Sunday 28 February 2016

Siblings Together Quilting Bee - March Blocks

Sew Fresh Quilts

Linking up with the lovely Lorna @ sewfreshquilts

Hello all!

March is my month to request blocks for this year's Siblings Together quilt drive from the ladies in our ST quilting bees group. I am so thankful and lucky to be a part of this fantastic cause.

As well as a couple of Bees, individual quilters across the land and beyond are making quilts for this year's camps where children separated by the care system come together and are gifted a quilt. Please visit the site and blog for more information and how you can help. 

I'm posting the instructions for my block here and it will also feature on the ST Quilting blog. Here are the instructions (note the high-tech designing ... NOT!): 



And here is my 18.5" finished block:



I decided to stay away from my favourite pinks and go with something a bit more colourful. You'll need a little bit of orange, blue, green and yellow fabric and some white background (I've used Makower scrolls and an embossed snowflake but any whites will do). 

Each of the 16 units are 5" before sewing so the HSTs will be cut at 5 and 3/4" and the four piece squares cut at 2 and 3/4":


Some Glinda preferences: I don't do random! So I'd like the colour order to be exactly the same as my block, please :) this will flow really nicely once all 12 blocks are sewn together. Also, if you don't mind, please press the seams open. 

Other than that, it's very straightforward, here are some more pics just to show how I put it together:






Thank you, ladies, you're all amazing xx

Siblings Together Quilt Linky Party

Saturday 20 February 2016

February catch up ...

I think the same person who stole January is doing a very good job this month too! 

A busy few weeks and a visitor from Jersey ... I've been working on lots of different projects which I'd like to share with you. 

My friend Mandy was celebrating the big 50 and I'd bought her some perfume but wanted to add a couple of hand-made gifts too ... well, it was a special birthday! Mandy loves, really loves, bags and shoes so that made my fabric choice easy. DH has made me a small design board so I put it to excellent use:


I haven't made a Pants Bag (as I call them) for a while and this was a mini one - perfect for a mini break (not for mini pants, DH!) and a matching zipped cosmetics bag. She loved them:


I have also been working on blocks for a Bee I'm part of - this is for the quilt drive organised for the charity Siblings Together. I'm going to do a full post on that soon to publicise the great work this charity does. These are the January blocks I made for Maria @sewlovetosew ... I also make the Queen Bee a matching zipped bag:


Last weekend, my quilty friend, Sarah @quiltcandy came for a quilting weekend - all the way from Jersey to North Wales just to see me and sew! I had done my research and not far from the airport (Frodsham), I found us a lovely LQS called Sew Simple - very friendly and a great choice. This was my 'little purchase': 


Clever Sarah had made me this beautiful embroidered hoop, now proudly hung in my sewing room:


Amongst other things, we both made an open wide zippered pouch using Anna Graham's tutorial @noodlehead - you must make one; and it's a great tutorial. Mine:


Sarah's: 


We had the most delightful time, sewing and chatting, eating and drinking! After Sarah went home on Sunday, I started to make this little pram quilt: My 'own design' (as much as one can claim such a thing for a simple quilt) which came together so quickly that I'd finished it by supper and was able to hand it over on Monday: 


And fleecy hearts on the back:


So, there you go ... most (but not all!) of what I've been working on since my last blog post. Don't forget, I'm on Instagram too ... 

Hope you're all enjoying your quilting as much as I am! Linking up to Amandab Jean @crazymomquilts and Sarah @confessionsofafabricaddict