Late payment

Over a year ago I received this lovely embroidered pouch and stitching goodies from the very creative Catherine (check out her mini masterpieces masquerading as Artist Trading Cards!).

The pouch was my Pay it Forward gift from Catherine, which meant that I had then had to agree to send three more gifts out within a year to the first three commenters to sign up on this blog .

Well, time flew. I considered ideas for the gifts, discarded ideas for the gifts, considered more ideas, discarded more ideas. You get the picture, procrastination is my default position!

Suddenly the year was almost up and I still hadn't decided on a suitable project. Not only that but I was about to head off on (yet another I know!) holiday so that deadline was very definitely going to be missed.

A stern talking to was in order.

Talk delivered I jumped off that fence and made a decision to make three different gifts, one for each recipient which would be, I hoped, tailored to their likes. I had been following/stalking them for over a year I should have some idea of what they liked :)

To date, two of the Pay it Forward packages have been received so I can finally show you what I have been working on since I returned from holiday.

First up,

A travel sewing kit in linen and cotton for the exotically located Deborah who blogs at Sunshine through the Rain There might have been some Cadbury's chocolate tucked into the package to give Deborah a little taste of home :)

Next up,

A linen and cotton pencil case for the lovely Jo, who blogs at the very wisely named Don't drink and sew That deep purple will hide a lot of wine stains!

For some reason I only have a photo of the back of the case, so you will have to take my word for it that there are tiny hexagons in Indelible (my current favourite fabric line!) on the front :)

As soon as the third parcel arrives I will share it with you too.

So better late than never. I really enjoyed receiving and sending the Pay it Forward parcels and would suggest that if you are thinking about taking part and get the opportunity then go for it. Surprise parcels of sewing goodness are always welcome:)

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

Liberty and linen - a match made in heaven!

A long while ago, right at the beginning of the year, I shared a sneak peek of a project that I was working on with some vintage linen and Liberty fabric. I am delighted to finally be able to show you the completed project.

As regular readers will know I am often to be found rifling through the linen baskets at vintage and antique fairs, and frequently come across something that needs to come home with me. A recent purchase of a vintage linen traycloth and a FQ of Liberty Lawn fabric, when combined with a FQ of Pearl Bracelets, was the inspiration behind this jewellery roll for my soon-to-be new daughter-in-law.

Why, did it take so long to share it though? Well, that is because there was the small matter of a publishing deadline to meet!

This is my first ever project to be published, and not just anywhere either, but in the fabulous ezine, Fat Quarterly. Issue 18 is all about Zakka, creating items that are cute, practical and fun and I am in some illustrious company I can tell you :) With a beautiful fabric basket, charming clock and a tasteful tablecloth being just some of the great projects to pick from there is something in the issue for everyone.

So, if you are looking to add a little Zakka style to your stitching you should definitely check out the current issue of  Fat Quarterly

With several other vintage traycloths lurking in my cupboard and a jewellery roll of my own that has definitely seen better days, I think I might just have to make another one for myself now too. 

Linking to Show and Tell Monday, Fabric Tuesday,
Sew Cute Tuesday

Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew March Link Party and Giveaway

Welcome to the third of our monthly Ho, Ho, Ho and on We Sew Link Parties.

Last month's winner of the Bustle and Sew Handstitched Christmas eBook was Mara who has already highlighted a few projects to try for her Christmas crafting :)

Paula and I have a great giveway lined up for you this month too, and with St Patrick's Day a highlight of this month, it is very apt that this month's giveaway sponsor is the lovely Cindy from

Cindy, who lives in the beautiful city of Galway in the West of Ireland, has donated these very Christmassy Perle threads for one lucky linker.

The threads are perfect for hand quilting, but if that is not your thing how about a spot of Sashiko?
I had never tried Sashiko but I recently found this new embroidery magazine when I was browsing the craft magazines at my local newsagent.

I really want to have a go at that hoop, but it is all hand-embroidered and I think I might need to work up to it :) Inside though there was a project that I thought I could handle.

The Sashiko pouch uses Perle thread to join up the dots and seemed like the perfect introduction to this type of embroidery. Fortunately I had some Perle thread lurking in my stash so set to work. It came together really quickly and the Sashiko embroidery itself was straightforward to do once I got the hang of stitching through the linen and the fusible fleece backing.

Every year I give my sons' wife and girlfriends bottles of nail polish in their Christmas stockings, and this year I have already bought the polish thanks to an online deal that was too good to resist, so now I have at least one pouch made to put them in too!

If you are getting ahead of yourself too this month and have completed a Christmas gift or holiday project in March, link up to this month's Link Party, which is hosted by Karen at Easy Patchwork.
I can't wait to see what project she has lined up for us this month.

The link-up will remain open until March 31st, but if you don't manage to complete your project in time to be in with a chance of winning the giveaway, fear not! We have loads of great giveaway prizes lined up for the coming months, thanks to the support from our very generous sponsors.






  

So head on over to Karen at Easy Patchwork and start linking up those projects!

2014 FAL - Q1 Starting out again!

It is the start of a new FAL so time for optimism and wishful thinking :)



This year's FAL is being hosted by the multi-talented Katy otherwise known as The Littlest Thistle. Check out her post if you want to join in the fun.

Having only managed to finish 2 out of the 6 finishes I was hoping for in the last quarter of 2013, there are plenty of UFO's hanging around my sewing room patiently waiting for their turn on the sewing table. One of the 2 finishes I did achieve was a long-standing BOM so in an effort to continue that momentum I am putting the remaining 2 outstanding BOM's in my cupboard top of my list for finishing this quarter.

First up,the wallhanging I have been paper-piecing monthly with Quiet Play's BOM



I had the last block of 9 left to paper piece (the photo below only shows 7 blocks as I haven't taken any photos of them altogether since I made the 8th block), but have decided that an 8 block wallhanging will fit better in the space available. So instead of paper-piecing the last block all that I need to do is add the sashing, baste and quilt it. Doesn't sound too difficult does it?

Second, another carry forward from last years FAL, the Craftsy BOM quilt top.

All the blocks are made (and have been made for months), the sashing fabric is purchased and waiting to be cut up so I just need to knuckle down and do it! It would be great to have this finished in time for my son and daughter-in-laws house move in the Spring, especially as it was also meant to be a Christmas present!

The third project I would like to finish this quarter is the cushion I planned from the New Zealand Falcon pattern by the very talented Tartankiwi.  Our local rugby team are known as the Falcons, and the males in this family are mad-keen rugby fans so it would be a fitting addition to our current collection of cushions.Would be nice to have it finished before the end of the rugby season too :)

The fourth project I really would like to finish this quarter is the Bargello quilt that I started in a class last August.

Again, all this needs is borders, basting and binding! Can you tell these are my least favourite parts of making a quilt??

The next set of projects have all been in my head for ages but I have never actually written them down anywhere, so I am hoping that by blogging about them I might actually get around to making them. So my fifth project for this quarter is another cushion, this time with some Celtic Knotwork applique. I know exactly what I want to do with this so I just need to knuckle down, draft up a pattern and sew it!

I am going for broke here with a sixth, seventh and eighth project :)

The sixth is another cushion, this time with Linen that I brought back from Latvia and some lovely Liberty fabric that I have been too nervous to cut into!

Again I know exactly what I want to do with this, I just need to sit down and do it!


More Liberty fabric and some vintage linen in the seventh project for a secret project that I am really excited about, that will, hopefully, be revealed later in the year.

And finally (thank goodness I hear you cry!) a Christmas project (!!!) using these cute fabrics. The reason for this project will be revealed rather sooner than the one above in the next couple of days, but let's just say now that I am planning to be the most organised I have ever been for Christmas this year :)

I think that is more than enough to be going on with, don't you?

One of my resolutions for 2014 is to use up my stash, and completing all of these projects will certainly help me to do that.

Well, that's the plan wish me luck :)

Paying it Forward

 The lovely and very talented Catherine at Knotted Cotton hosted a Pay it Forward gift on her blog some time ago, and I, with two other lucky bloggers Caroline and Kay, was lucky enough to be picked as a recipient.

Naturally with a timescale of one year attached to the gifting, I had forgotten all about it until I received this gorgeous pouch in the post!

Liberty and linen, what a great combination,but then the icing on the cake - all that beautiful hand stitching too! Apparently there was considerable chocolate consumption involved in the making of this pouch, which you can read about here. I have to say though, Catherine, it is definitely worth wrecking a diet for :) Those are 1 inch squares!!

So, now that I have received my gift from Catherine, it is my turn to Pay it Forward, which is where you come in.

If you would like to receive a handmade gift from this little corner of blogland sometime in the next year, then just leave a comment to say so. I will undertake to send a handmade gift to the first three commenters who wish to participate. The only stipulation is that, upon receipt of your gift, you must be willing to Pay it Forward to 3 more bloggers in turn within a year. That's not too onerous now is it!


Now I am off to play with my beads and decide what deserves to be stored inside all that Liberty and linen loveliness :)

Mini Finishes

My birthday is coming up at the end of the month and I may just have a number of sewing and quilting books on my Amazon wish list :)

So, before the anticipated influx of new reading I thought that I ought to get some value out of the books I already have. Before I had even heard of Zakka-style or joined in any Zakka-style SAL's I had Rashida Coleman-Hale's book I (heart) Patchwork. Indeed, the Wedding Ring patchwork tea towel was one of the first projects I ever blogged about, so the book has been on my shelf for a while.

As well as the tea towel I have also made this pincushion

and this apron from this book.

 

So, when I was looking for something quick and straightforward to make as an antidote to all of the seemingly never-ending projects I have on the go at the moment, I knew which book to pull from the shelf. 

This time I thought that I would have a go at the travel sewing wallets, they seemed just the right blend of quick and useful that I was looking for. In addition, I got to play with some of my linen scraps from my linen shopping days in the Baltics :) The wallet only needs a scrap of linen fabric 9.5" by 3.5" for the exterior and three squares 3.5" by 3.5" for the interior, as well as oddments of cotton fabric for the binding and inners so is an ideal scrap buster.

 

 The pincushion in the middle is two 2.5" squares of fabric stitched together, then turned right sides out and stuffed before being hand stitched to the centre of the linen square. Stitching the pincushion to the square was a bit fiddly, and it did make machine sewing the binding quite tricky later, but the pincushion is my favourite bit of the whole wallet. 

I enjoyed putting this one together so much that I immediately made another one!

 

This time with some 50/50 linen and cotton scraps, which will I think be a bit more robust. 

 

I am delighted with these little wallets and, once again, with I (heart) Patchwork. 

Do you have a book that you turn to again and again for projects? There is still time for me to add to my wish list, if  I need to :)

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

WIP Wednesday

The deadline for 

is looming, so Aprons have been top of my agenda this week. I decided to make a reversible apron, so gave myself twice the work. It seemed like a good idea at the time :)

Then I decided to use some Lithuanian linen along with my quilting cotton so stitched every seam twice as I am paranoid about the linen fraying. So twice the work again. Might I be a glutton for punishment do you think??

Anyway, here is what I eventually made for my partner

Crafty Cooks Apron Front

The Apron has linen panels bordered with patchwork strips and two patch pockets on the front.

Crafty Cooks Apron Reverse

On the reverse side the apron is plain linen bordered with Summersville cotton with a cotton patch pocket. I hope my partner likes it.


Now I just need to decide which of my favourite recipes to print out to go with the apron. I have so many I think this might take some time :)

This has been a really fun swap with some gorgeous Aprons popping up in the Flickr Group already. There will be some seriously stylish Cooks around soon!

As it is Wednesday it is also time to look at my WIP list, which now looks like this;

• In Color Order HST BOM - Backed and Basted!
• (Almost) Irish Chain quilt basted
• 5 blocks of NY Beauty QAL completed and fabric cut for remaining 5 blocks
• 18 blocks of Craftsy BOM completed (only 2 more to go!)
• Sunday Morning Quilt Bee blocks received
• Sunday Morning Quilt2 Bee blocks sent (on schedule)
• Star of Africa Bee blocks completed and sent (1 month behind schedule)
• And And Sew On BOM - three blocks completed (back on schedule)
• Crafty Cooks Apron and Recipe Swap  - Apron completed
• Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition entry    COMPLETED
• Madrona Road quilt - waiting to decide on pattern!
• Paris Cushion - no progress

 Looking forward to seeing everyone's progress.

Don't forget the link up opens tomorrow if you have tried something New to You this month!

Linking up to