what's new...Stateside...

Boy has Brenda been stocking up!

Pink Castle Fabrics is now stocked to the rafters with all the latest and best lines out there.

The Liberty has started rolling in and she expects to be fully stocked on that by the end of next month.

 Mama Said Sew has landed and as you would expect the texty prints are selling out fast. It's a great great line and if you haven't discovered it yet, you won't be letting this pass you by, trust me.

 You can find all the Robert Kaufman Spots on Dots collection...all 65 of them!

Then there's Melody Miller's Ruby Star Vinyl. What fun! Love them, particularly this print below.

Did I mention that all this week Brenda is doing 20% off of all precuts and bundles in the shop.  That includes FQ packs of full lines (and a little FQ pack of Liberty) ? No? Well I have now, so what are you waiting for??

Have a great weekend!

It seems like a long time ago now that I was obsessing with Freezer Paper as a printing method, but since doing the Screen Printing Course it took a back seat. Not only did it take a back seat, but I wasn't sure if there was going to be a place for it now that I was screen printing.

Having invested in a fair size roll of freezer paper, I was a bit cross with myself for being so flitty with yet another craft.

Today I learnt that there is definitely still a place for freezer paper printing.

It goes without saying that screen printing is perfect for producing quantities in a way that just doesn't work with freezer paper.

And in contrast freezer paper is perfect for one offs. The time and expense of producing a screen for just one print obviously makes little sense.

So I was delighted to remember my stash of freezer paper that I could use to personalise this commissioned cushion. I used to embroider the details but with my recent penchant for printed fabric I really wanted to find a way of doing this.

I was very pleased to discover that freezer paper still has a place in my crafting...particularly since I have one mighty large roll.

And you never know, Jo and Fran, I may even need another one day soon...

Spring is in the air.

Isn't it?

Have you noticed the days getting longer?

I just love it when it starts to stay light in the evenings for longer. We've had our fill of cosying up in the dark winter nights and yes, there is definitely something magical about that, but compared to the feeling of awakening in the spring, winter just doesn't cut it.

And with the departure of winter, it's farewell to the woollens and out with the fresh spring fabrics. The springlike days make me look at fabrics differently and consequently this week's purchases from M is for Make look like this.

I actually think I have found a new contender for my All Time Top 10 Favourite Fabrics EVER with this latest delivery. This top fabric is Kaffe Fassett's design for Liberty Art fabric and is just divine. The colours are so crisp and clear, with the cold blue on stark white, being a winner through spring and way into summer. I'm thinking, as well as using for summertime accessories, I am hoping Ruby feels as passionate about it as I do and will allow me to make a skirt or summer dress, or hopefully both - particularly as I've just ordered this book from Kate too.

More springlike fabrics in the delivery were these gorgeous latest prints from Cloud 9. Again, striking fresh blues with crisp white. I love this latest collection. Michelle is such a talented designer and her prints just do it for me every time. I can not wait for her Cut Out & Keep Collection that she has done with Heather Moore of Skinny Laminx, to come out. Not long now as it's due out in April.

To tie all these together I am in need of some fresh plain cottons. Backstitch are stocking the new range of incredibly affordable Klona cottons. Not being sure of the colours I needed I opted for the fantastically valued Swatch Card, which is going to be invaluable for matching up to fabrics.

So, I'm all set for spring now...are you?

Today has been a very good and an equally very bad day. We are suffering at home from serious cyber related unwanted interference, causing house phones, mobiles and internet to be inefficient at best and downright defunct at worst. Downright defunct was pretty much the name of today.

To my detriment, I turned in relatively early last night (this side of midnight) and omitted to download the latest orders. So when crisis hit this morning I had no way of getting the orders off the internet and found myself in a pretty darn tricky and annoying situation.

I spent much of the afternoon on the phone to a very nice man from my internet provider. Very nice didn't bloody get it working though. Frustration and anger set in and I was about to admit defeat and camp out at my parents, when miracle of miracle the internet resurfaced...temporarily.

It's being extremely temperamental and causing me no end of angst. Hopefully very nice man no. 2 who is coming round at 9am tomorrow to investigate further, will clear up the trouble and we'l have no further issues.

The very good part of the day is all this gorgeous Liberty fabrics that you may have been casting your eyes over, whilst reading about my ever so traumatic situation. Manda took me to a gem of a fabric shop, Fabworks, that I've been wanting to go to for ages. As you can see from the website pics, this store is piled high, and even higher with all sorts of shirting, woollen fabrics, upholstery fabrics and to my delight, Liberty prints.

We mainly went to choose some fabrics for Saturday's Workshop, but I obviously didn't stop there and came away with al these beautiful Liberty's. They are all just beautiful and are going to be featuring heavily in my forthcoming work. The white flowers on teal is for the back of my grey knitted cushion (which is coming along very well, thank you very much) and the folksy print has already come in very useful for a keyring order I had today. The multitude of patterns on this fabric, is just incredible and goes with absolutely anything.

I adore the pink houses - so pretty without being sickly and I am completely in love with the green flower - so fresh and simply stunning. And I have a new project up my sleeve for Christmas presents that they are all going to be used in one form or another...

So, as I said, very bad, but oh so very good too.

Most of you are fully aware of my love for my new Macbook but one thing that I have found to be frustrating and a disappointment is the lack of facility to edit photos. I actually thought that Apple was good for this kind of thing.

I take a lot of photos, both for my blog and also website and I need to regularly adjust size, colours, crop etc etc.

So I was at a big loss in how to do this easily and swiftly. Needless to say, a quick tweet later and lots of suggestions were offered my way, the best of which I found to be Picnik, suggested by Lucie. Picnik does exactly what I was needing and is what I got from my basic package on my PC.

Having mastered the basics super quickly, as Lucie said I would, I've been playing around with it this evening, as you can see.

These are pictures of some Liberty fabrics that I am awaiting delivery of and whilst I am not particularly a fan of a contrived look, both in my work and in my presentation, I am impressed with how easy Picnik is to use and how back in love with my Macbook I am that I can use it so easily to do what I do most.

Thank you, Lucie, thank you Twitter, thank you Twitter friends, thank you Picnik and lastly thank you Macbook for not letting me down.