Made a bag, got a bag :)

Like many quilters and bloggers, I am enjoying a very busy Summer and I'm not getting much sewing or blogging done ... but that's okay, hey? 

Last week I made a tote bag for Angie (a friend of the family) to say thank you for gifting us these fabby brass jugs for our new house:

I love making these tote bags. Angie said she liked rose pinks so I raided my stash / scraps and here are some of my 'along the way' photos:

And it doesn't matter how many times I get to this part, it always makes me smile because I think, 'no way this is going to work' ... but it does:

So that was the gift I made and this was the gift I got from my dear blogging friend Jennie over at Porch Swing Quilts - she makes amazing bags (you must check out her 'Weekender' bags) and she sent me the bestest little Sew Together Bag - look at those 3 delightful zipped pouches:

And see what she added on the front - a Glinda wand! She makes all these beautiful things AND has 5 little ones to look after - SuperWoman indeed! Thank you sooooooo very much, Jennie, I adore it! You're incredibly thoughtful and I'm sending you a big hug all the way to North West USA from here in the UK (North Wales) x

Linking up with Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts and Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Enjoy the rest of the Summer - I will :) 

They made me cry!!

You will recall I am out of action having had a nasty fall in the street nearly two weeks ago. I dislocated my right shoulder and smashed the humerus in 3 places ... ouch!

The operation went well and, although I'm still in a bit of pain, I'm recovering on track - I saw the Consultant on Monday: x-ray showed everything was back in its place, he was pleased with my (limited) range of movement and the surgery wound is healing nicely. It was a serious injury and it'll take months and a lot of physio to get full movement back but I'll get there :)

On the day of the accident, I had been grocery shopping for the weekend quilting retreat I was hosting ... I still feel really bad that the weekend didn't go ahead - all the 'Strip Bee' ladies were wonderfully understanding for the last minute cancellation and sent me some beautiful messages - I do hope we can rearrange :)

And as if I needed any more convincing what a fabby bunch of ladies they are - they sent me the most delightful box of goodies. DH had to open it for me and when I saw what was inside, I burst into tears (yes, am on a lot of morphine!!) There was a a gorgeously pink and purple wall hanging, where they've each made a block and signed it and there were lots of great individual gifts as well. You ladies are just too wonderful :)

Here's me modelling the wall hanging in this morning's glorious sunshine:

The back and cute label:

And with the gifts:

Thank you sooooooooooooo very much, my friends, what a wonderful tonic you are (shame I can't have the gin with it!) I'm a lucky girl.

Linking up with the lovely Lorna:

And Heather and Megan:

Finished top - how to quilt it ... and unexpected gifts :)

I am ahead of schedule ... yay! I have finished piecing the top of my friend's retirement quilt (deadline 23rd January), have made the back today and DH and I will baste it in the morning.

 

It came together really quickly once I decided not to go with sewing it row by row but in blocks:

 

And, of course, I pinned the heck out of it to match those seams up!

 

You know my quilting is limited - I don't really do straight lines and my free motion quilting is limited but if I was to wave my wand over this tomorrow - how would I best quilt it?

 

And a fabulous reminder of the kindness of blogging friends was confirmed with a bang yesterday (well, a thud on the floor by the front door) as I received this wonderful parcel all the way from Canada:

 

Yes, she knows how much I love pink! Look at how sweet her pin cushion is: 

Naughty Shauna (@ lovinquiltin), I really don't deserve them! You are toooooo sweet, thank you very much :)


I have loved looking at everyone's 2013/2014 posts ... here are just a few from some of my favourite blogging friends:

Nina @ Quilts, Life and Balance
Sarah @ Quilt Candy
Jasmine @ Quilt Kisses
Geta @ Geta's Quilting Studio
Julie @ Mack and Mabel
Beth @ Love Laugh Quilt

I am very excited about this year! Are you?

 

Linking up for the first of many times this year (I hope!) with Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday (now have you seen her lovely quilting which was achieved on her domestic Juki?) and Sarah @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict: 

 

She's a bit lippy!

Just a quick WIP to share because to be honest, who can really be making lots of new quilty things with just a week to go until the big day? Well, not me!

This is going to be my retirement gift for a lovely friend whom I've worked with on and off since 1996. In a mainly male environment (at that time), we refused to not still be feminine and probably took it a bit too far by reminding each other when the lippy (lipstick) was fading ... thus began some fun! 

We've been very lucky to work together again just before she retires. Her favourite colours? Pinks and greens ... and the design? Well, a pair of pink lips - of course!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

3 finishes, a WIP and a new start ...

Happy weekend!

Why stop at one teddy bear baby quilt when you can make another? Having made the blue one for baby Matthew, last weekend I started on a pink one from these fabrics:

 

This was made for Jacki; our families lived next door to each other in Skelmersdale, Lancashire in the 1970s. We were very close back then, we'd go off on camping holidays a couple of times a year, our Mums and Dads were great friends and Jacki's sister Mandy was my first best mate! We were also part of a dance troup trained by my Mum and their Mum, Aunty Brenda. Here we all are in (I think) 1973/4. That's me in the bottom row (with the end of my arrow on Mandy and Jacki in the centre with the end of her arrow on my older sister, Debbi):

 

When I was aged 7, our family moved to Wales and we still met up for camping holidays and visited for a few years but, sadly, over time we lost touch :( until the end of last year when, out of the blue, Aunty Brenda rang my Mum and through Facebook, I'm back in contact with Mandy and Jacki ... got to love social networks, hey?

So here's the quilt I made this week for Jacki, she's thrilled with it:

 

Love making these teddy bear quilts - I could seriously make baby quilts all day long, couldn't you? My other two finishes are the Christmas Tree mug rug for Pam at work. Made from scraps and a penguin fat quarter, I free motion quilted some stars and loops and straight line appliqued the Christmas tree, star and tinsel. It really didn't take very long to do. I even hand sewed the back of the binding but then, that is my favourite part of quilting:

 

The binding fabric for both of these came from my little binding basket. This is where all my leftovers go until I reuse them:

And the advent calendar made out of a Makower Christmas panel. This was a fun project to sew - the instructions were very clear (half the battle when doing anything for the first time) and this one's actually for us! I have two more to make which I'll be gifting to friends with children:

 

My WIP is a Moda charm square lap quilt for my deputy at work, who's going to be off sick for a few weeks :( started on Wednesday, here's where I'm up to:

 

 

And this weekend, I'm starting on my niece's table runner and mats from this bundle of gorgeousness:

 

LOVE LOVE LOVE my hobby! What are you up to this week? I'll pop over and take a look as well as drooling overall the beautiful things shared at Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday and Sarah's Confessions of a Fabric Addict:

I cried ... and I cried ... and then I cried some more!!

It's been quite a tough week at work so after dinner last night, I was going to do some quilting on my butterfly quilt but instead we decided to watch a film. A comedy would have been a good choice or even a thrilling action movie ... but we watched Les Misérables and the tears came! Boy, did they :'(

I cried when Fantine's hair was shorn. Then, again when she died. Pulled myself together (just!) until Jean Valjean sung 'Bring him Home' and sobbed my heart out when he died at the end ... what an amazing film! Bless him, DH was a bit worried about me ... said he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen me cry at a film like that! 

If you've never seen it, there's lots of clips on You Tube to whet your appetite - I particularly love Colm Wilkinson's version of Bring him Home and, of course, the brilliant Susan Boyle brought the epic song I Dreamed a Dream to the masses when she auditioned with it on Britain's Got Talent in 2009.

So, from crying like to a baby, to my one finish this week which was this little baby quilt for Laura at work:

I posted about it earlier in the week and have since been asked to make another one for a friend and, as this really was such a dream to make, how could I refuse? And a bonus for me - this one's for a baby girl so I get to use my pinks! Here's my choices of fabric (so far!) and some fleeced fabric for the backing ... I just might get cracking on this over the weekend: 

Or I might finish quilting my charity quilt - I have done all the straight line quilting but think it needs something more - perhaps some FMQing in the butterflies? There's not a lot of space to move around in so my usual stippling is not going to work. Have been over to see what free motion quilting designs the fabby Leah Day has to share and I think I'm going to try making her pebbles. She really has the best site - everything's clearly signposted, categorised by ability, and there are videos for each design ... yes, pebbles - how difficult can it be?!

And no more sad films for me this weekend! 

Linking up with Amanda Jean @ Crazy Mom Quilts and Sarah @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict: 

My first Quilting Bee :)

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments on my 'new' sewing room - I showed them all to DH and he was really chuffed :)

So, today I got to sew up there for the first time in over a month ... yay! And just in time. I have been invited to join a small virtual quilting bee organised by Maria @ sew love to sew. I haven't taken part in a Bee before so was a little nervous when Fran @ PatchyRose emailed me to see if I was up for it. Maria has done a great job organising it all and has kept it very simple - just as well with me involved!

This is how it will work: we each make our own strip at a width of 40.5" (depth and design to be decided by ourselves) and then post it to the next person on the list who adds their depth and design to it and so on until it comes home to you with all 6 strips attached into a quilt top. Maria is encouraging us not to buy new fabric but choose from our stash.

So, I set about creating my strip today. I want this to be a no pressure, fun experience so I adopted tried to adopt a more casual approach than usual to my fabric choices and block designs. I still 'auditioned' different fabrics ... I have a Pom Pom Layer Cake I've wanted to cut into for like forever, then I thought about using bold, darker accent colours like navy and black or a flower theme maybe or ... oh, this was me being not so 'casual' after all!

Hmmm, moving onto block design; that might make it easier to choose from all those colours. Now I have all my books on easy display and a little seating area to comfortably read them in, I picked up a few and perused ... and paused and perused ... and ... an hour has now passed ... oh my!

Sometimes you can over-engineer things, don't you think? JFDI, Jennifer, JFDI ... so I did. Here's my strip - 8" x 40.5" - a few different blocks in yellow and PINK! Well, are you really surprised: 

Nell just had to join me ... we re-covered my ironing block yesterday - she tells me she was just trying it out:

I pass my strip onto Amy next week and I will be receiving Fran's and we will have 6 weeks in each round so plenty of time to choose fabrics and make blocks for the next strip.

Here's all the lovely ladies:

Maria @ sew love to sew

Amy @ Cloud CouCou Crafts

Fran @ PatchyRose 

Julie @ Mack and Mabel

Sarah @ Quilt Candy 

And me :)

I am so looking forward to getting to know my fellow Bees better and to working on their strips - it's quite exciting, hey! And Maria even designed a little button for us:

Thank you Nina and an adventure to share!

Still no sewing in Glinda's busy Oz - well, it's a bit difficult to create when everything's packed away!!

But someone else has been busy making things, haven't you?! Naughty Nina @ Quilts, Life and Balance thank you very very much. Like me, she has a small blog following, please pop over and say hi :)

Nina won one of my Giveaway Pants Bags (a pink one!) and couldn't help herself ... she just had to send me some pink loveliness in return! Look what was waiting for me when I got home from work today:

I love the Glinda fridge magnet! The dishcloth is one of Nina's 'knitting endeavours' and the pink flannel has been sewn into sections and a tie added to make into a cute roll-up! Perfect timing as we are packing an overnight bag and going on a little adventure tomorrow! 

We are going to view a house in North Wales (about 200 miles from London). It will be our 'retirement' home in 5 years time so it's a little premature in the grand scheme of things! We've fallen for it by looking at it (constantly!) on the computer and just have to go and see it to see if we really really love it:

If you believe in fate, signs, good luck, timing, que sera or even a message you find in a pink Chinese Fortune Cookie:

... then it will all work out! And if not, we get to spend a little time with family :)