Sandwich Saturday

My New Shop Sign

Do you think it is big enough?

How about the colours?... bright enough?

I know it's tricky to find my shop on your first visit...

I know this because you tell me so.

I don't think you can miss my shop now... 

Would you like to know what I'm thinking?

I'm thinking... "Boom... here I am!!!"

I'd love to know what you think... 

Upcoming Workshops And Saturday Plans

Saturday 30th January  That's today!!! 

Sandwich Saturday. £5.00 plus wadding

Sessions between 10am - 2pm, booking is required... AM  slots are full, for an afternoon booking today, you would have to call me 07807530441

You can also use the tables to lay out the blocks you've made to decide on settings, or to see how many more blocks you need or... even better... to help you choose fabulous fabrics!

Saturday 6th February... Two Little Dickie Birds with Our Sheila, 10am - 4pm
£35.00 which includes the stuffing, covered wire legs and feet, eyes... and home baked cake.

An adorable 3D project that involves cutting pattern pieces, hand and machine stitching and embellishment 

Saturday 13th February with Angie 10am - 3pm £30.00

This small project is good an introduction to:-

Accurate cutting using a mat, ruler and rotary cutter.

Sewing an accurate quarter inch seam allowance with, hopefully, straight lines.

Good general piecing skills with top tips to help with seam matching.

Good pressing technique… a very important skill

How to make and a small quilt sandwich.

How to quilt and, if there’s still time left we can turn your project into a lovely 18” cushion with my fabulously easy zip inserting method. 

The workshop starts at 10am and we should be finished by 3pm... 

What a lovely way to spend a day... then if you find you are hooked... and that happens a lot... you can start thinking about what to make next

Saturday 20th February Sandwich Saturday. £5.00 plus wadding

Sessions between 10am - 2pm, booking required.

Remember... You can also use the tables to lay out the blocks you've made to decide on settings, or to see how many more blocks you need or... even better... to help you choose fabrics!

Saturday 27th February... Housey Housey... A Delightful Door Stop

 £35.00 with Sue. 10am - 4pm

This 3D project involves machine piecing, rotary cutting, applique and embellishment

Stitching News

Longport Lynda had been gifted a Tapestry Kit... 
It was to be made into draught excluder (a door snake in my house!) She loved the colours and didn't want to use this beautiful Tapestry for it's proposed purpose... 
so we figured out how to make this  fabulous bag, Lynda loves it!

Gail is making two Twister Heart cushions for gifting to two different ladies... 
She's got on very well in the making, they look great don't they... 
can you guess for when she needs them to be finished... 
hearts... a clue!

Jeannette Dilly treated herself to a stitching day. Amongst other things, she made up this cushion front and prepared all the bits for three more. Her lucky mother will have a full set of four cushions, with zips! gifted to her, what a wonderful daughter!
I chose not to crop this photo... doesn't my shop look well stocked!!

Dilly also made this little Ballerina Bag inspired by the one my Mum Gwynneth made on Saturday which is hanging front and centre in my shop. Dilly used slightly different fabrics and it looks just as loveabubble, don't you think?
Oh no... I forgot to crop the photo again... What a lot of patterns I have on my wall! They have 10% off, it's true, but only until the end of the day tomorrow as February starts on Monday.

These next two pictures are little quilt tops that Peggy is working on stitching.
I finally made up the new I Spy packs, there's a lot of cutting involved.... I'd barely finished bagging and labelling them before they started to leave the shop...


Peggy purchased one pack of 30 different fabric squares, all 6" cut... but instead of making one play mat she's making the two... they will be lovely little treasures for any toddler that receives them. Peggy almost always gives her work to the Donna Louise Foundation... what a lovely lady! what lovely quilts they will be.

Our Sheila is so enthused with her new Batik Quilt-As-You -Go blocks... she can barely leave them alone. Lots of stitching has been done at home and the pace in class continued... binding has been selected too... more as it happens!

Margaret needed a quilt sandwich making with her dinosaur quilt... my beautiful Batik fabrics make perfect co-ordinating 4-Patches for the dinosaur print main fabric, even though it wasn't purchased from my very own shop... time to get quilting!
The green chair looks great too!

Steph came to make a sandwich... now she's a lady that loves Batik fabric... This quilt would surely get anyones heart leap-itty-leaping as they wrapped up in it on the sofa... happy bright colours will do that eh!

It's mean pickings for you this week... quantity of course not quality!.. It's a whole week's pictures in one post... I'm sort of sorry about that... but I'm not really sorry to have been way too busy to think about taking blog-a-bubble pictures...
My lovely little quilt shop has welcomed many new visitors so far this year... It's great to have new people coming to visit... yeeeha.... we never can have too many crafty stitchers, can we?
So, I make no promises, but I will at least try to take more pictures next week.... I will leave my little Purple Camera everywhere in the Classroom and maybe someone will snap a photo or two for us... if I forget, and we all know that I do!

Changing The Plan Lady Judith?

Lady Judith attended one of the first Stack-n-Whack Kaleidoscope workshops... about three and a half years ago? She made a few blocks at the time but, as she was a beginner, she found they were a little tricky to stitch accurately, so set them to one side... and then, sure enough, Judith forgot about them... as we do. 

Now, I think I've mentioned before, Judith is now the proud owner of a brand new Juki sewing machine. She's finding accuracy much easier to achieve with her new toy. She dug out her Stack-n-Whack blocks, brought them to me for a little reminder and proceded to finish them all. 16 lovely and brightly coloured blocks.You can see one in the top right of this picture. 

Of course, Judith being Lady Judith... doesn't make small quilts and, even though she has 16 lovely 12" blocks... she wanted more. Left with only 4 pattern repeats worth of the fabric (Ricky Timms from Moda) though, we couldn't really make more of the same blocks so I had to come up with a cunning plan... Oh My goodness.... 4-Patch Posies!! very bright and happy posies they are too. They only need four pattern repeats and they are so much fun to put together! Who knows what layout we will use once all the blocks are complete... watch this space as I'm sure the quilt will be fabulous and... enormous!! Judith loves enormous...

Stitching News

Just Jan's paper doodle, the one I showed you last week, is almost a quilt top... and you know what... it looks just like the paper doodle. Jan brings her project carefully pinned to a sheet, what a very clever idea... she spreads it out and carries on stitching where she last stopped.

Fruity Rose decided to do free-motion, curly-whirly, sheepish, woo-lish doodles to make her sheep look more sheep-y. After a very short practice on a drawn sheep shape she did it, she did them and all three sheep looked great! I bet Rose will free motion a bit more often now...

AnnBacan has a little girl to make a gifting quilt for.... There must be pink and there must be grey... and it must use the two Fat Quarters Ann won in the Christmas Party Daft Game... Licketty-split... we designed a pink and grey quilt! I tell you, the customer service we provide is top notch!!

Oooooh Brenda Barbara's still Goosing... they look great don't they.... and now she makes them look easy, which they are! I asked Brenda how many more Geese and how many blocks she planned... lots! that's all she knows, she needs lots!

Our Sheila had laid out her fabrics at home then numbered them to keep the right order, it works for some but not for others... I am hopeless at following numbers!! Hopefully, the quilt will have shading from light to dark, diagonally... or dark to light if you stand at the other end!! he he

Farmer Lynda also continues with her Goosing... Quilting the blocks as she goes so that they can be joined apartment-ly... Lynda is going off on an exciting, sideways journey with her colour scheme... not shown here though... I'll try to snap a piccy next time.

Great progress has been made by All Day Di... lot's of people are watching how this lovey and colourful project is coming along... fabric books make great gifts don't they... 

Sister Susie had finished her quilting at home so there was just the binding to be sorted out. This is a double sided quilt so the colour was extra important... I had the perfect shade, how about that!!!
It was all machined on with lovely mitred corners, ready for hand stitching.

Fiona Too played with applique. She's making a nappy bag and this cute little rocking horse is on the panel at the top... it's ready for stitching... which I think will be done with blanket stitch...

Wow Pam!!!

I hope you can promise me that you won't tell PM Pam about this....
I snook-icated this photo of her Gypsy Wife quilt top...
Boy, oh boy, oh boy do I EVER LOVE IT!!!!
Now remember... it's just between you and I... she'll never know!!! ha ha ha

Stitching News

Our Sheila had left over fabrics after making up her cushion and table runner set...
Most of the fabrics were trimmings from cutting squares for those projects...
Look what can happen to bits you might throw away!!!
A terrific tote bag, fabulous and finished... toot toot toot!
All Art Gallery Fabrics so, of course... it's super-silky n soft too.

Carol purchase a Lazy Girl pattern last week... then she carefully chose her fabrics and set about making up this Whimsey Bag (chosen from my fabulous new pattern wall!) Now, the bag is fabulous and finished, toot toot toot, and stuffed with things for class... see the little pocket purse Carol made with her leftover fabrics... The actual Lazy Girl bag pattern was very easy to follow, as always

Carol's main fabrics are from Moda... Carol felt the centre panel needed a little embellishment to tie the fabrics together so... can you see the lovely little embroidered flowers she added... genious!!
Toot toot toot Carol, your brilliant bag is fabulous and finished!!

Di Butterfly spent her morning quilting this lovely Beatrix Potter picture quilt... she has quite a few things at the quilting stage at the moment... I know this because of her sandwich making frenzy last week! There'll be a binding bonanza next no doubt! ha ha ha

Brenda Barbara is using the No-Waste Flying Geese, free tutorial paper to make her block units... It's a very favourite method of mine... Have you tried it? Follow this link and you'll see what I mean... fool proof! Brenda's main fabric, which is the Goose that will be flying, is a most scrumptious Art Gallery one.., I love it!

All Day Di had a great day... no stress at all... she is 'At Peace with doing applique'!!! wooohooo. According to Di, this pattern... I Know My ABC's from the people at Kids Quilts ... is much easier to do than Farmer Joe's Quiet book.

Peggy brought along this UFO... it had only needed the binding but, for some reason it was put to one side... who knows why we get so close to finishing projects and then leave them... It's done now though... Peggy chose a great stripe print binding and Lick-etty-Split, it was sewn on! 

Morning Josie really loves applique projects... She's done Poppies before... I guess that makes her an expert!! I think she said that this would be made into a cushion... but I aren't absolutely sure, time will tell... doesn't that beautiful Batik look great with my Linen blend from Moda!!!

New Fabrics

I've had quite a lot of fabric delivered this week.
This particular range is from Makower and they give us fabulous pattern suggestions... yup GIVE us... they are free for anyone to download or to print... click on this link to a great bag pattern... you can never have too many bags!!

Beginner Project Workshop

There's another beginner project day on Saturday 13th February

This small project is good an introduction to:-

Accurate cutting using a mat, ruler and rotary cutter. 

Sewing an accurate quarter inch seam allowance with, hopefully, straight lines. 

Good general piecing skills with top tips to help with seam matching. 

Good pressing, a very important skill 

How to make and a small quilt sandwich. 

How to quilt and, if there’s still time left, we can turn your project into a lovely 18” cushion with my fabulously easy zip inserting method. 

The workshop starts at 10am and we should be finished by 3pm... 

What a lovely way to spend a day... then if you find you are hooked... and that happens a lot... you can start thinking about what to make next...

Stitching News With Tooting

Let's start with a toot toot toot fanfare for Gail's fabulous and finished, black and white, Bow Tie quilt... with Flanged border! Simple quilting following the patchwork design was all it needed... Gail says she will not make another black and white quilt as this is her third... We will have to wait to see... For now she's working with red...

Angela finished her Stargazy Daisiez quilt, started on the last workshop... toot toot toot. Angela, it is fabulous and very 'want-able"!! I already had requests to do another workshop for the Stargazy Daisiez,  so I will programme one soon.
This lovely project has been hand quilted with perle cotton... just lovely!

Fruity Rose found my light box very useful for sorting out the sheep...
This lovely little quilt has three of them in total, each one is having a little stuffing... a small piece of wadding tucked behind each body piece will give the sheeplings a more phoooophy look. (my blog, my spelling!!)

And here's a better look at the, now famous, Jean Bean project, with fussy cut centre blocks carefully flanged to frame them. Jean is making it up as she goes... and, to be fair... she does help and serve  the lovely customers in my shop in between doing all of this creating so, no wonder it takes a while to get quilts finished...

Just Jan is another creative character who makes it up as she goes... there is the plan on paper, which happens often... but it doesn't mean that the paper plan will be stuck to... though this time it's all looking like it will... I'll keep you updated... This particular project started with 4 Charm Packs.

Lick-etty-split Krafty Karen made a dog quilt for her doggy nephew (sister's dog)...
t's a sofa protector too... with cute little dog bone fabric, it's bang on topic...
They're the bones that dogs like to eat...not the bones of dogs!
I know you knew that but it made me chuckle!!
Karen 'bagged out' this quilt for ease and speed... it just needs a bit of quilting now.

Our Sheila is very fired up about her new project.
She shopped with gusto (do you know him? ha ha ha)
Dark to light, diagonal-ish design, in beautiful Batik fabrics...
Quilt-As-You-Go and Apartment joining...
That's all I can tell you.