the (less than) 24 hr quilt

 ok so it's not the largest quilt in the world but it was done from start to finish in less than 24 hours.

i'm impressed and quite frankly you should be too.

 a charm pack of the new heather ross briar rose landed on my doorstep yesterday. i'd seen a few glimpses of this and to be honest wasn't bowled over by it, thinking it was a bit bright and busy for my taste.

 i take it all back.

yes it is bright and busy but it is heather ross and i should have known better.

it is just gorgeous and the collection all works so beautifully together.

 because i didn't want to dilute the designs i decided to go for a simple patchwork using all the charms together and just a touch of kona solids - more because i needed a few extra charms and just to break it up a teeny bit.

i backed it with a fab Paul Smith pink
crosshatch that works really well pulling it all together. for the binding i chose a green candy stripe - just enough of something interesting without clashing with all the delicious fabrics.

i fmq'ed it with a random swirly pattern and if you don't look too closely at the varying stitch lengths i'm actually quite impressed in how that's come out.

i am sure there will be plenty of intricately designed quilts with briar rose in the coming months (swoons and wonky stars would work really well) but i'm generally a big fan of simple designs letting the fabrics do the talking and this range is definitely one of those times.

i also anticipate lots of beautiful summer clothing for little girls and am feeling a little sad i have no little girls to sew for. would it be wrong to start a collection for the potential grandchildren? my eldest is almost 16 after all...

on that note i'd better get this out of the house quickly...it's available right here.

I've just had a birthday.

It wasn't the best, but wasn't the worst.

I've been feeling a tad strange recently, which is hardly surprising with all the goings on lately and my birthday seemed to come and go without me getting overly excited.

Or maybe that's just age.

It hardly seems a year ago that I bought this book with my birthday book money. I always ask my In Laws for an Amazon voucher (it's safer that way), so I can purchase all those books (well some of them anyway) that have made their way onto the wish-list over the year.

Seeing as though this book has been in my possession for a year now, I thought I'd better dip into it before the new batch arrive.

There are quite a few patterns in here that I've marked that I want to make, but it's this fab Everything Tote that I most wanted to do.

I'm in holiday mode at the moment, having just booked our summer holiday last night, so this seemed perfect for that.

I love this bag already. The handles are very comfortable and it's so roomy - it will no doubt be filled with everything-but-the-kitchen-sink all summer long.

Ok, summer is still a long way off, but at least I'm prepared, hey?

Is it that nice things happen to good people or good people do nice things?

I'm not sure, but either way I've lucked out.

My fab order came from Kate yesterday and as if that wasn't enough as a thank you for the mention on my blog, she sent me a Fat Quarter of this amazing Heather Ross fabric.

I was very tempted to order some of this self same fabric when I ordered the Alexander Henry pieces, but restrained (restrained? with fabric? I know, madness).

It seemed my restraint paid off...as did my shouting from the roof tops about all this lushess fabric.

I'm going to be doing alot more shouting from now on.

Elephantum

It appears that the cushion obsession has lasted another day. I had in my head what I wanted to do for a children's range and for once what has been produced is exactly what I had envisaged. I wanted to use simple imagery and colours. After all this is a children's range. I didn't want it to get over-powering and busy.

I'm very into my linen at the moment (in case you hadn't noticed) and wanted to incorporate the freshness of that. I am producing 3 boys designs and 3 for the girls, all coordinating with each other for those that feel 1 is just not enough. There will also be 2 or 3 colourways within the series. After all, we all like a choice.

Another thing I am loving at the moment is this rectangular shape. It really lends itself to a bit more detail. As does the stitching, that also seems to feature quite heavily in what I am doing at the moment.

Hopefully I'll have the full range to show you very soon.

Where's my squid?

I for one have been really pleased that it's rained on and off all weekend (sorry!). We were going to go for a family day out on Saturday but decided we couldn't face dodging the rain clouds.

Consequently, I got plenty of time to make the other 2 cushions I wanted to. Having made the first, I had a feeling it was going to be case of one of those jobs that never got done, as far as the other 2 were concerned. On this occasion, I was well off the mark and got not one, but 2 completed. The secret was to do Matthew's first and then still wanting one for myself, I'd have no trouble to be motivated to do that!


I included Matthew in the decision process (or so I'd like hime to think) and let him choose fabrics to be included (within the design frame of course) I think he is pleased with it. But his first (and continued) reaction was 'Where's my squid?' I think we all know that the squid was never going to make it.

As for the fishies he was so desperate to include... there really was only one place for these...

Mine obviously had to include Social Climber. I'm now waiting anxiously for my aunt to come over from USA in a couple of weeks, with reinforcements of this that I've ordered from Cia's Palette as I'm now all out. It also had to include the fabulous paisley from Prints Charming (next project is to use the gorgeous blue and red version)


Having completed our bedroom cushion project I am on a mission to redo ALL the cushions in the house! (Ruby has already put her orders in) I've also been rather preoccupied with thinking up children's designs for the shop. So watch this space...this is just the beginning...