ah, back to my old self

Blogging sporadically and generally chasing my tail. Well, nothing new there then.

I started writing a post on Quilt Market and how awesome it is and everything...but I decided you would probably be bored of Market news now (am I right?)

Instead I'll show you what I'm doing right now...which is kind of market related.

I've been playing with the lazy angle ruler. Oh oh oh oh, it's such a fun ruler - really, you need one. It's great. Buy it and buy a kaleidoscope ruler as well because they're fun too. And whilst you're in the ruler buying mood, buy a couple of wedge rulers - because a girl (or boy) can't have enough wedge rulers. That's my tip of the week. And, if you never use them, it's ok - just put some nails in your wall and hang them off them and you can look like you're a serious quilter.



So, I've been using some of Aneela's new (out this fall) range for Moda called 'little apples' and (using my lazy angle ruler) I've made a quilt from Julie's pattern called 'firecracker'. I'm going to big pimp this pattern now - almost too much. So if you don't want to hear me big pimping - turn away now.
This is the first quilt I've made using any of Julie's patterns and I was sure I was missing something with the instructions because everything was going so well I was bound to have skipped a step or missed a page or something. Nope. It's actually really that well written. So well written and so clear that the quilt is a complete breeze to make.
I did all my cutting in an evening and I've now assembled all the blocks and I'm halfway through sewing the rows together. Real life got in the way. Dammit. I'll be finishing a load more of it this evening though, right after I step off here.
Julie has another pattern that is kind of similar to the firecracker but looks more flowery or pinwheel-ish called Carnival. If you're going to invest in a lazy angle ruler then go buy one of these 2 patterns. You don't need the ruler, there are templates to trace instead, but it's a fun ruler and it's a fun quilt and it's FAST. Even with all the cutting. You can pick up the patterns from the stores listed here.
Because I only had a fat eighth bundle of little apples and not any yardage I'm going to have to make a scrappy border, but I think that'll look just great.

Whilst I was in Salt Lake City I also met up with flickr friend, Pam who had made me blocks for scrap vomit part deux. Pam's friend Pauline had made me a block too. I love these people. I'm not even kidding - seriously, SVPD (as I shall abbreviate it) is going to be the quilt I pass down to my children's children (if they give me grandkids - which I hope they do) and it'll be the quilt I talk about every Sunday when they all come over for lunch. So much so that people will stop coming over for lunch in case I get 'that quilt' out again and tell everyone abut how in the olden days these amazing people from all around the world made me blocks for my quilt using their own scraps and how these blocks and little snippets of peoples' lives have become my most treasured possession. Plus, whenever I read anything bitchy or mean (which, let's face it, has been kind of normal these days in blogland) I can remind myself that the community I am part of is a great one and my blood will stop boiling, I'll click off the negative comment blog and back into my happy world where people are kind and generous and genuinely good people.

Here's Pam and me with my partner in all things naughty, Heather...(I pinched the pic from Pam because I don't have one of us together)



And here is my precious SVPD quilt growing....



I have to also say an amazingly massive thank you to Ruth for the blocks and squares she sent me. You can see some of them in the pic there. Ruth is a bit of a legend, well, she is to me. I'm sure she is to other people too. She does the diagrams for Rowan books. She makes Kaffe's quilts easy to comprehend. Legend? Yep. I told you so. Did you ever make a half hexagon quilt from Aneela's quilt along? Ruth did the half hex template for you if you did. Isn't she lovely? Yes, she is.

Quilt Market Scavenger Hunt - Prize Pack

This is just part one of the prize pack - you'll need to head over to Thomas' to check out prize pack 2 (which the winner will get ALL of. Whoo!)

Here's a reminder of what you need to do - just click on this link HERE or HERE and go hunting round flickr/blogs for relevant pics.

Entries are open until June 5th (so for 2 more weeks).

International entries are welcome and you don't have to have attended Spring Quilt Market to enter. It's open to all.

Ready?

Go hunting!!!

Bella Solids Parade - Expert Picks Day 7 (lavender)

So today is my last day as the (not so) expert fabric combo picker for Shruti. I had fun! I hope you played along too and picked out your own fabric combinations. A huge thanks to the generous folks at Moda and the Fat Quarter Shop too. You can see more from Shruti and the Bella Solids Parade here.




So today's colour is lavender (number 33 on the bella colour card)





Easy peasy lemon squeezie.....





The solids I picked out are moda bella purple (21), etchings slate (170) and magenta (92). The prints are some of my favourites from this year; Sarah Fielke's from little things - hot pink partridges and grey checker flourish and probably the best co-ordinate print of the year, Aneela's Sherbet Pips scooter grey skipping squares.


I really do love purples and greys. My single girl quilt (that has been quilted and I just need to bind!) used a selection of purples and most of the fabrics from Sarah's collection. I'm pretty over the moon to see more and more purple popping up in collections recently. It makes me a happy bunny. 


So that's it! Normal service shall resume shortly! Thanks for stopping by and reading about my picks. I hope you didn't get too bored ;)

Bella Solids Parade - Expert's Picks day 6 (betty red)

Another day, another set of fabrics! (last day tomorrow, then I'll bring you treats, ok? Treats for my lovely peeps.)

Today the colour is Betty Red (123)



Such a fun, cheery colour. Let's make a fun cheery quilt!!!



Bella solids in green (121), blue (122) and pink (120), and fun prints by Lori Holt's collection Sew Cherry Sew - red daisy, and white large floral plus a fantastic basic from lecien - color basic white on black minnie dots.
Love love love this combo so much!

Bella Solids Parade - Expert's Picks day 5 (betty pink)

Another dirty little love of mine today.

The colour of the day is Betty Pink (120)





I chose a kona solid in ash as well as bella solids hershey (41) and fig tree cream. The prints are more of my secret loves. I'm always drawn to Robyn Pandolph and Fig Tree Quilts prints. I love the subtle colours, the softness, the classic looks. I bet you're learning stuff about me you didn't know, aren't you?!  My taste in fabric is pretty eclectic. There's not much I don't like, if I'm quite honest. Everything has it's use and place. I see fabrics like these as perfect gift quilts for people that don't quilt. They're classic, they're pretty safe, and they always make beautiful quilts.

Prints are dowood house woven green gingham by Robyn Pandolph, Bellagio Road Rosy pink ornate flowers (RJR fabrics) and Scarborough Fair sky tiny rose buds (Fig Tree Quilts)

Bella Solids Parade - Expert's Picks day 4 (raspberry)

I hope you're having fun checking out all the fabric combinations with me!

Don't forget to visit Shruti and play along yourself.

The colour of the day is raspberry (140)



As soon as I saw this one I knew exactly what I was going to choose. It was the easiest of the lot!



Solids in snow, butterscotch and baby pink. All the prints are from Aneela's Sherbet Pips - pink lemonade puppy dog tails, vanilla ice cream scoot and scooter grey scarf. So sweet they make my teeth ache! Yes, I know I totally played it safe with this combo, but Aneela's pips are great fun, they're beautiful and she's my friend - so I'm going to stick with my choices! I really love how the butterscotch pops with the blond haired scooting kids.


Technically I'm back home now - I guess I'm tired, I might be sleeping...I'll sneak in a quick hi as soon as I get out of my lazy jet lagged bed!!!

Quilt Market - it's all about the business

Hmm....yeh...I did do some work, I swear.

I got a sweeeeet package of goodies for the Market Scavenger Hunt giveaway. You'll just have to check in at the weekend when I show you. And recap on what you need to hunt down on the blog post here. C'mon, play along. Whether you were at Market or not, it doesn't matter, everyone can play!

Bella Solids Parade - Expert's Picks Day 3 (brown)

Here we are with day 3 of my (giggle) Expert's Picks. I'm really not enjoying the 'expert bit' so let's call them Katy's picks instead, shall we?

Today's picks were MUCH trickier for me.

Colour of the day is brown (71). Hmm. Way out of my comfort zone here.





Fortunately it's not too tough to find some fun stuff to put with brown.

Max and Whiskers black grunge, and the co-ordinating fur grunge add some great texture to solids. I love these grunge fabrics from Moda. Really clever and give depth to flat colours. Blue raspberry (84) is my pop of colour for the solids. I have never understood the blue raspberry flavour, but I do love it. I love it in fabric too.
Staying safe with more Max and Whiskers - I chose black bubbles and elafin maybley. Plus some ever faithful Moda essential dots in tangerine. I could buy essential dots by the bolt - the slightly grungey backgrounds are fantastic, they're almost marbled. And the dots are perfectly sized - small enough for excellent binding and just all round useful.

Bella Solids Parade - Expert's Picks day 2 (country red)

You ready for another day of fabric picks? Want to see something that is my dirty little secret love? Ok....here you go....

Today's colour is country red (17)



And this is my dirty little secret - I LOVE the repros that co-ordinate with this colour.



French General fabrics get me every single time. I can't resist them. I made a quilt for the first issue of Fat Quarterly using Rouenneries and I have a La Petite Ecole quilt in progress. By the time you read this I'm hoping to have snapped up some French General treats at sample spree.

So, the solids here are la petite ecole dark denim, buttercup bluebell solid and primitive muslin in paper bag. Then for the prints I chose Alice's wash day blues in khaki (blue hill fabrics), la petite ecole stone cahrer and la petite ecole red on stone dots.

Love love love these - I can see super traditional sawtooth stars, or log cabins with fiery red centres. Or for mixing it up and putting that 'modern' spin - fussy cutting little motifs from the la petite ecole cahrer and using those for the centres of blocks.

Bella Solids Parade - Expert's Picks Day 1 (purple)

Have you heard about the Bella Solids Parade that Shruti has organised on her blog?

All month long, Shruti's highlighting a color and shade represented by a Bella Solid fabric and asking her readers to share inspiration photos that somehow feature that color. In addition, there are contests, giveaways, quilt-alongs, and more from Shruti with support from the generous folks at Moda and the Fat Quarter Shop. You can see more here.

One of the other activities is to show fabric bundles that are built around each color to showcase the different ways in which a particular colour can be used. Each bundle is made up from 3 additional solids and 3 prints to complement the day's colour. Shruti invited me to participate in her Expert's Pick series to create some bundles of my own. (Don't laugh - she was clearly running out of ideas for experts so she thought she'd scrape the barrel and ask me).

Over the next 7 days I'll be blogging the colour of the day and my picks. Some were much easier than others. A couple were TOUGH, right out of my comfort zone. But I really enjoyed picking the combinations of fabrics and hopefully you'll enjoy reading about them too. I'm away at Market right now so by the power of scheduled blog posts I'll be posting every day! Magic!

Purple is a 'safe' colour for me. So to make things more difficult I deliberately picked a large focal floral print that I wouldn't necessarily usually buy, and work around that.



I really like the outcome!

Bella solids in caribbean (86), amelia orange (161) and hershey (41).
The pretty little dot is Tammis Keefe tribute petal tiny dots, the large focal floral is Patty Young's Espresso Dahlia Lama from the Sanctuary collection and co-ordinates great with Melissa Averinos' pink hex diamond refuge.

Are you been playing Quilt Market Scavenger hunt? If not - go back and read that post and get the low down, there's prizes to be won folks!

Salutations from Salt Lake City!!!

Holy scrap buckets this is the third attempt at blogging from my iPad and I'm failing so far.
I'm in Salt Lake! It's 8am and I'm right about to jump in the shower but just wanted to say hi!!!!!!!



The pic is of Peacock Lane by Violet Craft for Michael Miller. It's really cute. Really really cute.

Ill be back soon but in the meantime scroll back a few posts to the Scavenger Hunt details and play along. I've braved spree and picked up some fun stuff for the prize pack!

The Dixon

A new quilt in progress. Nothing like starting something right before you're due to go away and ignoring the laundry, the packing, the sorting and the everything else.

This quilt has been on my list forever. The book came out in 2005. It's been on my radar for about 3 years, I think. For some reason I decided it'd be a bit of pain to make and picking all the colours would be a headache. Ha - not so. I did all the cutting and got 6 rows (out of 13 - for a twin size) done in a little over 3 hours. I'm hoping to get a bit more done today before I pack up my machine and quit the sewing until I get back from market. Picking a section and a half out of the bounty of basics box made the job even simpler. Those clever folks at Kaufman have it all sorted for you if you want to make something like it - just pick up a kona bundle and the 22 fat quarters will make you a decent lap/napping quilt size.

I've called it the Dixon after this girly. Because it makes me think of her (and thinking of her always makes me smile).

Have you read up on the scavenger hunt game? Go check it out - you don't have to go to Market to play, it's for everyone. A little bit of fun, including prizes. I'm hoping it makes everyone feel like they are at Market, because if I could take you all I so totally would and we'd just hang out and have the best time.

want to play a game?

Think Salt Lake City, and you will most likely think of Donny and Marie; or is that just me? This weekend, however, things are gonna change, Katy (that's me!) & (my friend) Thomas are hitting town.




Thomas had the fun idea of playing scavenger hunt whilst at Market. Want to play? Here's your list.....
1. Someone whose blog you follow
2. Mormon Tabernacle Choir (yes - that's a tough one. Something that looks choir-ish would suffice)
3. A stack of fabric at least a metre high (or 3 feet/yard for those in imperial lands) 
4. The end of the line for Sample Spree
5. Someone carrying at least 4 cups of coffee
6. The most insane quilt at Market
7. The most gorgeous new collection to come out at Market
8. A book being signed
9. A dodgy looking tangle of extension cords at Market
10. Someone napping at Market
11. At least one Daquiri (honestly I have no clue what a Daquiri looks like - fancy and cocktail-ish with a cherry in it, I guess?)
12. The singularly most over-the-top outfit at Market
13. The crowd at a Schoolhouse session

So, how does this Quilt Market Scavenger Hunt work? Well, if you're in SLC for Quilt Market keep your eyes out for everything on the list, and when you find things just snap a picture. Then, when you get home post those pics to your blog, Flickr account, or wherever it is that you share pics online. Then, email me (or Thomas) a list of URLs for your Quilt Market Scavenger Hunt entry. Easy-Peasy! *EDITED TO ADD, A MOSAIC OF PICS WITH ONE URL WOULD BE EVEN BETTER!*

And don't worry if you aren't going to Quilt Market, you can play along too. After Quilt Market just start hunting through the Blogosphere and Twitterverse for photos. Find as many as you can, and email me (or Thomas) your entry.

The winner will be drawn randomly from all the entries, and we will be putting together a special Quilt Market prize package for the winner. No need to email your entry to both of us 'cause we'll be pooling the entries before letting Mr Random.Org select the winner. 

I think that covers just about everything. Quilt Market: check. Scavenger hunt: check. Photos: check. How to enter if you aren't coming to Market: check...

Oh, one last thing: just to keep everybody honest, you have to find at least half the things on the list to enter; it is a scavenger hunt after all (fair enough - some of those things might be trickier to find than others!)


Also - I might add, there's special Katy only bonus entries if you spot a real life Osmond, and tweet me right away so I can go chase it down.

So, happy Market everybody! Let's go hunting!!!


ps- Thomas has a collection of fabrics (his very first) coming out this Fall, and you can check them out (in paper form at least) at the Andover booth - #800.


I don't have any fabrics or books or anything I can plug - but if you go to the Sis Boom schoolhouse you can say hello to my quilt.


Need my email? It's katy (at) fatquarterly dot com


Happy hunting! 

tough decisions and playing with scraps

Now that the little packages of scraps for my technicolour yawn quilt are off to my bee folks I made a mock up of how the quilt will look. Kinda. Except the actual quilt will be bigger - 7 rows of 7 (to finish up a HUGE 110"), and there will obviously be much more variety in the scraps - this mock up shows it to be a little heavy on the yellows. Strangely the block itself doesn't look that yellow heavy at all. That's the magic of scraps for you.



This will end up being by far the biggest quilt I've ever made. Although in actual fact, with fabric swaps, the help of incredibly awesome friends and my busy bees group I won't make many of the blocks at all. Not even half of them. That excites me even more. I'm wondering what I should do about the backing. Piece a scrappy backing? Make it more uniform? Binding will be black again - I love how it framed scrap vomit part one.

Now. Whilst we are playing with mosaics, I have a packing for market dilemma.

This is what I'm taking - (apologies for the blurry pic)



So what shoes do I pack? I'm limiting myself to one pair. One will already be on my feet, one to go in the case.



What's a girl to bring? They have to last me all day and all night (hence there's no heels - I die after 2 minutes in heels). Do I go for the ever faithful 3 strap flats, that go with everything and I live in all the time, or should I venture out into the world of tennis shoe/ballet pump crossovers? Or do I go all 'check out the freaky girl with tattoos and shoes that aren't a proper pair' with those kind of crazy one cream, one blue oxfords? It's a tough decision and I can't do it alone.

little packages

Thank you for all the comments on my last post. I really loved reading through them all, and thank you to Krista for talking me through setting up the comments thingy so I can reply to them via email. Yay. Now there's no escaping me - I'll email you as well as waffling on here (unless you have a no-reply address, then I can't...but I have been sending lots of emails to noreply@blogger.com. I wonder if anyone reads them?) Note to self - check first before pressing send.

Life here in Monkey Towers is hectic at the minute. I've got a lot of Fat Quarterly stuff and other bits to get done this week, so I've been doing less sewing and more computer stuff. You can tell my brain doesn't get used as much as it used to - I look like I've been up for the past week and not had a wink's sleep. Not a good look. Countdown to my trip to Market - this time next week I'll be on a plane, on my way. Eek! If I can find wi-fi I'll be tweeting. If I get a chance I'll blog too. If you are on twitter - I'm @ImAGingerMonkey. Come say hi. Mostly I say nothing of any note at all, but it's nice to chat, I think.

So, I've got about 3 million things to get crossed off my list before I go. One of them is getting my fabrics sorted for the quilting bee I'm in. Scrap Vomit part deux is underway. I've had 8 'A' blocks arrive so far (thank you to Fiona, Audrey and Rachel) and I'm getting my bee peeps to make 'B' blocks - the ones with the diamond shaped rings. Muchos excitement was had (by me, alone in the house) this morning as I cut the fabrics, sorted through my scraps and bagged up the packages. Next stop - post office.



I know the blogosphere is full of pics of this stuff, but I've got some now so I'm going to show you anyway. Denyse Schmidt fabrics for Joann's. I'm really happily surprised by the quality and the colours and, well, all of it, actually. It's great. Happy happy me. And thanks to the quilt dude for picking it up for me xxxx. I noticed there are plenty of etsy sellers stocking it - I've bought the other colourway from here.



The husbeast informed me last night that his salary is getting cut because of the recession. It's a pretty hefty cut too, and means things will be incredibly tight. But I always like to look on the bright side - now I am actually physically banned from buying fabric I'll be better with stashpact, won't I? And it may encourage me to get into that fabric closet and see what treats lurk behind the doors. Anyone fancy coming round and helping sort through my fabric? Like the experts do on Hoarders? Ill get you one of those bio suits and gloves to wear, just in case there's a family of mice in there. (I'm serious - about the coming round and helping me, not the mice. I'm sure there's no mice).

My name is Katy - it's nice to meet you

Thank you to Miss G for taking a picture of me and making me look like a dork. I'm eternally grateful. I only carried you for 9 months in my belly, and have sweated blood and tears for you. 3 pictures and you'd had enough and was laughing at me too much to take more. The cheek of it.

Anyway - this is me right now. Actually I am not wearing scruffy house clothes because we went shoe shopping earlier so I had to put something tidy on. If you happen to be at Spring Market next week you may well spot me in this outfit, it's a favourite (confession - the shirt makes me look like I have boobies and that is a good thing for someone as lacking in that department as me).



So, what can I tell you about myself that you may or may not already know?

I'm pretty tall - 5 feet 9" and skinny. I've been skinny since I was a teenager but this is abut the thinnest I've been since I got married. I was ill thin then - broke and too quick to spend my money on partying rather than food. I'm allergic to dairy these days and dairy foods have a lot of fat, so I miss out (and, boy, do I miss out - before I found out I was allergic I cooked with cream and butter and cheese all the time. Nearly everything that tastes really really good has dairy in it, and I can eat. I love to eat).  I rarely wear heels, they're a pain in the a$$, and I have trained myself to not buy them anymore since I had a closet full of crazy high heels that I couldn't walk in. Most days I am wearing leggings with something because otherwise I get cold legs and I won't wear tights unless I have something on that I am certain won't fly up and show my backside off. I'm 36, not looking forward to hitting 40 in a few years. I've been married for almost 13 years and we have an almost 12 yr old daughter and a 5 year old son, and 2 cats.

I'm kind of a prude. I don't like to have a lot of flesh on display, I never wear low cut anything and I always wear a vest (tank) under everything. It makes me feel secure. I just like to be safe in the knowledge that if my shirt flew off I'd not be stood in my underwear.

In saying that though, I am perfectly comfortable in my own skin. I just think it's improper to show flesh unnecessarily.

Big groups of people scare me. Except when they are people I feel comfortable with. Strange as it may seem, going to Market last fall for the first time did not scare me. That was like meeting friends. Same this year, and I am travelling on my own for the first time too. Teaching classes at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham this August and having a booth is scaring me so much that I can't think about it. When I do I get flustered and have a little panic. It makes me feel a tiny bit sick. Not sure how I'll get round that, but I guess on the day I'll be fine.

I am not Religious. As a family we don't have a Religion at all but my daughter goes to a Christian school. I have a strong belief in the moral upbringing a Christian education will give her, although I'm not sure if there is anyone up There, so to speak.

I'm proud to be English, I love the history our little Country has and the Royal family. I love that there are roads that stretch back to the Roman times and that we have huge stately homes dotted all over. London is my favourite city in the world, it's cramped and noisy and a bit mucky in places but it has everything you could ever wish to see in a city and some of the best museums and galleries in the world - and they're all free. Everyone should visit London at least once in their lifetime. Preferably once with kids and once without, just to experience both sides.

And this is where you will find me most of the time. My little spot in the house. Excuse the slightly dark photos - I've literally snapped as I found it, to show you how it really looks and not how I'd like it to look all tidy and prettied up.



My desk is a travesty. I need to get it tidied before I go to Market or I'll come home to everything gone. It happened last fall, the husbeast got carried away and just cleared out my crap - he gets sick of me being so messy. And I am. I am really messy. The door in the background there is my fabric closet but I can't get to the fabric in it - it's too full of other junk. There could be some good stuff but I don't know. (Actually, I am pretty sure it's not good stuff, that's kind of where the not so good stuff has been banished to and I really need to get in there and clear it out and just get rid of it).



The majority of my good stuff lives in the drawers of this trunk. This is also a general dumping ground. I have a little pile of stuff I need to mail out to a friend and then I also need to get this sorted before Market so I can keep the man of the house smiling.



My little spot in the house is actually the kitchen and dining room - I don't have a room of my own, I make do with what I can, and in actual fact I like it - I'm still part of the house when I'm sewing and not tucked away in a room somewhere. So my sewing table is the dining table and when we have dinner my stuff is stacked on the floor. Some people in the house get a little annoyed by this constant mess (spot the running theme???) and I make false and empty promises every week that I will be better next week. I'm usually worse.



During the day if I have any hand sewing to do I sit here on this trunk and look out into the tiny garden. Our house is pretty nicely sized but our garden is pathetic. Luckily I'm not a gardener so I don't fret too much by this. If we could move, my choice would be to the city centre in a lofty apartment overlooking the rooftops. Maybe with a balcony so I could step outside and feed the birds.

Most of the quilts I make I get long arm quilted. There are a couple of reasons - I don't much enjoy the quilting part because I'm not very good at it (I know, practise makes perfect) and (mostly) I really love going to see my long arm quilter, Chris. I'd make quilts just to go see her, she is so clever and wonderful and I could talk to her for hours. I have to drag myself away to let her get on with work, because she's not the sort that would chase me out, but she's busy and whilst I'm there chatting with her she could be quilting.  Plus having a quilt quilted isn't as expensive as you may think - especially not if you have a simple all over design. The husbeast and I don't go out much, we don't drink (him not all, me just occasionally) so we don't spend money on stuff like that. I don't often buy clothes, when I do they tend to be pricey (I know what I like and I stick to it) and they last. Same with shoes. So I'd rather spend money on getting a quilt long armed than a new sweater that I won't like after it's been washed because I'll be critical of the fabric or the way the shape has held up (yes, I know - I sound like a right pain in the you know what...I kind of am).

So that's me - questions?

giveaway winners and thanks

 Firstly, before I announce the winners of the giveaway I just wanted to say thank you for all the wonderful comments you left on my last post. If I could actually figure out to do the reply thing to comments in blogger I'd actually respond to you all personally (hang fire - I'm going to email a friend for help...you may well get a reply from me before long!)
It takes a lot to get me worked up enough to have a little rant on here. I am quite thick skinned myself (or have good feathers, like a duck, maybe) and haven't yet (thankfully) had to suffer any personal criticism but friends of mine have. Real friends, people that I know personally and then (I will admit) I start getting bristly.

For those of you that were surprised by my tattoos - I'm trying to get my daughter to take some pics of me so I can show you what I look like. I'm not a big fan of having my photo taken but I promise I'll get it sorted so I can introduce myself to you properly!

Now - on to the kona solids giveaway.

The big winner of a 25 FQ bundle goes to number 2 which (after checking) is Monda. Yay! An English bird! (Saves me postage, not that I mind really...but it does...which is always nice). Shoot me an email, lady, and let me know which section of the boxes you like the look of. Or (if you prefer) make a rainbow.

(Monda)

(Tallulah)

(Leanne)

And the two runners up of 12 FQs each are Tallulah. Lol - That's a second Brit. Mr Random.Org is being nice to the English ladies today it seems. And last but not least is Leanne. Who follows me on twitter and here and also subscribes to Fat Quarterly (so is officially a stalker). Leanne, chick - I don't have an email for you - shoot me one, ok? katy at fat quarterly dot com.