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...

 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...

It's a big weekend in the UK this weekend...

From a national point of view it is Jubilee Weekend so the nation is in a frenzy, with bunting flags decorating absolutely everywhere. I am not what you would call a Royalist, but I do get excited by mass fervour.

On an ever so slightly smaller scale lots of people are getting excited about The Fat Quarterly Retreat this weekend. Unfortunately due to our very own exciting event I can't make that but can not wait to hear all about it.

 We are almost 24 hours from kick off from Noah's Bar Mitzvah. The boys' exams finished today, my aunt and uncle arrived from the US and all finishing touches are just about completed.

I even managed to squeeze in making a very important quilt this week, finishing it off today...

I am quite well aware that this was a crazy time to start a quilt but it was a very special quilt. Noah's Bar Mitzvah teacher and his wife had their first baby last week and I wanted to say a big thank you for all the amazing support Alby has given Noah and an even bigger thank you to baby Arielle for arriving early and enabling her Daddy to be with Noah on Saturday during his big performance. So it was a top priority to finish it.

And finished it is...complete with scrappy binding as I couldn't make a decision quickly enough which fabric to use, so used all 4, including my hoarded last bit of Mikodesign owl fabric.

I think, like a lot of us, I may be a little busy this weekend, but I hope you all have a fantastic extra long weekend and as a very good friend of mine says...see you on the flip side x

 Next party preparation item ticked off the agenda...

 ...table runners for the kitchen and deck tables.

One thing this party sure is doing is kicking me into touch with projects for the house that have been on the To Do list for aeons.

Yesterday was a very productive screen printing day. With the weather being so beautiful I was able to print, dry the screen and reprint in a different colour far faster than usual.

This left me a little window of opportunity to print up a couple of table runners.

I bought this beautiful pale blue linen in ready made table runner width from Ikea last year (that's how long I've been waiting to make these). Unfortunately it is now discontinued which makes me exceedingly cross I didn't buy the whole darn bolt.

The combination with the white ink is really pleasing and I am so cross about not having more as matching napkins would have gone down a treat.

If you do happen to be in your local Ikea and if by some miracle they have some still in stock, please do let me know and I may even make you a set to say a big thank you ;-)

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...

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.

It's Blogger's Quilt Festival this weekend! 

Even though I wouldn't call myself a quilter (through lack of quilts completed rather than desire) I've decided to take part.

I absolutely love making quilts but it's a time and priority issue that has so far prevented me from making more (although I do currently have 3 on the go...).

I spend a lot of time on Flickr and Pinterest mesmerised by the stunning quilts out there and am itching to abandon all my other commitments (work, children etc etc etc...) to just throw myself into quilt making.

 So here is my entry into Bloggers' Quilt Festival 2012...

If you are currently a reader of my blog you will be very familiar with it. If you have arrived via the Festival then thank you for coming and looking and I hope you like what you see!

I know there are way better, more intricate, more stunning, more professionally made quilts out there, but I am really entering in the vein of "it's the taking part that counts" and an opportunity to meet new lovely quilting peeps and see what everyone is up to. So please do leave a comment and let me know where I can see what you are up to too!

For those of you that don't know me, this quilt contains elements of all that I love about sewing and quilts. For me it's all about highlighting favourite fabrics and colours. I love hand quilting so you can see a few sashiko stitched pieces in there. As for the backing - AMH Loulouthi flannel snuggleness extraordinaire! I have to back my next quilts in this, if only to stop my 3 kids fighting over this one, with constant cries of "It's my turn to have the snuggle quilt!"

As for the strip of Nani Iro dots...that was a happy accident...I didn't quite have enough Loulouthi!

Thank you for stopping by and I really can't wait to see what you are all up to!

And if you haven't yet and you want to join in...head here...

See you at The Festival!