swoon...

 being the world's best starter and the world's worst finisher it will come as no surprise that i have started yet another quilt.

to be fair i am on a mission to make a quilt for our bed. i keep thinking i have found the perfect quilt design but then as i get going on it it doesn't seem quite as perfect as i thought so i give up.

i really thought this low volume scrappy trip along above was going to be just right...

...wrong! even though it is low volume there is just too much going on.

the same happened with the + and x quilt below.

way too busy!

it was back to the drawing board but not before i made myself sew up these scrappy and plus blocks into squares big enough to make cosy floor cushions.

now i can relatively guiltlessly get on with the job in hand of making the right quilt and i actually think i am there this time.

i had bought camille's lovely swoon pattern a while ago and had a lightbulb moment of thinking this would be just the right quilt, particularly if i kept it simple.

the first block i made at the top went pretty straight forwardly. i used my 2 favourite fabrics of the moment - architextures' crosshatch in grey and pb&j's raspberry jam in picnic. the background is the crosshatch in white...plain but with a little added interest.

i was really pleased with the result of this first block and started pulling fabrics for the rest of the quilt.  whilst our room has a strong Orla Kiely wallpaper with a shot of chartreusy yellow i initially wanted to keep the quilt neutral.

not according to my sub conscience as before i knew it i'd dragged out some yellows. looks like it was going to have yellow in it after all.

just to make sure yellow was going to work i made up another block. 

nice...

i was liking...

but now i have a dilemma...a big dilemma...

i laid the blocks out on the bed just to see if it was working for me and boom how good do the blocks look as pillow covers??

aaaghhh!

do i stop at these 2 blocks and do something else for the quilt?

but what else would work in this room?

what would you do??

 Today has been so lovely and so unusual in so many ways.

Today we had no plans whatsoever.

Today we got to just hang out and see where the day took us.

Ruby decided early on that the day was going to take us to a baking session.

She was quite right when she said we hadn't done this for ages.

We soon rectified that and a short stroll later up to the shops to buy supplies and we were perfectly equipped for such a sesh.

Yesterday, with an equally rare Friday off I pulled out my recently bought Noodlehead Go Anywhere Bag pattern and set to work on making me a bag.

I delved into my saved-for-something-special Lotta Jansdotter Echo stash and made myself a bag.

This bag is just perfect. Perfect handle length, perfect sized inside pocket (customised to hold my favourite pen, iphone and old-lady-can't-leave-the-house-without-specs) and perfectly sized without everything lost inside. 

Our unplanned day today was also taken up with making a Noodlehead bag for Ruby, who decided she also was needing such a bag.

I reduced the size a little to make it 10 year old friendly, but still with the requisite customised for-when-Mummy-finally-buys-me-a-phone pocket.

Socialising and plans can be so over-rated. 

I haven't enjoyed a Saturday so much in ages.

I hope you have had an equally lovely Saturday.

Today was the last day of my Screen Printing Course. Ordinarily it would be sad at the thought of a course being over, but not this one. Having completed the course I am now able to screen print whenever I want. You can not believe how much joy this is giving me (although if you've been reading my posts on screen printing over the last few weeks, you've probably got a pretty good idea).

I was a little bit nervous about this week's lesson. Remember my disasters of last week? And then everyone was telling me how much harder it is to print on fabric. Printing on fabric is obviously my main raison d'être for screen printing and if I'm having problems before I even get to the fabric stage, what chances do I have of succeeding?

Needless to say, all worries and concerns immediately evaporated as soon as I got going. Maybe it was the anticipation of disaster. Maybe it was the fact that I knew i needed full concentration today. Maybe it was the fact that some of the processes (making screen, printing technique) were becoming a bit more natural, leaving me able to concentrate on today's new aspect.

I'm not going to worry too much about what made it feel right, but enjoy the fact that it did.

I brought with a variety of fabrics to get a feel for how printing worked on the different textures. I wasn't sure I'd make a good print on linen, being causer and less smooth than cotton, but the linen I'm using at the moment is fairly close weaved, so this didn't seem to be as problematic as I'd envisaged.

The shirting worked a treat. It's very smooth and takes the ink beautifully. I'll be using these fabrics quite a bit.

The Klona cottons worked a treat too. I'm going to need to play around with colours however as even thought the pale blue took beautifully on the brown, the pink came out a little bit murky. Whereas on the white the pink was lovely and vivid.

I chose designs today that I could experiment various styles to see how they come out on the fabric. I wanted to play around with the font stamps I have, so included both of those. I also wanted to see how intricate detailing would show.

I think because I had such little expectations today, the results have thrilled me even more. I'm learning what works and what needs changing. I've booked to go in again on Monday and looking forward to playing around and experimenting some more and then, my friends, I'll start to get my mind ordered as to producing pieces that will actually be used.

This is just the beginning...