A giveaway...and a new toy...

...actually the new toy is the reason for the giveaway.

A couple of weeks ago I invested in a Big Shot machine. I'd been after finding a way to cut fabric shapes out for ages, for the particular purpose of cutting flowers for my Flower Brooch Kits. My Flower Brooch Kits are far and away my most popular kits and up until now I have been buying cut flowers (not of the fresh fragrant variety) from a lovely lady in US.

But I have been wanting to make my own for obvious reasons and up until now any cutting machines weren't suitable for fabric.

Enter the new Big Shot machine...

The Big Shot has revolutionised my kits by the fact that I am in control of my stock of flowers, cutting as I need and not having to worry about temporarily making the kits out of stock while I wait for more flowers to arrive from across the pond.

And it's so darn quick and easy to use!

If i haven't lost you yet, here's the fun bit...the giveaway...

I obviously needed something to cut and coincidentally just at that point Courtney from Seamstar came along and almost the very same day sent me a swatch card of all the delicious new felts she was carrying. They are 30% wool and really beautifully soft and vibrant.

I put together an order for the ones I thought would work well for my kits and a day later I was cutting and combining to my heart's content.

Courtney was so taken with the selection that she decided it would be perfect to make a specific bundle with this selection of fabrics. And here's the giveaway part...Courtney has very generously offered one of you, my lovely readers the opportunity to win a set of this bundle, here on my blog. All you have to do is leave a comment here on my blog and you will be in the draw to win a fat 1/8 of each of these 6 luscious felts. I'll be leaving the draw open until next Friday 2 Dec so if you fancy some felt, just leave me a comment and a contact email and you will be in with a shot.*

Also...

...as i was cutting out all my flowers I was left with all these. Now I am known for my inability to discard anything and am convinced there is something that can be done with these 'stencils'. But, for once, I am going to resist the temptation to hoard them. Unless someone thinks they can do something wonderful with them they are going in the bin. If you can't bear the thought of that and know exactly what you would do with them let me know and they are all yours! The first person to say they want them can have them! Again, just make sure you have an email that I can get hold of you via.

After the busy weekend I spent some time yesterday fulfilling my obligation to Handprinted: a fabric swap, that Leslie over at Maze & Vale had organised.

Calling it an obligation makes it sound like it was unenjoyable, which would be so untrue. It's more that I had signed up, I had committed, I had to fulfil that commitment come what may.

I had so many different ideas with what I wanted to do, but unfortunately time was not on my side. The pieces were supposed to have been mailed yesterday and actually, I'm damned pleased with myself that, only a day late, I am back from the PO having mailed them!

The 'brief' was to produce a Fat Quarter - or thereabouts - of hand printed fabric. Naturally I was planning on screen printing something, but as I said, time won on this one and I didn't manage the time in the studio.

After a failed potato printing experiment I opted for my second favourite fabric printing method - freezer paper.

With my die cut flower to hand I set to work with cutting out flowers on the freezer paper with my new Big Shot machine (more on that another day...including a fab giveaway...watch this space...)

Then it was a question of producing a piece to each of my group's preferred colours. I could have done them all the same. That would have been so much easier.

But when did 'easier' = 'more fun'?

So here we have 4 different panels heading off to Australia, Canada and the US, hopefully to be used in all sorts of crafting projects. I can see them being used as a big pillow front, or maybe cut into individual patches for embellishing.

Who knows? But it's going to be fun waiting to see ;-)

Check out what everyone else has been up to here.