The Social Butterfly gets Acquainted...

Well, hardly a butterfly, but you know what I mean, after 2 days playing out with sewing friends, I'm having a more (relaxed?!) day at home today, and preparing for the Lets Get Acquainted New Blogger Blog Hop hosted by the fantastic Beth at Plum and June.  It will be 12 months in August since I started blogging, so I most definitely consider myself a new blogger.

Not much sewing completed in the last few days, as Friday I headed with my little one to Susans house for a play date with her daughters, It's fair to say everyone was exhausted by the end of the day, and I was impressed with Helen and Emily's ability to cope with the demands of an over-excited and over-exuberant 4 year old!

Helen takes a well earned break, and Emily has passed out off camera somewhere!

We had a fantastic picnic in the park, I especially enjoyed the fantastic chocolate cupcakes, you can see a picture of them here, thx Susan :o).

And yesterday I had a fantastic day in the sunshine in sunny Parwich, a beautiful village in the Peak District, with the ladies of the East Midlands Modern Quilt Guild.  

We spent the day outside on the Village Hall sun terrace, with a talk from the Contemporary Quilt Guild, and then a nice bit of sewing time. I was lazy and just took some hexys to baste (as Susan had knackered me out on Friday), but there was quilt basting (Kerry), Weekender Sewing (Liz), more Hexy basting (Wendy), hand sewing (Lynne), HST prep (Mandy) binding (Trudi), Bee blocks (Moira) bag making (another one Di, really?  You'll get a reputation as the Imelda Marcos of the bag making world!) chatting, banter and CAKE.  Oh yes, the pot luck lunch seemed to involve more tea and cake than other food (there were some delicious salads and pasta), perfect in the sunshine.  

We even had a guest visitor, the lovely Sarah from Duck Egg Threads who was holidaying just down the road.  It was lovely to finally meet Sarah as we started blogging at the same time, and she has been a great support to me whilst I was trying to figure out how this blogging thing works!

And of course, as you would expect, there were some fantastic show and tell items brought along (all photos stolen from elsewhere) including this stunner by Mandy (but the finished version)- I'm not ashamed to say I stroked it a LOT!

Made With Love By Mandy

And this beauty by the extremely talented Trudi, I had a prolonged stroke and cuddle with this one too

 

And a plethora of Weekenders, including Di's second one, a Weekender mini- fabulous!

 And because Di is a massive over-achiever, her latest quilt top- stunning, the horrendously names Rainbow Sprout

So a great day was had by all, even if some of those same lovely ladies ended up a little burnt in the early summer sunshine, whoops!

Until next time
Ange x

And the winner is...

Right, it's Saturday (not Friday) and here is the winner for this months competition, Mr Random Number Generator has picked.......

Leanne!  Well done Leanne, send me your address and i will get the book sent out to you :o)

I have decided to take a little summer break from the competition, as I have a lot going on, and I need a bit of time to refocus elsewhere, but will be back in September once my little one starts school (gulp, no mummy tears here honest!).

Have a good weekend
Ange x

Paint Stopped Play...

Before I get rabbiting on, just a quick reminder, if you have any book based projects this month link up to win here, remember it can be heavily inspired by a book or magazine, and as long as it involves a creation, it's pretty much in.  Go here to link up (3 chances), and you have until about 9pm on Friday night as I will be out during the day :o)

I'll be honest, there will be a dearth of sewing based stuff in this post, so if you're not interested in hearing about my wrestle with ugly decor (understandable, I wont be offended), stop reading now.  As the title states, sewing has been put aside this past week or two for a rather large paint job in our open plan, lounge, dining, family area (which sounds a lot posher than it actually is).  We started off with this 

Rancid brown painted plywood, swirly 80's wallpaper and pink ceiling!!!

which in a short time, converted to this blissful in white scene

Pure clean white

 And this...

Aaaargh!

...to this, don't worry, those rather special lights are not staying, we just need to find a replacement.

Thankfully bland!

It really is amazing how cathartic it is to be rid of the ugly decor, and to have a clean, fresh space to live in, the house is instantly lighter, brighter and prettier, the ceilings actually feel high (which they are as it's a 1920's house) rather than low and claustrophobic, yay!

Look at that wallpaper- soon to be given the white paint treatment!!!

I also managed to get Mr HOC to put some shelves in the most important room in the house sewing room, which means I can start to tidy and organise this space (it wont stay tidy for long, but still, I can give it a go), and despite the rancid decor (again) my tiny room has at least seen a little sewing action, with my signature block for Stitch Tease Diane.  Any advice on what type of pen to use on a signature block so it doesn't run when the quilt gets washed.

Right, off to sand down the walls of the new bathroom, fitting starts Monday :o)

Ange x

A Grand Day Out.

Photo stolen from Susan, sorry! :o)

Yesterday, you may recall, I was on a (limited) day pass with the ladies of the Brit Bee over at Susans house.  It turns out, all of these lovely ladies will be at the Retreat, and what a great opportunity to get to meet a few more of them before the big weekend (just 8 weeks to go, wooohoo).  As Susan realised I am a bit shy (ha, ha as if) she kindly invited me over to eat cake (I pretty much didn't stop the entire time I was there) and chat with a very talented bunch of ladies.  

I know lovely Trudi and Di from the East Midlands Modern Quilt Guild, and of course I met the incredibly talented Katy at the Uttoxeter Show a few weeks back, and Laura Jane briefly to hand over my Low Volume squares for the swap she did at the end of last year.  But Terri (hilarious), Judith (gorgeous, and really sweet), and Hadley (super talented, with a steely wit) were all new to me, and thoroughly lovely they all are too, they welcomed me in without even an eyelid batted!

Also stolen from Susan, shamelessly

I loved seeing all of the beautiful makes (handmade bags were everywhere, every single one was beautiful), I barely knew which one to stroke first! (just to clarify, i didn't stroke any ladies), chatting fabrics and eating some fabulous food.  The day was all too soon at an end, which is how I never made the photo, I did my best Cinderella impression, and skipped out of there before it was taken, back to my little one and her den making daddy.

If I didn't shame myself too much (and get invited back), maybe my ugly mug will make the photo next time! :o)
Ange x



 

Fabric Collecting...

As I can hardly say I've been doing any real sewing, I guess the arrival of my winnings from the fabulous Tikki Patchwork monthly giveaway is currently an addition to the collection.  I had the choice of 2 metres of fabric, in any size mix (Skinny Quarters upwards), so I decided to just pick a few prints I liked (the black one is Michael Miller Ta Dot which doesn't show up on this picture).  I realised afterwards, these totally fit my fabric faves, Aneela Hoey novelty pritns, Polka Dots, Chevrons and Texty- it doesn't get any better than that for me!

I have managed to do small snippets of sewing in the last week, the other main panel of the Weekender has been quilted (not the second pocket), the hanging pocket on Chevron Improv has been removed and binding re-attached, and a few more of these have been basted...

Today I will be playing out with the abridged version of the Brit Bee ladies at Susans house, wish me luck! ;o)
Ange x

The Judges Have Spoken and The Bloggers Quilt Festival.

 

With the return of my beautiful (I love it, so I'm going to say that, sorry if it sounds arrogant) Chevron quilt this week, came the grading from the judges.  I had thought before it arrived that I might be a little sensitive to any perceived negative comments. Surprisingly enough, I've taken the comments all rather well (they went easy on me), I can even go as far as to say, I had a little chuckle at one or two of them.  


Overall I received all "Good" and "Very Good" across the categories, and the 3 judges, except one which was "Satisfactory" from one of the judges, in the category of Visual Impact, Interpretation of the Theme.  Now whilst for Visual Impact I might disagree, I think it is a very eye catching quilt, but in relation to the category, Special Themes, New Beginnings, I'm not sure I had actually entered it in the most appropriate category, so i'll give them that. ;o). The same judge described it as "A dynamic piece with appealing colours" which I think is a really positive overall comment, and made me pretty happy- especially considering this wasn't supposed to be a "show" quilt, it started out as me off on a sewing tangent!  
 
Another of the judges commented that "A bit more quilting would have added a bit more to this, especially the background", and I can see their point, but I didn't want an over quilted piece on the actual chevrons. In retrospect, some quilting on the background white would have accentuated the chevrons, so also good feedback.

And the 3rd set of comments were overall positive, "Lovely colours and quilting to complement it" why thank you, but at this point, we head off on separate paths "Might have been better on a white on white print", nope, sorry, I prefer the solids, but ok, "or batik as background".  Sorry, what was that, I didn't quite hear you, did you mention the B word?  Yep, you read that correctly, batik, BATIK, are you serious, haha, no chance. I'll be honest, I hate batik, I cannot think of anything less suitable for a quilt like that I wanted to feel fresh, than a murky background, never, not going to happen, ever, EVER! I laughed out loud, I admit it. :o)
Overall, I was pretty pleased with the feedback, some good, constructive, well thought out (on the whole) comments, and considering this was thrown together Improv style with no pretensions to being a show quilt, and that the actual quilting etc was thrown together at the last minute (in a total panic, and on 3 different sewing machines), not getting torn a new one about the quality of my work is a positive.  I have a feeling the Festival Of Quilts judges wont go so easy on me, but hopefully my project for that one will be up another level, we'll see, maybe not! 

This quilt will have it's hanging sleeve removed in the next few days, and then it is off to its other home, not far, on the "other sofa" in our lounge.  Yep, this one is going to be Mr H.O.C's sofa quilt, but in typical man style, he actually prefers this side, the back

Men! ;o)

So with all of that loving in mind, I have decided to enter this one in the Bloggers Quilt Festival, there are some amazing quilts in the competition, and this is my first time emtering that too, go and take a look, I'm in the throw quilt category.

Quilt Stats:
 48 x 69 inches 
Machine Quilted across the chevrons by me!
Improv pieced from solids into squares, then cross cut and pieced to create a chevron effect.  
Ange x 
Link here

Back In The Groove...

After a few months of  very occasional sewing, this week has been a welcome return to sewing normality. Like most quilters I have so many projects that I want to work on, but I have some that need to get made first, so it's been rather slow progress.  After finishing my Boston flags earlier in the week, I managed to get a bit of focus on some of the Bee blocks I needed to get done for May.

I started off making this block for Kerry for the Simply Solids Bee over on Flickr.  I really love working with solids, there is something about the lack of pattern distracting me, and so the focus is all on the colour and design and getting them to work together- and that's actually quite a liberating way (for me) to sew.  

It is one of those blocks that tests the patience if you are having a bad seam allowance kind of day (just ask poor Lucy!!), but somehow my new "foot" rose to the challenge, and it came together surprisingly well- however I do need to make an additional block for myself, bet that's not so straightforward!!  

 If you want to make one of these blocks, you can head over to Little Miss Shabby's blog which has the original tutorial, and like it says, it's a great scrapbuster. :o)

And so Wednesday, I pulled a few fabrics for my Stitch Tease block for the lovely Di, she had been quite specific about her colour choices, teal, aqua and turquoise, and no colours other than those plus white, but she was incredibly kind to us, and gave us a simple block.

After a little chopping and sewing, I came up with these 2 blocks (whilst Mr H.O.C gave Virgin Broadband a rollicking for our t'internet being down again- about the 5th time in the 4 weeks since we moved in!)

 Clearly they need a good iron, but that aside, actually they came out ok, and not wonky (despite appearances).  These will be winging there way to the US once I've made a signature block to go with them.

For my next post, I'll be telling you about the return of my Chevron quilt, and sharing the feedback, which had some very valid points, although one point did make me laugh out loud- not all bad then!

Ange x