Sew mama sew giveaway winner

I realised today that although I have contacted the winner of Giveaway day, I haven't actually announced it. I had 243 entries before the deadline, thank you everyone that entered, I loved reading all the lovely, kind comments.



So I took a picture to show who random generator chose and it's Crystal. I have contacted her and hopefully she will receive her package soon.

On the sewing front, my crocodile quilt just has to have the binding hand sewn on and it's finished, yay! Pictures will follow shortly

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WIP Wednesday (no.3)

Not much done this week at all, firstly I was beavering away on the prize for Giveaway Day and then we have all been pretty ill here.

However, I have started quilting the crocodile quilt

I have bought the binding, but when I put it against the quilt top I felt it wasn't quite right

I like it but think it lacks something so i've decided to add some piping between the border and the binding
I tried a few combinations

I have chosen the darkest navy as I really think it sets it off nicely.

I have also started a felt Russian doll needle book but have no photos yet.

I also found this great bedcover and pillow set in my local charity shop

Isn't it adorable! I'm going to hopefully make the boys matching quilts using lots of Kona Solids to go with it.

Hopefully will have some finishes coming up soon.

Linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday, go check out what everyone else is up to

To sum up

Quilts finished - none
Projects finished - Sew Mama Sew Giveaway
Quilts waiting to be bound - none
Quilt tops finished - Crocodile quilt, 
Projects started - pompom roman blinds, stag cross stitch, russian doll needle case
Quilt started - Naked bed quilt
Projects to start - too many to even think about!
Quilts to start - rainbow quilt, bob the builder, babushka, noahs ark

12 quilts of 2011 completed - 1) Krissy's quilt

                                            2) Buddy's ABC quilt

                                            3) Cravat play mat/quilt

A Big Hello and Thank-you

Hi,

Just want to welcome the lovely new followers and subscribers I have received over the last few days. I have really enjoyed Giveaway Day, it has been amazing reading everyones lovely comments, getting new readers and finding some more wonderful blogs to read. So a big hello, hope you will visit regularly

This is going to be short and sweet as me and the boys have been terribly ill today, so no sewing done today

Lovely to meet you though and thanks for joining me xxx

The Giveaway is now CLOSED

Giveaway Day

Giveaway day is here, for those of you that don't know, Sew Mama Sew have organised a massive giveaway day and I'm taking part.

Last week I got myself a new (second-hand) sewing machine and so I've been testing it out and this giveaway is the product of me playing with my sewing machine (a Janome memory craft 4000).

The Caged Bird Cushion

This cushion was a great project for trying out the different functions on my machine. It has some free motion embroidery/quilting (used embroidery foot), some straight line quilting (used walking foot), piping (done with my invisible zipper foot), Lawson & Lotti embroidered on the back (using a function on the machine), a zip across the centre of the back (zipper foot) and I finished the seams with a zig zag stitch.

The giveaway is for the cushion cover, a cushion pad will not be included.

Along with the Caged Bird Cushion, the winner will also receive the following needle book

This needle case has an appliqued and embroidered bird on the cover, is lined with a rainbow stripe cotton and has lime green felt pages.

I used bamboo felt to make this, it was my first time using it and it is lovely and soft, really nice to work with.

The final part of my giveaway is this stack of polycotton fabrics. Although I only use cotton in my quilts, I think polycottons are great for bag linings amongst other things.

I have done very little sewing this weekend as I have been in London on my youngest sisters hen do (we had a blast, few too many cocktails were consumed and some very funny dares were carried out). I have however managed to start quilting my crocodile quilt, i've decided to do a mixture of stitch in the ditch and some straight line quilting.

Hopefully I will finish this over the next couple of days.

Thank you for popping over to read my post, hope you like the giveaway. Feel free to visit again, become a follower or subscribe. I'm planning lots of future giveaways and hopefully some tutorials coming up soon.

To enter just leave a comment below, the giveaway will be open until Wednesday 25th May at 9pm UK time, after this I will draw a winner at random and contact you by email.

Make sure to head back to Sew Mama Sew to check out all the other amazing giveaways, I know i'm going to!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

A Productive Week

Wednesday is here again, it seems to come round so quickly!I have had such a manic day that this is probably going to be a short post.

I thought I had had a pretty productive week until now, as I try to think of what i've achieved it doesn't seem to be half as much as I had thought.

So this is what I've been up to:

A Secret Project

This is a tiny sneak peak of something exciting that I will unveil on Monday so make sure you come back to check this out.

Pom Pom Roman Blinds

These beauties are nearly finished now, just finishing touches to go and I need to try and source some specific cord for them, hopefully they will look fab

My Naked Bed Challenge quilt

This is a tiny peak but it is coming along very slowly, don't know if I will finish, may have to change the current design to get things moving a bit faster

Rainbow Quilt

 My Kona Solids arrived today for my rainbow quilt, i'm so in love with these

I'm teaming them up with these two fabrics that I bought recently to go with them

Cravat scrap play mat finished

I free motion quilted this, it's only the second time i've ever tried this, the first being about 6 years ago. It's wonky and terrible but i'm actually pretty pleased with it. It's small and thick and sturdy as I used two layers of an old woollen blanket for the batting. So it's definitely more play mat than quilt. I backed it and bound it in flannelette which feels lovely but picks up all the dirt on our floor!
I will add more pictures later as the light was terrible when I took these.

Ooh so not as short as I thought it would be!

I'm now heading over to Freshly Pieced to see what everyone else has been up to for WIP Wednesday, check it out

Finally just want to say a big thank-you to Amy for hosting the Bloggers Quilt Festival, I loved taking part and receiving comments about my ABC quilt and loved checking out all the other gorgeous quilts, so inspiring

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Yeah finally Amy's Bloggers Quilt festival is here. Welcome to everyone who is stopping by for the first time, it's great to take part in something so big and see the amazing creations that other bloggers have produced. Hope to see you again

I have been saving posting about this quilt until today because it's my own design, got a bit of a story behind it and i'm really pleased with how it has turned out.

Buddy's ABC Quilt

My baby Buddy is 7 months old, when he was 1 month he had to undergo an operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital to have the lens removed from inside his left eye as it was stuck to his cornea. Because of this he can only see contrast from his left eye, it has no focus. Luckily the vision in his right eye is not affected.

Obviously we were devastated that our tiny boy had to have surgery and we were worried sick but he pulled through brilliantly.

To cut a long story short I decided that a black and white quilt/play-mat would be great for him as he can see contrast in his left eye. I wanted it to be suitable for a child but something that would still suit him as he grows up so the alphabet was perfect.
Babies learn so much through feel and texture that I wanted to incorporate this into the quilt but I wanted to do it all in cotton and keep it subtle. So I decided to use a range of techniques for the alphabet

Applique - blanket stitched by hand

Reverse applique

Applique using zig-zag on my sewing machine

Free motion machine embroidery

I finished it off by making some black piping, using a red, white and black stripe for the binding and red cotton for the quilting

The black and white numbers fabric was a perfect find for the border

I love the backing fabric, something I picked up a couple of years ago when we visited the in-laws in Australia.

All in all i'm very happy with this quilt, Buddy snuggles up under it on the sofa or as he has just learnt to sit on his own so he can now sit and play on it. He is doing wonderfully and is the happiest, smiliest baby you will meet, we are utterly blessed to have two such wonderful little boys.

I'm going to sit back with a large cup of something now and enjoy all of the amazing quilts that are being entered into the Bloggers Quilt Festival

Thanks again for stopping by, please come again

WIP Wednesday

Got back from a lovely holiday this afternoon, spending time away with my boys was great and lucky for us the weather was fabulous and we have come back slightly more bronzed than we were when we left.

Boo loved paddling and making sand castles, he also loved feeding the ducklings that visited our caravan every morning

Despite being on holiday I have managed to get Buddy's ABC quilt finished, its quilted and bound, yay. I'm just going to give you a sneak peak though as I'm saving the unveiling for the Bloggers Quilt Festival that starts on Friday.

I have also started the cutting for my Naked Bed Challenge and tonight at Craft group I have started sewing the blocks.

I love the colours, don't you? I think it will really pop against the white background i'm planning. I need to double check but I think I have to have the quilt top made for 1st June, now that i've started sewing i'm not sure i'm going to get this done in time!

 I also re-discovered another local fabric shop today, on our way home from Wells-Next-The-Sea we stopped in Bungay so I could pop into Sew and So's, what a great range of fabric they have. I bought a great stripe for backing my rainbow quilt when I get round to making it. Also got some 505 fabric spray glue, i've read so much about it on other peoples blogs so was very excited to find it locally, can't wait to try it out, think I will start small by using it on my cravat quilt. For those of you that don't know, it's a glue used to sandwich your quilt together in order to quilt it, instead of using quilting pins. I will report back soon

So for WIP Wednesday -

Quilts finished - Buddy's ABC Quilt
Projects finished - none
Quilts waiting to be bound - none
Quilt tops finished - Crocodile quilt, cravat quilt
Projects started - pompom roman blinds, stag cross stitch
Quilt started - Naked bed quilt
Projects to start - too many to even think about!
Quilts to start - rainbow quilt, bob the builder, babushka, noahs ark

12 quilts of 2011 completed - 1) Krissy's quilt
                                            2) Buddy's ABC quilt

Slow Progress

I've managed to make some progress today with my personal challenge to make 12 quilts this year, although not as much as i'd hoped. The top of the crocodile quilt is finished (woo hoo) and today I have pieced the back. I thought I would do a strip backing although it hasn't really ended up as one. Here is a sneak peak

Look at how much trimming i've done

Don't the colours all look lovely together.

I also managed to find the cravat scrap play mat/quilt that needs quilting. I had hoped to get it quilted today so that I can bind it over the next few nights, but oh well, it will get done eventually!

We are off on holiday tomorrow, yipee. I'm so excited, it's our first proper family holiday. We have booked a caravan in Wells Next The Sea, North Norfolk, it's only for a few nights but it's going to be great fun. I was hoping to have some projects for hand-stitching to take with me as i'm going to be without a sewing machine, but none of my quilts have got to the binding stage yet. Oh well, looks like I will have to take this

I designed and started this cross stitch back in December, it's a "pick up every so often" project (it's actually taking a lot longer than I thought it would). Maybe I will finish it on holiday?

Work In Progress (WIP) Wednesday

I've decided to join up to Work In Progress (WIP) Wednesday run by Lee over at Freshly Pieced, hopefully this will spur me on to get more projects done (fingers crossed).

Also I decided earlier in the year that I would challenge myself to make and complete 12 quilts in 2011. Now I'm not going to make this too hard on myself by setting any rules so they can be any size, however seeing as I have boys rather than girls, I have no need for dolls quilts so they are not going to be too small.
So far I have only completed Krissy's quilt which you can see in yesterdays post, however I do have 3 currently on the go, in various stages:

Buddy's ABC quilt

The Crocodile Quilt

And a playmat/quilt made from scraps left over from a cravat making factory (this quilt has currently gone AWOL, i'm sure I will find it soon).

Today I have joined up for The Naked Quilt Challenge over on Sarah Fielke's blog The Last Piece, so with that in mind I headed out to my local quilting shop (Quilters Haven) to get some fabric. 

Here is the mood board that I had in mind in order to cloth my super king bed

A duvet cover I made for our bed with a gorgeous hot pink picture frame and a mirror that I received from Father Christmas.

And these are the fabrics that I bought today from Quilters Haven

I'm especially loving the top fabric, I only got 25cm of each as I think i'm going to use a lot of white in this quilt, but I think I may have to go back and buy a bit more of that pink animal type print.

Ok so I'm going to break this down into the following areas:
Quilts finished - none
Projects finished - none
Quilts waiting to be bound - Buddy's ABC
Quilt tops finished - none
Projects started - pompom roman blinds
Quilt started - cravat quilt, crocodile quilt
Projects to start - too many to even think about!
Quilts to start - Naked bed quilt, rainbow quilt, bob the builder, babushka, noahs ark

12 quilts of 2011 completed - 1) Krissy's quilt

Hopefully will have 2 more completed quilts by next Wednesday