giveaway time!...

Seamstar has a fantastic selection of Better Value Plain Cottons and Courtney is offering a very generous giveaway of them.

Seriously generous and seriously tempting...

Better Value Plains are 100% cotton and available at Seamstar in over 50 colours as well as various 4 and 6 colour palette bundles. They are better value too as they are are 150cm wide.

The generous giveaway that Courtney is offering is your choice of any 3 bundles of 4, some of which you can see above and the rest you can see along with all the colours available here.

And here's how you can win...

1 entry for telling me which bundles you would choose...

another entry for following my blog before or now...

another entry for signing up to Seamstar's Newsletter...

a final entry for tweeting about it.

So 4 chances to win...what are you waiting for??!

Giveaway open until this time next week - end of play Sun 4 Nov 2012.

p.s. apologies but open to UK residents only this time

 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... ;-)

Friday already?? Where on earth has this week gone??!

I have no idea what happened to Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday and Thursday I was in London at the NOTHS Meet Up, which was fab.

It is always wonderful to meet up with virtual friends and when you are listening to inspirational talks and given a free lunch, then all the better!

 I am consequently left today feeling rather pooped to put it mildly and politely!

I have just about enough energy to show you my Bella cushion created from the other half of the charm pack.

 Again, I kept it simple and let the little pieces I had shout from the rooftops.

Man, I love these fabrics!

The colours, the designs, the whole combo is just way too perfect. I've a feeling I'm going to be buying whole bolts of this range!

I finished off the cushion making an envelope backing in a bright turquoise solid.

Looking at it I could almost convince myself that the rain isn't lashing down and my heating isn't on and it really is summer time here in the UK...

 It is no secret that I am a huge fan of Lotta Jansdotter. Her simplistic , fresh, Scandinavian style ticks all boxes as far as I am concerned.

She shook the world when her first line Echo for Windham fabrics hit our shelves last year and I am predicting an even bigger world shake up when her next line Bella arrives in August.

I was lucky enough to be sent a charm pack of Bella and let me tell you, it sure has the wow factor. I am going to stick my neck out here and say I may actually prefer it to Echo.

Maybe it's the colour combos that Bella comes in or may it's that the patterns aren't quite as bold individually so work really well when adding to projects.

Because a charm pack isn't the biggest pack on the block I had to team it with other fabrics and because I wanted to showcase Bella in all it's glory i decided to team it with coordinating solids (in this case some lovely Klona cottons), rather than any other prints.

I split the charm pack up into 2 groups and used the orange and cobalt blue pieces in this quilt, saving the greys, yellow and turquoise for my second project which you can see a glimpse of in the bottom photo below.

Again, trying to keep it simple, I backed my Bella quilt in a denim coloured cotton and bound it in my new orange stripe fabric, which actually was born from a desire for an orange stripe to bind it with!

I for one can not wait for this line to be released and having had a play with a few precious pieces I am very excited about having more to really go for it with.

If you want to read more about this line and how Lotta creates her designs go for an informative read here.

And watch this space for what I am doing with the other pieces...

I was very pleased to tick a Bar Mitzvah job off the list today.

Part of the celebrations include a party at home and no party is complete without bunting.

 Despite having several buntings that I have made over the years I had in my head that I wanted rows of them high up criss crossing across the driveway, rather than simply strewn across the fence or hedge or the like, which is what I usually do.

 

 I wanted impact... 

I wanted bunting with attitude...

and I also wanted rectangular bunting flags, not triangles.

 So there was obviously only one thing to do...

make some!

I decided to be frugal and look through my larger scrap pieces and screen printed pieces that were slight seconds and began cutting into random sized rectangle. 

I'm definitely not a neat and tidy and orderly person so random sizes suits me perfectly.

 So having now got piles of random coloured and shaped rectangles the question was what was I going to do with them?

I wasn't sure whether to do completely ad hoc or have some kind of order.

If order was involved was it going to be one red row, one orange row, one green row etc?

Having laid them all out over my studio floor, I eventually decided on each one being a rainbow so the depth of colours could be seen in rows.

I hooked them up on the deck to see if it gave the impact I was looking for and I'm so pleased with them and can't wait to get them in their proper spot on the day.

The only thing left is do I have enough?

I'm thinking maybe a couple more rows...