Just One More...

... Quilted Notebook cover.  This time for our school's Reception Class teacher who has announced that she is retiring at the end of this school year.

Now Mrs Z is quite eclectic and can be seen in school most days wearing paisley or cow print with bright neon leg warmers and plastic croc shoes!  But the kids love her sense of style and colour and my boys always used to come home and say things like; 'mummy why don't you wear glow in the dark socks?'!!!

Even though my boys aren't in her class this year, I have worked in her class nearly everyday this school year so I decided to make her a little leaving pressie too.

In conjunction with the Kate Spain Blog Hop hosted by Blossom Heart Quilts (I'm multi-tasking and killing two birds with one stone here!) I made my latest quilted notebook cover with a couple of my Central Park scraps.

If you haven't seen my tutorial for these notebook covers, you can find it here.

I used a lovely bright blue for the inside and a coordinating ribbon for the bookmark.

And here's the back.  So simple and yet so pretty and functional.

I hope it's funky enough for Mrs Z!

I'm linking up with the Kate Spain Blog Hop Projects Page. 

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

It's Kate Spain Month!

Did you know there is a whole month of celebration of the lovely and talented Kate Spain's fabrics going on over at Blossom Heart Quilts?  I'm jumping right on this bandwagon! 

 

 

 

One of my first fabric purchases was an FQ stack of Central Park in the pink colourway.  Having not been quilting for long, this was a major purchase for me - actual designer fabric!  I loved the large scale prints and wanted to make a quilt that was going to showcase them.

 

I found a tutorial for a 4 Patch quilt over at Clover and Violet and this seemed to fit with my idea and my skill level at the time!

 

I straight line quilted either side of all the seams and I'm still to this day really pleased with how it turned out, I've had quilts much more recently with far shoddier quilting than this early attempt!

 

I chose this gorgeous floral print for the back, and boy was it hard to find a piece big enough, but in the end it was good old Etsy to the rescue.

 

It's so pretty, I almost love this more than the front.

The quilt measures 37.5 x 49 inches, which is just right for me to snuggle under in the armchair of an evening, and believe me, it has seen alot of use not only from me, the dog seems to like it too!

I love this fabric line so much that I trawled the internet for prints in the blue, green and orange colourways too, and have subsequently made my Central Park Sampler Quillow and still have enough left for another quilt i'm sure!

I'm linking my quilt to the Kate Spain party here, as well as seeing everyone else's fabulous makes with Kate's fabrics there are also some great prizes to be won!

SBS Catch Up

The Skill Builder Sampler...

Each month Leila will focus on a different quilting skill and provide tutorials for three 12 inch quilt blocks using the month's skill.
June:
Skills: Cutting, ¼ inch seam allowance and value.
Blocks: Log Cabin and Around the World

The log cabin was fun to do, and I found it easy - great!

Block 2: The value 9 patch - uh oh...
I completely blame the fact that I was cutting fabric, whilst cooking dinner and watching 3 boys (we had an extra round for tea)! I've ended up with the same fabric for all the middle pieces of the lighter coloured blocks. The darker blocks however I am happy with.

I shall be cutting some more fabric and trying again - this time paying more attention, now however I'm having a glass of wine to comiserate my fall at the first month's hurdle! - at least hubby had a chuckle over it!

a little something for me

I started today by making another weighted pincushion organiser for my nan. Last time she was here she saw mine, had a look thru my fabrics and requested a blue one! Who am I to say no to the head of the family!

I've stalled on the quilting front as I wait for fabric deliveries, so I decided to make some little weighted bags to help the fabric stop sliding off the table during cutting. Out came the Central Park scraps and voila

I made 3 in total, a log cabin-ish one, general scrappy one and a ticker tape style one. The back are scrappy too.

I haven't tried the ticker taping method before but have loved seeing all the bottled rainbow blocks lately. It's made with pretty small scraps, the block is 5"x5" but I'm pretty happy with it, after all it's only a weighted bag not a quilt!

Sorry for the poor picture quality and the crooking of necks, the photos were taken on my phone... my bad! They are on flikr the right way up though!

In Monday's Mailbox...

A lovely little package from Simply Solids;
Some Laurie Wisbrun Urban Circus Elephants and Tufted Tweets - both on sale(!), one of the Kate Spain Central Park prints I was missing and some more KONA Black as I'm thinking of making a wagon wheel like Lynne's (Lily's Quilts), as seen here

Wednesday's Fabulous Car Boot Finds

The sun is shining and the car boot sale season is back upon us! Yay! I love rumaging through other peoples stuff!

Today's boot sale yielded;

Vintage Spiderman Duvet Cover Set - should I give it to No 1 son as it is or repurpose it for a quilt? The front has huge spiderman but the back has lots of smaller images...
Lovely Mason bottle,
Green purse which I only brought to repurpose the clasp and chain,
Retro stripey thermal cup,
Jewelery Organiser in the shape of the UK, soon to be a ribbon organiser!,
And this lovely vintage butteryfly fabric by Linda Beard, and just look at the selvedges! complete with washing instructions, the lady I brought it from thinks it's from the 80's!

And today my lovely postman brought me;

A lovely fat quarter of one of the prints I was missing from the Kate Spain Central Park range, yummy! :o)

Busy Busy Busy! & Kate Spain...

Wow, what a weekend!
I had such a great weekend with both quilting and family highlights.

Firstly I had the charity sale for the RNLI on Saturday morning, here's my table

I sold about 6 items and had lots of positive feedback on my sewing and quilting!

Then we went up to London to see the comedian Peter Kay... well he was hilarious and my ribs and face ached for laughing so much.

Sunday was Mothers Day here in the UK and I was very lucky to get breakfast in bed, a lovely handmade card, some wine, chocolates and an 'I Love Mum' keyring. We then went out to Birdworld for the day, and saw some absolutely beautiful birds

And then home again for a cuppa and to check my emails and what do I see? Lynne from Lily's Quilts asking 'Is it just my imagination or did you just get a comment from the designer herself on your pic!!! Yay!!!'

BACKSTORY: I'm doing Lily's Dresden Block Quilt A Long and posted this picture of my block so far in the flikr group. As you may recoginise it's mostly made up of Kate Spain Central Park fabrics in the Plaza colorway.

And OMG(!)yes THE Kate Spain has commented on my photo;

Kate Spain (25 hours ago)
i love your quilt! such a fun mix, and i love that dot print in there. Were you able to find the other prints you were looking for in the UK? If not, please email me and i can provide a list of online shops :) Can't wait to see how your quilt turns out! i'm with everyone..a white center would finish this beautifully. xo

And further still, a couple of emails have gone back and forth with the following comments from Kate;
'Please do continue to post photos of your beautiful work!'
'can't wait to see what you make next :)'

HOW CHUFFED AM I ?!?!?!?!
*happy dance*

Show n Tell Saturday

I've pretty much missed a whole week of posting (and quilting!) whilst nursing No 1 son through his latest bug, but as my parcels started arriving from my naughty spending earlier in the week I decided to have a Saturday Sew-In and hopefully Sunday too!

I cut all my fabric for Lily's QAL and managed to sew it all together in a circle really quickly! Yay me! This is it laid out on a piece of white fabric.

Then I started auditioning the fabrics for the centre circle...

1. A, 2. B, 3. C, 4. D, 5. E, 6. My Kate Spain fabric choices.

I don't know about you but I prefer the white. If I turn this dresden into a baby quilt later I can applique a name or letter in the centre on the white...

Please feel free to comment (vote for) A, B, C, D, E OR WHITE if you'd like to! I'd love to know what you think.

Naughty Step for me!

Uh oh! Being at home nursing a poorly 5 year old with only the internet for company is not good for my bank balance!!!!

I was umming and ahhing about joining Lily's Quilt Along, although I brought one of the dresden plates last week I am nervous that it's a bit beyond my novice capabilities... So I have decided to join but only commit to making one block and see how I go.

I'm struggling to find places to buy the kinds of fabric I like, but ebay came up trumps with this Kate Spain Central Park fat quarter bundle! So this will be used for the QAL.

The same seller also had this fabulous monaluna sew happy bundle... and I have been looking for some fabric to make the weighted pincushion organiser!

I also popped this little FQ in while I was there, I've had a request for a pot holder in this material.

I was also very naughty on ETSY too... I stumbled across a lady having a destash and before I knew it I had the following in my cart;
Red Polka Dot Quilters Cotton: Malibu Monkies from Moda,
Alexander Henry - Maxfield - Modern Floral Fat Quarter,
Tools of the Trade Fat Quarter - Black and White x2 different designs,
Black and White Wavy Stripes Fat Quarter,
New Traditions Daisies Fabric - Modern Fat Quarter x2, yellow and aqua,
and Alexander Henry "Under the Sea" Fat Quarter! Ooopss!

Add that to orders placed for more wadding, stuffing and fusible interfacing and my husband will definately be putting me on the naughty step!