sun sea and sand...

sun sand and sea?

it's not quite looking like that from where i am sitting today but i am really liking the sun sand and sea charm pack created by a lovely customer.

i love how you lovely peeps out there see things and add your input into my designs.

i think i'll be creating something myself with this charm pack...

you can too as i have listed a few sets in my Etsy shop...go here if you are tempted by a little sun sand and sea.

don't forget to enter my giveaway if you want a chance to get your hands on some of my screen printed fabrics. 

go here for a chance...but be quick...it closes tomorrow 

a huge thank you to those that have already entered x

giant hexies...stateside...

 my giant hexies quilt pattern has always been a big hit. i really love doing it and i really love that others do. 

it makes me smile to think of all those giant hexie quilts that must be out there...or maybe it's just the patterns...

i was about to start a blueberry park version when i had an custom order from a lovely lady in the US for me to make one for her. 

very exciting...my first commissioned quilt!

we chatted a little over Etsy and she sent me some images of colour schemes she liked and we settled on red and aqua.

 i have a lot of red and aqua in my stash so it was pretty easy finding enough fabrics to use...

and particularly since I had a couple of recent arrivals from  DS Quilts collection.

 i really really enjoyed making this quilt. it is very easy to piece - although i did it differently this time thanks to my new 'y' seam skillage acquisition.

 i have to admit though that i think my favourite part of this quilt is the back!

i started out wanting to use the pale spot at  the bottom but didn't have enough, so i pieced it with another DS Quilts fabric that the uber lovely Audrie recently sent me. i made a little panel between the two of the cut-offs and put it all together. i love it!

the photos all look a little washed out due to so much light out there today and even more bouncing off the snow we continuously seem to have this year. i'm not complaining mind. just saying.

i did make this in record time which i think made it even more enjoyable. i didn't have time to get bored of it. i was spurred on by the possibility of it cadging a lift to the US tomorrow when hubs goes on business.

i am ever so slightly concerned it will get brought straight back again or worse still, left in a hotel room somewhere.

so still only tuesday and the biggest thing of the week ticked off.

surely that must mean it will be a productive week...

...will let you know!

the process...

it goes from this...

 and this...

to this...

and then this...

 to finally this...

and a bit of this...

all in less than 24 hours.

i love the process of design to screen to printing and it's been quite a while since i did it.

happy days.

wonderful way to spend a friday...

what a fantastic way to spend a friday!

i had the pleasure of liz coming over for her one-one screen printing workshop.

liz has done a couple of screen printing courses before and so had a good idea of what she was up to.

she claimed she wasn't very artistic but if you see what she produced i think like me you would disagree rather swiftly.

liz brought some sizzex paddle punches with her. I haven't seen these before and they are so cool! It would be very difficult to cut these shapes for stencil printing and liz used these in such a creative way. I just love the effect she achieved.

we spent some time talking techniques (actually we didn't stop talking for the over 3 hours liz was here) so that we could perfect her already more than basic skills.

 one advantage for liz booking a one-one session was that she had more me time (not necessarily an advantage you might say) and we were really able to work on her skills.

she also had plenty of time and could work on 3 different designs.

 whichever workshop you book on you get tote, tea towel and fabric pack to work with.

i love how the stars came out on liz's tote!

with a little bit of time left liz set to work on her 3rd design - partly hand cut, partly sizzex paddle punched. 

how cool is her tea towel? just genius!

liz really was an a* student in both attitude and aptitude and i had such fun hanging out and 'playing' with her today.

thanks liz for a wonderful time!

if you would like to come and do a fun workshop there are a couple of places remaining on my march class or like liz you could book a one-one for that little bit more me time.

next week i have my next group workshop and i can't wait!

 This printing malarkey on white is such a breeze. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier.

The only thing slowing me down at the moment is space for the fabric to dry.

I am on the lookout for something like this but they are so pricy that I just can't afford it right now.

 I definitely need a better system however as finding a solution in one area - printing in white - is now being hindered by another.

Maybe I should have a "drying rack pot"...

every time I sell fabric the earnings go into a pot to purchase my drying rack...shouldn't take too long!

...particularly when i am offering bundles of gorgeous colours like these at the bargain price of £20 a bundle! There's my Utility bundle at the top, followed by Frozen Berries and then Frozen Utility at the bottom - what happens when a little Berry mixes with Utility.

p.s. this wasn't supposed to turn into a sales pitch...I never know where my posts are going to end up when I start out...but if you are smitten please do head here to buy a bundle... ;-)

 It's been a hellava week this week. One that can be basically be described as a bit of a post celebration blur.

I'll post about the amazing weekend we had at another time, when I can put into words what we all went through and when I've picked myself up off the floor from exhaustion. 

I don't remember Sam's flooring me quite so much, but I think that's a lot to do with us being out of routine this week with the extra Bank Holidays and Half Term. If we had been back to routine the next day we would have had no choice but to get on with it.

We spent most of this week sleeping late, saying farewell to visiting family and friends and generally living in the moment.

By the time Matthew went back to work yesterday we were finding it tricky to get out of our slump.

I dived into the cellar to get some printing done for some orders that were piling up and as is my normal trick started playing around with an idea that had been forming in amongst the blur.

As you know i normally print in colour on white fabric but wanted to give printing on some colours a go.

This ended up with me printing on a fair few of my solids and rather liking where it was going. The main reason behind this was the need to order more magnets and deciding that perhaps they would look better with more colour.

I've put up a couple of pics here to get a feel of the difference.

What do you reckon? Printing on solids or printing on white?

I'm rather liking how the solids look coupled with other fabrics. The design seems to stand out better, particularly with the blues, but on the other hand the postage stamp block seems to work with the print on white.

Maybe I'm too tired this week to make a decision or maybe there is a place for both.

Do you have an opinion? Would you like to see more designs on a coloured background?

Would love to know what you think. You are probably less tired than I am...unless of course you are recuperating from FQR...

I have an unhealthy obsession with orange at the moment.

It all started when I received these fabrics (more on that to come very soon) and then the need for a binding fabric to bind the quilt I am making with them.

I couldn't find what I was after so I decided to print it. Easy, huh?

While I have been working on that quilt, all I can think about is orange, orange and more orange.

Consequently I have been trying out my designs in orange...

...and I absolutely love them.

I guess it is no surprise I can be so easily swayed, as at one time I couldn't look yellow in the eye and we all know where that has got me.

I'm pretty sure this love affair will be around for some time yet and having printed all 3 now 2 I'm now undecided which to use on the binding... scruffy daisy or tiger stripes...what do you reckon?

And if you have your own orange crush going on at the moment I've put together these 3 fabrics as a nice sunshiny summery set in the shop...it's right here.

 So less than 24 hours from conception, so to speak, and already we have the Jewellery Pouch Mark II...

I wasn't overly happy with the ribbons and where they were placed and I wanted to be able to fold the pouch in 3 if necessary.

So now the ties, made from coordinating fabric is sewn onto the back of the pouch - you'll have to take my word for that since I haven't taken a photo of that integral detail - and the ends are free to tie big...

...or smaller.

Hopefully there won't be a Mark III, Mark IV or any other Marks and I'll be able to get on with making these guys like this.

 And in other news today, I had a very exciting delivery that I've started working on this afternoon and no doubt will get abandoned until after the weekend now, unless I can find an excuse to sneak off upstairs for a few hours over the weekend.

Hope you have a great weekend and manage some sneaking around of your own ;-)

I've built up quite a collection of screens now and it's fab to have my designs on them to make printing to order nice and speedy.

I have however kept one blank.

 I've done this so that I can still try out new designs and ideas at home, without the time and expense of transferring them more permanently to screens if the designs don't work.

Working with stencils means it is relatively easy to do just that.

So today, in a spare 5 minutes - literally - I started working on refining a previous design and started cutting out a stencil from newsprint paper. 

I'm always amazed how much detail the paper gives you when you print. It's such flimsy paper, but with a flood of paint over the screen, it sticks like magic and works as well as a photo exposed screen.

The only drawback really is the temporary-ness of a stencil, but the flexibility that it gives far outweighs this and is definitely a worthy method in it's own right and one I'll be repeating I'm sure.

In the meantime I think I'll be getting this design up onto a screen some time very soon.

 It's always a good Saturday when you can get a bit of sewing time in as well as hanging out with the family.

I'd had this cushion commission for a new baby that I was supposed to have had done all week but it didn't quite happen.

I bribed Ruby with choosing some of my fabric and having a play on my machine while I was working on it so I didn't feel quite as guilty working on the weekend.

I've done a fair few of these cushions but this one is a little different. 

It's made entirely from my own fabrics.

I feel I've come a long way in a relatively short time being able to use just my own designs in my work.

I'm going to have to rethink things a little for the boys' version however as looking at this made me realise that most of my designs are definitely geared towards being more suitable for girls.

The Kite Strings would work well, but a couple more neutral designs are needed I think. Perhaps miniaturising my Euro Wonders and using that would be good.

Another new little detail is putting my screen printed name as a label on the back. 

At the moment I have just printed these as a selvedge strip on my fabric pieces but I'm definitely going to print up a whole load of them.

So a fun Saturday was had by all...well by Ruby and me anyway ;-)