Quilt-a-longs

Just a quick note to say that my copy of the Farmers Wife book has arrived so I'm going to be joining in the massive quilt-a-long that everyone seems to be involved in. It started at the beginning of the month and it's 2 blocks a week so I'm a bit behind but not too much, hopefully I will catch up quickly. A lot of people have chosen to do a scrappy version but I don't think I'm going to. In fact I'm off fabric shopping tomorrow to get something lovely for it. Check out Flickr to see what everyone else is doing.

As well as joining in the FWQAL, I'm looking forward to doing the skill builder sampler that Leila is hosting. I think I'm going to do this in some Kona solids to try to give it a really modern look as I do tend to think of samplers as looking quite traditional which isn't really my style.

And finally another quilt-a-long, this one is hosted by me. The girls in my local craft group have asked me to teach them the basics of patchwork and quilting. I'm so excited, it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to design a nice, basic lap quilt and teach them all some basic skills. I thought I would try to include all of the following:

• Accurate cutting/using a rotary cutter
• Sewing a 1/4 inch seam
• Chain piecing 
• Half Square Triangles
• Boarders
• Basting and straight line quilting
• Binding

So as I am going to be teaching it to my group, I thought maybe I would also do it as a tutorial. It's going to be for beginners, people that are new to quilting and just want the basics. I'd love to get your feedback as I write it as it will be my first tutorial so if there is anything that you think I could do better, give more detail etc. then please let me know once I've started.

I have managed to get some sewing done recently but hardly any, things have been manic here and the sewing has definitely suffered!

I did however finish my Russian doll needle book. I love her but not the needle book
:-(

She turned out just as I had hoped

However, I decided to do a pretty, fancy stitch around the edge of the needle book, big mistake!

I knew that the felt stretched when sewn as I had that problem with it when I used it before, also look at the wonkyness above her head, not happy, I don't cope well with unintentional wonkyness. I'm kicking myself that I didn't just use a straight stitch with my walking foot.

Oh well, I will get over it, her insides are pretty though

The bamboo felt does feel lovely.

I'm linking up with Sew Modern Monday, have a peek at what the others are up to