Roundabout Roundabout Maggoty Pie...

...my father loves good ale
and so do I

(has anyone ever heard that nursery rhyme before? Me neither. It's not exactly catchy, is it?)






I got the roundabout quilt top finished on Saturday, but had to wait for a less windy/rainy/miserable day to take a pic. It still blew about all over the place and took me forever to get the darn thing to sit still to get a picture but eventually I got there. Phew.

The pattern is actually bigger than my finished top - once I got the squares laid out I realised it was getting far too girly so I gave up and this is about 50ish x 60ish inches instead of the twin size Amy has on her blog. Hopefully someone will have a little baby girl before too long and I can gift it to them, because I'm not sure it would do for a boy. Oh well. For now it will hang on the fabric closet door with the other tops waiting for basting and quilting. I need to get the damn spiderweb quilt finished before I start anything else.

For those of you that are too afraid to try curved piecing, give it a go. I think once I get it quilted the puckers will be invisible, and it was really fun to do. And fast too - this came together in a couple of days without me really thinking too much about it.
Start with 4 blocks and if you hate it that much you could make a nice pillow. Honestly, it's not as horrendous as you think.

sunday stash

Liberty prints that the husband picked up for me yesterday. I've trained him well. The map one is a cotton lawn but the other 3 are a limited edition oilcloth. Yep, you heard me...oilcloth. You can buy your own online.

It's officially the first day of Spring today, and the sun is shining. Although I did hear on the weather report last night we may have more snow on Wednesday. Seriously - enough with the winter, already, it's Spring!!!

surprise in the mail

I got a wonderful package this morning from Francoise as part of the Dutch Sisters Spring Surprise Swap, organised by Heleen and her sister Corrie.
The beautiful mini quilt above is going straight on my wall above my desk today. I love it!
And I mentioned to Francoise how much I loved Dutch fabrics, so she sent me some!



Thank you so much, to Francoise and Heleen and Corrie for a great swap.

progress....

...it feels good.






(just ignore that ruffled effect. I do.)

cursing the curves

This quilt crawled into my head a little while ago and has refused to leave. Not until I make my own, at least.
The trouble is, I'm not very good with curves. Or at least I can't get them to lie as flat as I would like, or to not pucker up at all. On a few of the blocks I've made so far you could be forgiven in thinking I'd sewn a ruffle on the seam there's that many puckers. Still, Amy assures me her's puckered too. So if it's good for the goose and all...

PLUS - this is going to be my absolute saving grace - Amy says that in her template she didn't include seam allowances so the pieces shouldn't actually fit together all that well anyway. Ha! GENIUS. I can blame the template for my shoddy stitching. Thank you Amy. You are a wonderful woman. My plan is to get this little beauty (the top) finished by the end of the weekend. So I can hang it up on the door to my fabric closet along with the other tops that need basting and quilting. (One of them was supposed to be for my friend's little boy's birthday....just before Christmas. Maybe I'll get it done by his 2nd birthday? It's a good thing she's a good friend)

This set of fabrics (by Jay McCarroll) I've had in my stash for too long. It was originally planned to be used for a quilt for Ginge, but he doesn't like them, so this is my practise quilt before I start another one for real. Not sure what the 'real' quilt will be made out of. Maybe a random selection of favourites.

I'm 16 quarters in - in one morning - that's pretty good going, isn't it? I had to go to school for a parent/teacher consultation too, and to get some bread from the local shop. The cursing has given way to happy humming. Except when I prick my fingers on one of the 3 billion pins I've got in place to try to stop the puckering issues. They're not helping much. But ruffles are cute, right?

If you want to make a roundabout quilt like Amy's, she has the tutorial on her blog right here. There's a flickr group for more inspiration here.

you beauty

I finally managed to get my greasy paws on a kona colour card.

Now it's time for a coffee, and some serious stroking. I had no idea there were this many colours in existence.

I got my card from blueberry buckle on etsy. She doesn't have any more, but she does have plenty of fab colours of kona cotton in stock.

shopping, sewing, planning

The quilts exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum, London opens this weekend. If you get a chance to visit, do so. It's going to be amazing. A history of quilting in the British Isles, spanning the past 300 years. Personally, I need no real reason to visit the V&A, it's my favourite museum in London, and although I can't give a definitive answer really, having not made a comprehensive study of the museums of the world, I am going to claim it as the best museum in the world. Someone prove me wrong, I dare you. It's got something for everyone, and it's just over the road from the Natural History museum, but the queues are always really short, there's never any crowding. It's, quite simply, perfect.

One of the excellent points is the shop. Right now you can buy fabric there. Special Liberty x V&A collaboration fabrics. Quilting cotton weight too - even better! Considering some of these fabrics are inspired by very, very old quilts it's amazing they look so fresh and modern.
I can't actually untie the ribbon and spread them out for a better view, they are too lovely to be touched right now - so if you want to see them better you will have to go for a visit. Or check out the shop. They ship internationally. Go on, you know you want to.....



I've been busy sewing for a friend's baby to be...you can't see anymore just yet, she might be peeking...



And I've also been thinking about starting on a very special quilt. My first commission, don't you know - although I'm not sure I like to call it a commission, it makes it sound all very grand and proper. It's just a 40th birthday quilt for Trash. A favour for a friend quilt? Yep, we'll call it that.
The fabrics have arrived, all pre-washed (thank you Missus Trash), and ironed. Some are very lovely. Some are really quite scary (well, they are - I think she'll agree with me). Now I have to cut all this lot up into squares and sew 'em back together again and hope the finished result is fitting for it's task of keeping small children, not so small grown ups and dogs warm.

I'll keep you posted!



Please don't forget about the quilt auction for Chile over on Brioni's blog. It's open until the weekend. Please dig deep, and thank you so much to those of you that have already bid. You make my heart sing.

Auction for Chile

The quilt auction is up over on Brioni's Blog. We both made this quilt with a lot of love, a gallon or two of tea and lots of laughs. I don't think it needed sealing, but this little project has well and truly cemented our friendship. I can see our thursday sewing nights carrying on until our fingers or eyesight give up on us. Hopefully that won't be for a good few years, maybe even decades.
I can personally guarantee it is perfect for snuggling under (having done just that whilst sewing the binding on). It's pretty big too, so you could fit two of you underneath, maybe more!
64 x 80 inches, it's more throw than lap size. Unless you have a very large lap?

We're asking you to dig deep and make a bid for Doctors without Borders, who help those in need all over the world. They've been incredibly busy in Haiti, and now they have they Chilean earthquake as well. I know times are tough for most of us in the current economic climate, but we have it good compared to some people. Just offer what you can afford, please.

All the main details are over on Brioni's blog.

And if you win the quilt, I'll send you this little scottie dog pillow as a thank you...




What are you still doing here? Go - click HERE and place a bid!!!


Thank you!

a shared secret

I promised you I'd let you in on the little secret project Brioni and I were working on together, didn't I?


You wanna see it?




Sure?




Ok then....




here it is....


(the beautiful loopy quilting, courtesy of Brioni - she is a whizz at swirly loops)



lounging in the sunshine (Spring is here!!!) in all it's rainbow, scrappy glory...



gently blowing in the breeze...



I say WE worked on the quilt, but, to be honest, it was mostly Brioni. We both made the 9-patch blocks and the borders, but it was Brioni that assembled the top, and quilted it. And she did an amazing job too. It looks so beautiful.
We settled on a white binding, because we liked the idea of how it would almost add another skinny border to the quilt. I've spent the past couple of nights snuggled underneath it hand stitching the binding on to the back. I love it so much!
So now it's been washed, and hung outside to dry, and packed far away from the cats. It's crinkled up perfectly. I love that just washed look.

I bet you're thinking 'but you don't live together, who gets the quilt?' And there's the thing. We'd been talking about making a quilt to auction off for charity when the earthquake hit Haiti. Then Chile suffered it's own terrible earthquake and tsunami just a couple of weeks ago. We have a really good friend whose husband is Chilean, and they have a lot of family and friends over there. So we'd like to help.

We are just looking in to the different charities and what they are all doing over there before we decide on which one to choose, and in the next week Brioni will post on her blog the auction details. The company she works for will match whatever we raise - so it makes sense to have the auction over on her blog.

I'll keep you posted on when the auction will go live!

Quilt stats;
64 x 80 inches
all cotton fabrics
hobbs 80/20 cotton/polyester wadding

and the winner is.....

Number 50!!!!

Congratulations to I Love baby Quilts (so do I, and babies in general, actually). I'll email you shortly to get your address off you and pop your bag in the mail.

Thank you to everyone that entered. And also for not berating me for being so slack at blogging lately.

I promise to be a much better blogger from this point on

And for those of you that asked about sewing oilcloth. It's nasty! I put a little bit of masking tape on my foot to stop it sticking, but was still kind of tough going. A teflon foot helps heaps, apparently, but that would involve me actually buying one ad I am far too lazy to do that, I want instant gratification! There's a blog aptly named oilcloth addict that has a whole host of hints and tips and tutorials, as well as some awesome ideas to try out. Careful though, once you visit you'll be stuck there for hours filling your head with ideas!!!!

oops...

I went a little awol there, didn't I? A whole week without so much as a squeak from me.

Sorry 'bout that. Life's a little crazy busy right now. In a good way. In an oh so good way. I will share the details soon, I promise. And the other secret thing that I was working on a few weeks ago? Yes, I promise I'll tell you all about that soon too. Hopefully this week sometime if all goes well.

To appease you, my loyal subjects, how about a giveaway?

See that bag up there. Would you like it? It's a perfect chuck your groceries or sewing or knitting or whatever type of project in bag. The front panel is mexican oilcloth. Love that stuff. The sides are Amy Butler dots, and it's lined with a European black floral. Same as the handles. I made it for you. Well, one of you. Just leave a comment on this post (make sure there's an email address for me to contact you) and I'll use the magic random number generator thingy later this week. Which is also a sneaky way for me to slope off for a few days again without you noticing. I'm sly like that.

Oh, and if you follow me, you get a second chance to win - just leave me a second comment saying 'I follow you'. Like the Pied Piper. Not that you're rats. Although I quite like rats, so it's ok if you are. I can be quite ratty myself sometimes.

And that's it. I'll be back. Sooner rather than later.