Hopeless case

One of my first jobs in the morning whilst everyone else is sleeping is to browse http://www.quilterblogs.com/ I don't know if you've already found this website but it has the most recent posts from 100s of quilty blogs. I've discovered so many projects I have to do from this website along with Sharon Schamber's binding technqiue using glue. First I need to find the glue to try it out though.

So on Monday this little gem popped up.

Typical that I discover it just after it's gone up in price!!  I really enjoyed stitching the pixel people from Wee Stitches over Christmas, so I was powerless to resist. I've bought the pattern and ordered all of the threads from ebay for 40p a skein plus £1 for postage. I just need to get the linen which I'm going to try for the first time and the silver thread. The pattern is packed away with the needles, thread and other accessories for me to stitch the frames, January and February on our trip to Denman College. Do you think I can resist that long?

I also came across this blog on Monday http://www.pixelstopatchwork.com/ and I love her project cards, so pretty and clean. Do you think they'd help me resist more projects and actually finish some of the many I've started?

Gen X BOM - January

Today I finished the fourth BOM for January. This one I've done in Bonnie & Camille's Marmalade and a Kona grey. I'm waiting on a delivery of various Kona greys from Village Haberdashery to add to this quilt and also for my Simply Solids Bee. Hopefully today.



You would think that was all of my BOMs done, but I found another that's appealing. Shabby Fabrics - celebrate the year. This makes a 10.5" block and I'm thinking it would make a lovely mini quilt for January. I need to find some felt snowflakes to sprinkle on it.

Japanese X + O blocks

I had not heard of this block until Carol asked the Honey Bees to make some blocks in November. They are seriously addictive and quick to make, so I made five blocks for Carol from the fabrics she sent. She gave us Oakshott reds for the centres, so inspired by Carol, I'm sending different reds for the centres and a range of greys for the background and asking ladies to use stash for the corner blocks.

Here's a mock up that I've created using Quiltassistant.

Requirements:

Eight 2.5" squares of background grey

Two 2.5" squares of red

One 6.5" x 2.5" rectangle of red

Four assorted 4.5" squares - please use your stash

Four assorted 2.5" squares - please use your stash

Method:
 On the eight background squares mark a diagonal line from two opposite corners on the reverse of the fabric. Place on two opposite corners of each assorted 4.5" square and sew one thread width away from the line towards the corner. Press to the corner, trim away the excess fabric from behind.

Sew two 2.5"squares to each end of the red rectangle. Press open. Join an assorted colour and a red 2.5" square. Press open, repeat once more. Then using the diagram above join the units. Pressing seams open.

I have realised my solids stash is seriously lacking greens, turquoises and pinks so I may have to do a little stash shopping again at the Village Haberdashery. Hopefully my order will arrive today so that I can post out fabrics tomorrow.

Getting there

However there are a couple of projects I'd hoped to work on but can't find. I think I need to work on one pile of stuff in my work room this afternoon.

I have finished two small items on my to do list:
1. Siggie squares for the Bumble Bees - just need an address and they'll be posted off.

2. Two lottery blocks from this arrowhead tutorial for Caesarea Quilters.

I'm now going to work on my HUG cushion.

M is for Make me Happy

Having finished my stitchery and my blog hop commitment, today is for catching up on bee commitments and blocks of the month. Anne from Belgium sent us a selection of small scraps as January honey bee mama along with instructions (guidance really) to make an improv letter which will eventually spell out Make Me Happy. As you may be able to tell, I got the letter M.

I don't do improv, I like things to be straight with specific measurements. So I approached this task with both trepidation and excitement. I drew up the letter on a large envelope from the bin and then cut it up to give me a rough foundation piecing pattern. I also organised the scraps into a rainbow so as to give some order to the piecing.

I have to say I'm pleased with how the block turned out. I've trimmed it to 10.5" so that Anne can trim it down further as she wants when it comes to putting the quilt top together.

I will leave sewing the siggie square and my last January BOM block until tomorrow now. Being the top pick on Thursday's blog hop certainly made me happy.

In your words blog hop

And welcome to day 4 of the In your words blog hop hosted by Linda at Buzzing and Bumbling Here is my contribution which is hot off the press. My thanks to Jenny for the loan of the staple gun to attach the stitchery to the artist's canvas.

This stitchery was designed by Leanne Beasley and is sewn on linen with Cosmo threads. I started this over a year ago and I had intended to show you another of Leanne's designs but I couldn't find it. So over the last week I have beavered away. This project has proved to me that I need to practice my satin stitch more. As I was getting to the last few patches, they all had satin stitch in them - I was definitely avoiding them. I changed the fabrics included with the kit to some of my favourite Moda red dot, the pink is Sew Stitchy by Aneela Hoey and the turquoise border fabric is by Bonnie & Camille.

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The squares of fabric were intended to be needle turn appliqué but I wasn't happy with the result so I used some Steam a seam and then did a machine blanket stitch around the blocks. Now it's finished, I'm really chuffed with it. The canvas was meant to be about 4 inches larger with more border, but I wanted the emphasis to be on the stitching and not the borders. 

I think this stitchery was from an Australian retreat originally and a few retreat bags were available for sale, so I jumped right in and bought myself one. Unknown to me, my friend Claire also bought it for me. She knows me well. The pink, Sew Stitchy fabric was also a present from Claire.

Now I'm off to view the other projects for today:

 

Life in the Scrapatch (Pat B.)

 

Nati's Little Things (Nati)

 

Amy's Crafty Shenanigans (Amy)

 

Pig Tales and Quilts (Thearica)

 

Scrappy 'n Happy (Jess R.)

 

Little Mushroom Cap (Amira A.)

 

Moosestash Quilting (Joan K.)

 

Sowing Stitches (Beulah aka. Carol)

 

Just Quilt It  (Kathy G.)

The three sisters quick and easy Indian cookbook review

This book is published by Simon and Schusster and was provided to me for this review. The cover of the book is pink and turquoise with gold embossing which is immediately appealing. The photography is gorgeous and makes your mouth water. I was keen to dip into the book.

I was intrigued to try some of the recipes of this book as I have never really cooked a curry from scratch. After choosing two recipes, the first job was to purchase the spices. I was pleasantly surprised find that Waitrose stocked all the items necessary for the Goan fish curry and the Rajasthani chicken strips.

The book is divided into 10 chapters and starts with an explanation of how to be quick and easy. When making the Goan fish curry I made the mistake of not preparing the garlic and ginger paste beforehand which took longer than expected.

Not being used to spicy food, it would have been useful if each recipe had been rated from mild to very hot. I did leave out the whole chilli from both recipes. The Goan fish curry was delicious and there was plenty of leftover sauce so on the following day I baked some salmon in the oven topped with the leftover sauce which was also delicious.

The Rajasthani chicken was easy to cook having already prepared the garlic and ginger paste, however it was too hot for my taste even with the whole chilli omitted.

This is a lovely book for beginners and experienced curry cooks alike with full colour photographs of all recipes. I do feel it would benefit from an indicator of spiciness for each recipe. If you like it hot, you'll love this book.

Bloggers BOM - January

bloggers BOM - January, a photo by libertyjsy on Flickr.

And here's my third completed BOM block for January from Opengate Quilts. I don't have the flying geese ruler used in the pattern so I made the flying geese with the double half square triangle method using 2.5" by 4.5" rectangles of background and 2.5" squares for the points.

Bonnie & Camille's Marmalade with Kona grey.

Uploading photos to Blogger has changed , I hope it goes back to the previous set up.

Sugar Block Club - January

The first block is called Snow Blossom. As it is a five by five grid block, the pieces are all odd numbers ending with 7/8". Not an easy one to cut, but once cut it went together quickly. I dipped in my scrap bag of white on white fabrics to find the background and used my stash of Bonnie & Camille fabrics to make another block for my honey bee quilt.

Today I need to continue my slow tidy up of my craft room to find a pink Kaffee Fassett fabric for a friend and a stitchery for me to finish asap.

Lucky Stars BOM - January

This is the first proper block and is called funky star. For the 12" block to go with my Honey Bee blocks, I've used a mixture of Bonnie & Camille fabric lines with my favourite white on white background. I love the look of the red spot and the contrast of the green in the centre.

For the 6" block, I've use Marmalade by Bonnie and Camille with a Kona grey for background. Again the stripe works well for the main star points

  

Here are this month's blocks in both sizes together.

And the two six inch blocks so far including the practice block.

I've printed off the Blogger BOM to try tomorrow after I've done some WI labels for tomorrow night.

In your words

The In Your Words blog hop starts on 7 January. Go to http://www.sewwequilt.com// on Monday and return here on Thursday, 10 January for my contribution.

Star BOM programmes

I love a good star block and I have come across several good ones so far this year. I need four more blocks to finish my Honey Bee quilt and a few more for my Christmas stars, so I will use the patterns for those and then the rest of the year they can all go together in one quilt. If you're interested, the details are as follows and click on the picture for a link to the website.

Costs $15 for twelve foundation pieced block patterns in 6" and 12". Also one practice block. released by e-mail on the first day of each month.

$7.95 for twelve block patterns and a recipe per month too. Released on the first day of the month by e-mail

Free for six block patterns downloaded from the website. The patterns will be removed after the six months are up. There are five other variations being shown on other blogs.

Thelma from Cupcakes ‘n Daisies ~ cupcakesndaisies.blogspot.com


Lissa from Moda Lissa ~ ModaLissa.blogspot.com

Denise from Quilter’s Window ~ Quilterswindow.com/blog/

Nicole from Sister’s Choice ~ sisterschoice.typepad.com

Lisa from Stashmaster ~ The-Stashmaster.blogspot.com

Free for ten block patterns downloaded from the website on the first Friday of the month in a chioce of 9" or 12" block sizes.
What a great selection.

A vague plan

As 2013 is here I need to have a plan of what I want to finish for the 2013 Eisteddfod and get a grip on my UFOs and WIPS. I have subscribed to a few blocks of the month along with the Bee in My bonnet row along to keep me interested.

Eisteddfod

1. Union Jack pillow - finished
2. Swoon quilt - finished
3. Hopscotch quilt - needs quilting on my Bernina
4. Farmer's Wife Quilt - needs two borders and quilting on long arm
5. Hugs tapestry cushion
6. Pink heart embroidery
7. Live laugh love

Projects 5 needs a lot of work and 6 and 7 need application, but all three are perfect projects to take to Chez Soi on a wednesday morning. They are all doable and I will do the quilting of my Hopscotch quilt at our Guild UFO day in January.

UFOS
Let me scare myself as to what other projects are on the go:

• TQS BOM 2010 - ready to quilt
• TQS BOM 2012
• Tree skirt - ready to qult
• Xmas star blocks
• Honey bee paper pieced stars - need to see how many more blocks I need
• Hugs and kisses
• Thimbleberries book club quilt - need to finish the quilting
• Elefantz BOM
• Vignette quilt - least said the better
• Just as I was thinking that was it - Dear Jane quilt
• Christmas stitcheries
• Floral cross stitch
• And how could I forget - Jan Krentz star quilt. I think I've used the fabrics to finish this in other projects so it needs to be looked at.

And there's my Honey Bee commitment and the new Simply Solids bee too.  If I get eight out of my UFOs finished during 2013, I'll be pleased and relieved.

Ooh and I forgot that we have Lu Summers teaching in Jersey in 2013, I'm definitely looking forward to her screen printing class and I'd love to do some felting too in 2013.

2012 a year in review

As we approach the end of 2012, like many, I'm taking time to look back at the year I turned 50. Some of the highlights include:

• Winning the Caesarea Quilters trophy at our local Eisteddfod with a UFO that got finished this year.
• Baltic cruise to celebrate my 50th
• Inaugural Fat Quarterly retreat in London
• Visiting Knit & Stitch with Claire to celebrate my birthday
• Having a pattern published with Simply Solids

I was disappointed to end the year with so many client quilts waiting to be quilted as I've been without my Pro Stitcher for over a month and the timing has now gone on my machine so it will be a few weeks before I'm back in business.

I'm looking forward to:

• Second Fat Quarterly retreat
• Visiting Knit & Stitch to celebrate Claire's 50th
• Stepping down as President of Sirens WI and Chairman of our Guild. It's time to let others take the reins and it will release a lot of time for me.
• WI trip to Denman with a lot of shopping along the way.

My tree skirt will not be finished for even twelfth night, so it becomes another WIP.  My next priorities should be to decide what I'm going to finish to enter in 2013 Eisteddfod and tidy my craft room. I need to do this before our next Guild meeting so that I can make full use of the sales table.

Quilt label

I have done the Swirling Star test block for the Lucky Stars BOM. There appears to be a mistake in the templates as the block is 1/2" too big. The same appears to be true for the 12" version of the block, so I will use this oversized 6" block for the label on the quilt.

Fabric is Marmalade - Bonnie & Camille and Kona solid for the background.

As I can't sew the large block until the templates are fixed, I guess I have to do some tidying of my craft room.

I treated myself

I've been thinking for a while of buying a Kona colour card, especially as I have joined another Bee which uses only solids.

The only progress I've made in sorting out my craft rooms is to put all of my solids and white on whites in one basket. I've taken out a grey FQ today to use for the Lucky Stars block of the month along with some Vintage Modern - more of that tomorrow.

To get back to my point, Simply Solids' sale started today so I treated my self to a Kona colour card with 20% off as well as some greys for the Lucky Stars blocks and some reds for the Simply Solids Bee. That's my Christmas money from Mum & Dad spent.

I'll look forward to some more happy mail next week, I hope.

I know I shouldn't

Sigh, but you know my will power is zilch. I've signed up for this block of the month. For $10 at the moment, you receive a paper pieced pattern for a star on the first of every month in both 12" and 6" finished sizes. I'm thinking a pale grey plain background and some Aneela Hoey prints I got at a bargain price from The Fat Quarter Shop.

Tomorrow I will be loading my tree skirt onto my long arm to do some freehand swirls to compliment the white background fabric.

Boxing Day

We survived Christmas. I received a lovely new camera with Wifi capabilities. I guess I'll have to read the manual to work out how to use even 10% of its capabilities. Nick has not survived Christmas and is ill in bed. So I've had to get the teens up to help me prepare vegetable for today's lunch of Coq au Vin. Dessert will be the Boxing Day tradition of Baked Alaska. Matt and Lizzie prepared most of yesterday's veg which was a great help so I was able to applique some more houses.

Now I need to do more of the seven trees and also the green windows on some of the houses. It may even be finished before New Year's Eve!! I ran out of the red thread but have substituted a deep pink which works fine.

This is a pattern from the Fat Quarterly Christmas edition 2010.

Merry Christmas everyone

The tree skirt may not be finished but it's Christmas Eve and time has run out. Nevermind it's something to work over the next few days when I have a few spare minutes. All of the pieces are fused to the background and I have started doing buttonhole appliquéing around all the houses. Five houses are complete and a few just need the doors stitched. A lot of progress has been made today as only the big houses were fused when I started this morning.

Happy Christmas everyone and I hope you have a healthy New Year.

Are we ready?

Almost. We survived the long queue for our turkey and bought everything we wanted from Waitrose apart from little gem lettuce, mince pies, submarine rolls, and selection boxes. Nick has promised to go out tomorrow and buy the rest as well as presents for me!!

I plan to sew tomorrow what Nick shops. I don't think we'll have a tree skirt for Xmas day. But today I have made seven recyclable money / voucher wallets.

I saw something online over the last couple of days which used sticky back plastic. Yesterday I purchased some Bondaweb and have sandwiched two different red fabrics together. Then I cut out a 7 x 9" rectangle with a triangle on the top which was two and a half inches from the top of the rectangle.




Then I pressed the flap of the envelope down with the iron and then brought the base of the rectangle up to meet the flap.




Once pressed I sewed the two sides down, however for the poppy wallets I started on the right hand side sewed down turned round and then went back up and then sewed a quarter inch seam around the wallet flap and down the other side.




A decoration was stuck or sewn to the flap of the wallet and then a Velcro dot stuck under the button to secure the wallet.


These are perfect for using for giving, money, vouchers, CDs and DVDs and then you can recycle them another time.

Bee in my Bonnet Row row along seven

Row eight is a cute set of mittens and now I definitely have to do my tree skirt.



And here they are altogether. Now I just have two more rows to complete to catch up which are rows 5 – flying geese and  4 - apples but these will have to wait until after Christmas now.

Bee in my Bonnet row along 6

I know I should be working on my Christmas tree skirt, however I much prefer piecing to appliqué. I have now finished row six which is cups with the new fabrics I received about 10 days ago.





And here are the rows that I have finished so far in a group photo.

Scrabble jewellery

Lizzie is making some Scrabble jewellery with tiles from a couple of old sets of Scrabble. The ring bases arrived yesterday so she made these cute rings for her friends with the initials.



She is now waiting for the bails to make some necklaces to match the rings.

Not much going on from me as I am full of cold and sore throat. Christmas cards may not get sent this year.

Big bang finish

Michelle loved these Pixel People from wee little stitches almost as much as I did. I promised to make her son Ethan a book mark of Leonard - his favourite character from Big Bang Theory (Channel 4 if you've missed this series).

I've just finished the book mark and stitched it onto some grey felt. I love Leonard's hair, but I wish there was more contrast in the browns of the jacket and trousers.

Michelle had no idea that I was also stitching the full chart for Ethan too. I showed it to her on Tuesday evening. I thought I'd finished it this morning and even gave it to lizzie to check. I was told one of the S's could have been done better, but like me she completely missed that I had missed out the word bang!!

And here are both items together, ready for me to drop to Michelle. I've left the framing of the piece to Michelle. Now I need to get on finishing my mittens from the Bee in my Bonnet row along and make a start on my tree skirt.

Houndstooth quilt kit

I met Justine and her cute newborn son of Simply Solids at the Fat Quarterly Retreat in June this year. This is what Justine has posted on her website today:

I was so thrilled to collaborate with Justine to produce this kit for her shop. It is avaialble in various sizes from cot quilt to double and in your choice of fabrics, so the variety is limitless. It would look lovely in red and white, shades of the same colour, black and white, football teams or house colours (Go Nelson).

This is what Justine wrote about me (blush):

Simply Solids are really pleased to offer this great Quilt Kit designed by blogger Sue Bone.


I first met Sue at the Fat Quarterly Retreat this year and was really pleased when she wanted to collaborate on kits with me – her work is great. You can check Sue out at her blog and here’s what she has to say about herself!

“Hi my name is Sue Bone and I live in Jersey. Whilst I am a qualified accountant, I am now a domestic engineer and I spend many enjoyable hours immersed in fabric. Last year I invested in a Handiquilter mid arm machine so I also quilt quilts for many of my friends from our local guild – Caesarea Quilters. I made my first quilt over 30 years ago – eek. It was a hand pieced hexagon quilt from remnants from the clothes my Mum made us. The first sewing machine I ever used was my grandmother’s treadle sewing machine with its shuttle instead of a bobbin.

I went to the inaugural Fat Quarterly Retreat in 2012 where I met many lovely bloggers, but never got to cuddle Justine’s lovely baby who I only ever saw sleeping. I have already booked for 2013 and am looking forward to meeting old friends and new and doing some fabric shopping at the retreat. My favourite fabric designers at the moment are Bonnie & Camille, Lori Holt and Lu Summers. Whilst the family still sleep, I start surfing the internet for inspiration from my favourite bloggers and shops. Living on an island, I rely heavily on internet shopping but you get two thrills from internet shopping, the first is when you order, then you have the anticipation and finally second thrill arrives when your fabric drops through your letter box!!”

Thanks Justine. feel free to ask me again.