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.

What's Goin On???

The first thing you need to look at... is the clock!
Now then, this was Monday morning... Jean Bean rarely gets her sewing machine out of her trolley bag until lunchtime... on a normal Monday that is. My shop opens at 9:30am, classes start at 9:15am... can you see? It's only 7 minutes past 9 and Jean is sewing!!! There's my cup of coffee... much needed as I waited for the day to start... no one else had arrived yet... I couldn't believe it when I heard Jean's machine start sewing... I am still in shock in fact!!! ha ha ha... apparently, her Hubby had made some comment about there not being many blog posts about Jean's stitching... and she thought.... I'll show him!! She showed all of us... we will recover soon enough... don't go worrying!!! ha ha ha

Stitching News

Oooooh... what a week that was... seems everyone is starting new projects... fabulous news!! Lots of my time has been used up doing the mathemisms for all the new creations so, the few pictures I took during classes this week are here for you....

This is a picture from yesterday, Sandwich Saturday. It belongs to Marilla who wanted her quilt hand basted so that she can hand quilt it... it takes a little longer to baste than to pin (understatement!) but with three of us dabbling, it didn't take a whole week and Marilla says it usually takes her about that... 

Jenny Barlaston treated herself to a Bendy Bag and bits day...
These cute little bags make great gift and they're so much fun to make. Even though Jenny has made lots and lots of Bendy Bags, she still refers to the pattern a lot... I think there was a little PMS and not much pattern checking with this purple one though! ha ha ha

Kate arrived with her pot coil already covered... that's a job that can be done while watching the TV at home, so she was able to make both of these pots during one Friday Quilt Club Day. Would you believe that both pots used 15metres of cord... It's true... Oh yes.... they're finished and fabulous, so toot toot toot Kate.

Fiona Too is very happy with this latest kiddy play mat... the fabrics are all fabulous and co-ordinate ever so well.... and they are all from my very own shop! Borders have been chosen so I expect we will need to squeeze in sandwich making next time.

Jeannette Dilly arrived with Man Flu!!!... my goodness she was suffering... I had to remind her that we didn't need reminding every ten minutes how ill she felt... so you see... it was real man flu as that's what they do! she still managed to stitch these two cushion fronts though... lovely

Brenda Barbara had a great sewing prevention season and is now full of new ideas... first though, to finish this wonderful Dolphin cushion. A zip was stitched into the backing and ... pretty much lick-etty-split... it was finished.

Di Butterfly rushed through the door and got straight away involved in making up these two sandwiches. Jenny Barlaston was on hand to help with the pinning so it was done super quick...

This is the second sandwich Di made....  Jean will be happy... can you see the flange? She loves a flange!.. So, I am guessing that Di Butterfly will be stitching up a storm with a walking foot now.

We've run out of the pre-cut I-Spy packs now so I started to cut more six inch squares ready to make new ones. I cut the little boat fabric first... then went off on a tangent and this is what happened... good eh. I gave all the squares to My Mum Gwynneth to sew together... now that she's selling little quilts I thought I could help her make another! ha ha ha

Rose's Stitching News

Rose was delighted to have finished this quilt, It's a beauty and it's the largest one she's ever made... there will not be another one quite this size for a long while... at least... that's what she said, we will have to see. It is beautiful isn't it. Rose loves choosing fabrics and it's plain to see, she has a talent for it.
 Toot toot toot Rose, fabulous and finished... what an achievement!!!

See this sandwich... Yup it belongs to Rose too... and it's not exactly small is it! OK it's not as big as the fabulous finish above but hey... It's still a good size.  The Hexagons made with English Paper Piecing (EPP) that's when to tack the fabric over paper shapes before you join them together... a beautifully tranquil pastime!

Rose has decided to hand quilt this one... with the lovely Perle Cotton and Big Stitch quilting... this is a great time of year to have a hand quilting project... You can tell everyone that you are multi-multitasking...  keeping your knees warm, watching the TV, talk to the family and drink tea, while you merrily stitch away the evening!...
Oh yes, you are allowed to do it any time...
but Rose will multi-multitask in the evenings.

Stitching News With Tooting

Just Jan finished this lovely quilt in good time for her daughter to return to Uni...
but the poor girl wasn't allowed to take it with her.... Jan knows the routine you see... We want to see your finishes, we love looking at them! 
Time for our famous (?) toot toot tooting fanfare for the fabulous finish 

Here's the fabulous backing Jan made with the leftover fabrics.
Great quilting... you know we don't always have to do complex and tricky stitching...
You can practice PMS (Pleasing My Self!)
The quilt will be returned to it's lucky owner today.

Lady Judith must have been a very good girl last your because Santa had treated her to a new Juki sewing machine... wooohooooo. Her old one had been a little tricky but now it will go in for surgery to make it good again.
Meanwhile Lady Judith has returned to these fabulous and very bright,
Stack-n-Whack Kaleidoscope blocks... started waaaaay back in 2012!

Princess Jackie, our First Prize Winning quilter, has been carefully stitching all the tiny detail on her latest project, a wall hanging... a sandwich moment was spotted and pins were put, so now the delicate quilting can be steadily stitched too... Isn't it amazing!! 

New Sue brought in one of her workshop samples... fabulous, I love all the bits too!

 It looks even better than in the photos Sue had sent to me over sewing prevention season... The workshop involves using a Charm pack... that's why we called it

Charming Dinner For Two... quirky eh!

The workshop uses Basic piecing, applique, basic quilting and Brilliant Binding. Weather permitting, as it is January, it will be on Saturday 23rd January... just so you know.

Hallooooo Hallooooo Hallooooo

HAPPY NEW YEAR..... 
Here we go, it's time to get back to normal!!!!
My lovely little Quilt Shop will be open from today... 9:30 am until 4:30pm
Just thought I would remind you that Kid's Quilts patterns have 10% off and they are beautifully displayed on my fabulous new Pattern Wall so you can see them all clearly... I confess though, that the wall is still a work in progress, ooops. 
There have been very generous reductions on all fabrics in the Temptation Trolleys... well worth popping in for, believe me!!!
We have lovely cream fabrics, with many different designs, mostly tone on tone so they're great for collecting... and with 25% off the marked price... why wouldn't you collect them?
Bolt Ends have further reductions... Have I gone mad???
No... it's that same thing I suffered from last year...
I have too much stock for the space I own!!! 

Have you had a good read of the 2016 Workshops page? You can pop in to the shop, call me or email to book up for any of them...
Hope I see you later... 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!