block 81 snowball


block 92 streak of lightning


For those who go to Caesarea Quilters, we are planning to demo blocks 2,4, 48, and 68 (to come) with blocks 55 and 92 as extras at the September meeting. The book shows the blocks in reproduction fabrics, mine are the Bliss range by Moda and the group will make 50 blocks for the lap quilt and are planning to use Grace by Moda to give three different looks to inspire members. I think I need to finish block 68 and do block 55 next.

Riley Blake

Go over to Riley Blake to see their current contest.

Hexagon progress

I demoed the stitchery hexagons at our May CQ meeting, in preparation for the July meeting where we're going to put together some hexagons. They really are addictive and quick to sew together. I have prepped all the hexagons I'm going to do but have left one to do as a demo example. A friend has one for her holiday to Switzerland as an aide memoire, so I will have made eight of the 150 needed for a single bed quilt. I think this is going to be a fun summer sewing project for members and they won't get bored of them as they only have to do a few.

Just two more groupings of four flowers to sew together and a couple of stitcheries to do. I want to include the year 2011 and our name into the two blank cream hexagons. The fabric is all Thimbleberries scraps from the four Blocks of the Month I've completed.

July's ready

My July hanging is now complete with it's new unchipped red buttons. Maybe I should try and start June next or perhaps August?



I also finished a Scrapbook Generation sketch kit layout this morning. I started this on Friday evening when scrapping with my sister, Joanne. Just four more layouts to complete. The layouts have gone together quickly as I did most of three other kit layouts in the same evening. Now I just need to print out some photos to the right sizes.

Almost finished

Today is a busy day with a troll bead event which is must do, helping at the Itex walk, a new tap class for Lizzie and Zumbaparty, so I'm not going to have time to finish this today. All I have to do is finish quilting and buttonhole stitching the Y. Also one of the pink buttons is chipped so I will try and buy a replacement pair.

June FNSI

Well it hasn't been as good a sewing week as I had hoped for as my sewing machine is still not working as I'd hoped, despite being serviced. So I did some piecing and applique this week.

Pieicing - I started another new project. I saw the Farmer's Wife Quilt a long on a friend's blog, had a look, no too like Dear Jane (another WIP) and passed. Unfortunately Camille also posted about it on her blog. The blocks in her modern fabrics, a whole different look. I'm on board. I've ordered the book, made two blocks, joined the Flickr group and the yahoo group. Oh and I may have ordered some fabric too.

Applique - I didn't get my June calendar block made in time for June so I thought I'd make a start on the July block. I have pieced and appliqued the block but forgot to do the inside of the Y. It's now ready to be put together, embellished with buttons and quilted for the Friday Night Sew in (FNSI)

Posie's Patch

My sewing machine is back from being serviced at bernina's London office, so I've celebrated by doing some button hole applique on this second quilt from Modern Basics for month 2 of Quilting Book Club This is made with Wing It by Momo from Moda.

Now that I've caught up on this month's quilt, I'm quickly going to piece a quilt backing for this quilt and then work on quilting last month's quilt which I abandoned due to my machine playing up.

You need to hurry over to sketch support

If you want to see their latest guest designer !!! Only this morning I was looking for jumbo ric rac for a quilt. I thought the red would be the best but there was less of the red than the navy and black. Strange? Now I know why, I used 24" of red ric rac on a double page.

Into town this morning to see if can buy any more jumbo ric rac, Needle Treasures or Fabric Factory, I guess. I also need to pick up my sewing machine which has been serviced and return the one I had on loan.

Vignette hexagons

My very first quilt was made when I was a teenager, using fabric from Mum's stash and following instructions from a part work called Golden Hands. The quilt is still going strong but would offend the quilt police I'm sure. Fast forward thirty years and Issue 2 of Vignette showed a hexagon project. I knew I wanted to revisit hexagons, but not do a whole project so I have introduced it to our group - Caesarea Quilters as a summer project. I can confirm it's a perfect carry along project as we travelled to France last weekend and I worked on it on the boat. Ideal.

How did the techniques differ over 30 years? This quilt has embroidered hexagons scattered among the flowers. I decided to substitute the flower from the Block of the Month pattern as it is simplerer but the right size. I used a number of different threads but like the variegated green I bought in France the best. The hand sewing of the hexagons is still quick and therapeutic.

No laborious cutting and tacking of papers this time:
* The paper hexagons were cut using Sizzix die 656664 - 50 at a time
* I used freezer paper instead of scrap paper so I could iron the shapes to the fabric temporarily and then cut around leaving about a quarter of an inch
* I used the Sewline glue pen to stick down the seam allowance as suggested by Leanne. So quick.

In less than a week I have put together 1 block 2 and two blocks 1 with a few spare flowers and hexagons. I have shown Lorraine what to do and she is prepping for her trip to France. She is hoping her daughter will also help. A few CQ ladies are busy sewing the stitchery cream hexagons, so I hope we can make this a successful group project. All done using my Thimbleberries scrap basket so far.



Now I need to make progress on the Vignette BOM as I still have block 2 and 3 in progress and the latest magazine is out with three more blocks!!

Jazz Festival and shopping

I'm not the world's greatest shopper, but I do indulge from time to time, so here are a few purchases from our weekend trip to France. On the way to Coutances we decided to stop in nearby Granville that I've only visited once before. After lunch we went strolling, bought a few macarons in a patisserie and returned to "En peu de ci, un peu do ca". The shop had lots of Tilda products in the window and was in an artisans area with sculptures.



I indulged in a few My Minds Eye papers and some of the hard to find washi tape. They also had some sweet little bracelets to make or buy from liberty print bias binding.




Whilst in Coutances we did watch a little jazz, ate in the food village and generally mooched around.



On the Sunday we came across this bunch having a photo taken on the carousel!!




Monday saw us return to St Malo for the boat trip home. First stop Decathlon, then the Madeleine Centre. We found a few newer shops there including the one where I bought some of these wire storage baskets. The corrugated card and variegated thread were from Cultura, a regular haunt of ours. Oh and some more washi tape.



Whilst on our trip I had a little bit of hand sewing to keep me occupied. I managed quite a few hexagons and now need to do some of the embroideries to go with them. The hexagons are quick and easy to make and very portable. I'm off to Lorraine's soon for a tutorial for her holiday. I used the new Sewline glue pens instead of tacking down the fabric and the Sissix one inch hexagons and freezer paper so as to make the paper cutting quick and easy. You can cut 50 hexagons in a matter of minutes and then you iron them on to the fabric and the wax adheres the paper to the fabric temporarily.