Every now and then a fabric comes along and takes me by surprise.

I'm not generally a pink lover. I'm not adverse to it, but I don't ordinarily gravitate to it. However I was after a pretty floral to add to a couple of cushions that I'm making for a friend's two little girls.

I found this pretty vintage piece on Etsy and decided it would work for what I was after.

I wasn't ready for falling in love with it and I've had to quickly go buy up what ever Jessica had left. I'd only bought a fat quarter and this was already allocated for the couple of projects that I'd eyed it for in the first place.

The first project is, as I mentioned, a couple of log cabin cushions for these particular little girls. Here are some of the strips waiting. The vintage piece lifts the whole thing, don't you think?

Whilst photographing the fabric on my landing I was standing by my old Lloyd Loom chair. It sits on one of our mini landings in all it's worn out glory. I love the shabbiness of the chair but am also quite aware that it could do with a little care and attention.

I think this fabric is going to work beautifully on here. I'm yet to decide in what form, but it will certainly be the starting point for any future renovation.

And because I'm the impatient person that I am ("what? moi?") I couldn't NOT make anything when it arrived and so last night I happily made this Needle and Pin Set.

Well, I did have to see if the fabric worked as well made up as I thought it was going to.

Fortunately it does. this fabric is going to have a very special place in my stash.

And this Needle Set is available here...

I wouldn't ordinarily, blatantly post a pic of me on my blog. I'm much more interested in showing you fabrics and other makey bits and pieces.

But I was really taken by a fab project Holly is doing on Decor8....

Post a pic of yourself in stripes.

Coincidentally that day I was wearing the afore-mentioned stripes, so I decided to play along.

I'm dying to see the completed project when Holly posts later today.

Did you play along?

It's downright horrible here today and trust me, I have unfortunately experienced it at first hand. Today was the day we picked to take Sam and 7 friends to Alton Towers as a post exam/late birthday party treat.

I actually hate Theme Parks at the best of times. I'm not good with crowds, queues or heights and if you throw cold rain into the equation, you can imagine quite how my mood was today.

And by this time tomorrow I'll be tearing my hair out as they are all staying for a sleepover!

So this seemed a perfect day to distract myself and look at some loveliness.

This week I have bought the following fabric stashes, most of them to use with my screen printing and also I have several quilt orders and my thoughts are heading to designs with lots of plains - something new for me.

This first rather big pile comes from the range of Klona plains that Alice from Backstitch is stocking. The range of colours is incredible and at £5.50/metre, it's fantastic value too. A lot of these are going to be used for screen printing, so I'm rather excited about experimenting with them.

Remember the samples of these I received? Whilst I was on an ordering binge, I added these to the list. They are beautiful. The colours are obviously perfect and they are a lovely linen/cotton blend. Head here if you fancy trying some out for yourself.

I always need spots. I haven't bought these Oliver & S City Weekend dots before, but they will be perfect for Gerry and Steve. I wasn't totally sure when I ordered them that the spottage wasn't a tad small, but I gambled on them being nice and they are. They are perfect. Whilst I was at The Eternal Maker I bought the top one, Basic Grey Graph Dots. You know every now and then you are drawn to a simple fabric and when it comes it exceeds all expectations? That's the case with this one. Having satisfactorily made these for a friend, this Basic Grey is lined up to be made into a pair for our bed. Then I definitely need to order more for one of the quilts on order too. I've a feeling this is going to fast become a firm favourite.

After all this, I've almost forgotten about the bad part of the day.

Hopefully by tomorrow all sleepover madness will be forgotten too.

It's been a Bad Day at the Office today...

Last week's screen-printing class was cancelled due to a technical hitch in the workshop, so as I'm sure you can imagine, I was chomping at the bit to get back in there today.

I had quite a pile of designs since I'd had twice as long to play around with them, so I was already in a quandary as which one I was actually going to use.

I was really liking my latest design here on the top, but decided to go with last week's hexie design as it would work better in this week's task of Colour Alignment. Also I had incorporated a lot of different patterns in this and was keen to see how they would look in print.

We arrived, prepared and exposed our screens with the 2 layers of the design (sorry, omitted to take a photo here) and got ready to print the first layer.

All good so far...

I was really happy with how the hexies in the first layer turned out and was feeling rather excited at adding the second layer of design.

And this is where it all started to go wrong...

The second layer wouldn't line up with the first and I realised I had put the pattern upside down on the light unit and so had produced a back to front screen...grrrr. (You can see above, the hexie bottom left prints over the yellow one.)

And because it took me a while to realise this, in the meantime the screen dried out and consequently wouldn't print through.

I was a little bit frustrated, to say the least, that I wasn't able to execute the lesson properly and get any satisfactory prints.

BUT...

If I am going to take any positives away from this week, it is to realise that there is a lot to learn and remember with every process and with every screen print. It really didn't matter that I had made mistakes. The finished pieces are for my journal, not for producing any perfect specimens. There is (hopefully) plenty of time for that and what it has enabled me to have is a perfect, in it's own way, example of problems that can occur and how to avoid or rectify them.

Next week is the last week of the course. We are using this week's design, hopefully the right way, to print onto fabric, which is very exciting.

And hopefully the mistakes that have come up this week will enable me to do that pretty much as perfectly as I am capable.

I have to start by apologising for the forth-coming oozing that is about to ensue about what is essentially a product that I have created.

It isn't very modest of me to be gushing so much about my own work.

And really I'm not so much oozing about the pouch, but more the fabric that I have made it with.

I bought this navy linen on my recent trip to Fabworks a couple of weeks ago. I fell in love with it immediately and even though I wasn't sure what it would be used for, since that has never stopped me in the past, I figured I needed to buy some anyway.

Unfortunately, due to my photography, you aren't seeing the beautiful colour of the navy. You'll have to trust me on that one. What you can see and consequently imagine, is the stunning selvedge stating the linen and wool mix. This gives the linen such a soft feel without actually losing the crispness that linen gives.

Along with the linen, the Liberty piece has been sitting on the pile waiting for it's turn to be included. I picked it up on my trip to Liberty back in April, spying it out for perfect pouch lining material. It's a beautiful contemporary design in navy that works perfectly with the linen. I love the combination.

So the combination of my new Stitched Design Pouches with both of these new fabrics is making me very happy indeed. I hope you like it too because there's going to be a lot more of this combination going around.

It has also given me a BIG idea with screen printing that I can not wait to try out.

I am very excited about this...

As usual I get the most creative when I am meant to be doing something else.

Are you like that?

I have so much to do at the moment, fulfilling orders, being busy personally, but somehow I have an idea burning from within that has to be actioned immediately.

It isn't even a discussion that goes on in my head. Do I have time? Should I be doing this?

It appears subconsciously from nowhere and before I know it I'm at my machine making something new.

As I say, I have no idea where the seed of idea came from, but this afternoon before I knew it I was playing about with stitches on the machine and making pouches and needle/pin sets.

I am quite limited with stitches on this machine, but am quite smitten with this cross stitch lookilikey.

And I love how it works with the linen.

Obviously now, having less than an hour ago no idea that I would be designing these, I am obsessed with making more things with stitched designs and can't actually think of anything else.

I was rather sad today as screen printing class was cancelled due to a technical hitch.

The plus side of this is that class will last a week longer.

The downside is it will be a week longer before I can get into the workshop and get creating and producing.

Not that I think I'm ready for that...far from it. But what I am ready for is being able to be let lose and try out all the things on my ever-growing list of ideas that I have.

I was however a very good student and spent some time today sketching for the 2 colour design we were supposed to be doing and will now (hopefully) be doing next week.

This isn't a completed design. It may not even make it to printing stages, but it was fun playing around with patterns and seeing it grow.

You may see this one printed next week...you may see something along these lines...knowing me, you will most probably see something completely different.