paid to play...

 you have heard me say it before and you will doubtlessly hear me say it again...

I LOVE MY JOB!!

what's not to love? people pay me proper money to play with fabrics - money i can spend in shops, money i can barter for goods we need, money i can pay bills with...PROPER money!

the latest playing i have been paid to do is this disappearing 9 patch baby quilt.

i am a little bit in love with the disappearing 9 patch and having made my pillow for the pillow talk swap in it recently i wanted to give a quilt a try. i thought it was a perfect block for busier fabrics. 

 i know i am a little bit late to the D9P party - only by about 3 or 4 years - but it is such a great block it definitely needs a revival.

i love the randomness of D9P. i love how you can pick any 9 blocks, sew them together, cut them up, repeat repeat again and shuffle all the mini blocks around and have something that works.

back to the job bit...

the customer wanted a mix of jewel, liberty type fabrics and was happy for a big mix up so this layout was perfect.

there is repetition with the majority of the fabrics, which in the midst of all the craziness gives a cohesive feel, but i included a few snippets of my favourite fabrics that i had enough for just one square in the whole quilt. i put in my absolute favourite piece that had been sitting on my desk. it is a little sample square that Ayumi had sent me with a recent order. sadly she didn't have any more, so that's it now, gone.

i so enjoyed making this quilt and piecing a D9P. i am most definitely going to put it on the list of throws to make for us. it won't pay me in money but it certainly will in joy, which is almost as good...almost.

i am going to leave you with a question which i would love you to link to...

did you do D9P back in the day? if so would you share a link to your makes? i would love to see. if you didn't is there another quilting pattern you have recently discovered where you feel you are a bit late to the party?

if i knew how to do one of those clever linky things at the bottom of the post here i would, but i can't, so please leave your links in the comments and can't wait to see!

adventure and fun times...

 i'm a little bit distracted by a new app that is suddenly all over instagram. 

have you seen it?

it's called #abeautifulmess by the beautiful bloggers of the same name.

it is so darn addictive! 

the app has all sorts of cute doodles, fonts and fun phrases to name just some of it's features that you can use to customise your photos. 

hours and hours of unadulterated fun!

as well as customising your own photos, like the 2 above, you can choose from several cool backgrounds and create your own pics like the one i did below.

this one below is quite poignant as it turns out. i've been waiting for a VIE - very important email - for several days and whilst at the orthodontist with number 2 son this morning i was playing about with the app and doodled this pic.

i got home a little bit later to find the VIE in my inbox, the contents of which means i am about to go on a big metaphorical adventure with fun times ahead.

cryptic i know, but that's all i can say for now. all i can say is not all doodling turns out to be unadulterated and there is always a reason to what we do. 

that's my excuse anyway...

want your own excuse to doodle away? go see more about the app here from the makers themselves and if you haven't already downloaded it, you must...it will be the best 69p you'll spend today!