A couple of cards

I made this card for my husband's birthday yesterday - the kids helped me choose the words to stamp on for each letter of his name!
Letters is also the theme for the week at Wednesday Stampers Challenge.

And a very quick one made this morning for my son's 5 year old friend.

A few bits...

I finished off the 4 strips of border for my Happy Houses quilt today. They looked lovely in the sunshine.I had a go at a new technique in my quilting class at church a couple of weeks ago, using a bias tape maker, and some narrow iron-on double sided sticky stuff. I ironed the tape onto a sheet of silicone paper, which overlay another sheet of paper with the pattern drawn on. When the whole pattern was ironed into shape, I transfered it onto the backing fabric, and hand-sewed round all the edges. This will be another square for my 'new techniques sample quilt'.How do you know when quilting has become a bit of an obsession? When you ask at the local Leisure Centre if you can cut a couple of pages out of one of their magazines...

(I was helping take my son's class swimming, at the time, and spotted these. The receptionist kindly lent me her scissors!)

And finally, I cleared out a cupboard at the weekend, and found my first ever attempt at quilting (it's hand quilted) - it's from years and years ago. The urge must have always been in my blood... lurking!

A border for my Happy Houses quilt

I've started making a wide border for my Happy House blocks (which are now all put together - and what a job that was!) The border consists of 2'' squares of all the fabrics used in the main quilt. I had a go at strip piecing for the first time - sewing long strips of 3 fabrics together, then cutting them down to 2.5'' wide, ready to join together into a border.

It does look very 'busy' here, but I think a solid red border in between the main houses piece and the patchwork border will help. Not sure yet what the binding will be.

I am impatient to see it finished! It will probably take a while, as I want to do some hand quilting around the house blocks in red, and add some applique flowers.

Fun, Fun, Fun Applique!

I ordered this book from Amazon, and love the simplicity of the applique in it! I copied the house design almost exactly, and it only took an hour or two the other night. (I still need to add some wadding to the back and quilt round the shapes in white stitches.) I love it though, and imagine I will be making more similar pictures in the future!

New Fabric (Eeeeek!!!)

A sunny day at home, with 3 out of 4 kids off school ill... and I have finally got round to photographing my new fabric! I made a good amount of money from selling some old craft stuff on eBay, and that combined with being my Christmas present from all my family meant I got to have the most wonderful fabric splurge!!

I bought everything from America, on Etsy.com

A Moda Layer Cake:

An assortment of fabrics I just fancied...
Some Japanese linen, and Cosmo Cricket,Ikea fabrics - the green spotty one I thought would be good for backing a quilt - a whole bed set for £1.99!, and my sister bought the heart quilt cover in a charity shop for me!Riley Blake Christmas fabric (I might get round to something before next Christmas)Lots of fabrics from the new Tanya Whelan range,Heather Bailey (I like this selection - fresher looking than her pink range, and without the spotty fabric in the range which I'm not as keen on.) Some more subdued Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley range,And lots of gorgeous classic Amy Butler... Now I just need some time to MAKE!!!!!

Christmas Day Sewing

My lovely parents-in-law bought me this book ('Sew Sunny Homestyle') for Christmas. I couldn't resist making this little sea horse on Christmas day...

Beautiful Books!!

Before Christmas I had a clear-out of some of my scrapbooking/rubber stamping stuff, and sold it on eBay. I figured I would rather have some new delicious sewing and quilting books, than a load of stuff sitting there that I hardly ever use any more. Amazon is by far and away the best place to buy books! I see books I like in local shops, then get them for at least half the price on Amazon.

Spring Birthday cards

Had a little card session the other night... getting ready for lots of birthdays coming up!

Happy Houses Quilt progress

I had done a few blocks for this quilt ages ago, and have gradually been adding to them. I'm fed of making them now, so am going to join all these up with green sashing (pretty much as they are laid out here) and then put a big border of brightly coloured little patchwork squares around the outside (I think.) I love that fact I have measured not one thing on the quilt so far!

Quilting for a year

One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2010 was to take up quilting. I did it! I don't know how to do one of those nice pictures made up of lots of little ones, like I've seen on other people's blogs (if anyone knows, please tell me!), but here are my quilts of 2010...
I will have to post some pictures too of all the lovely new books and fabric I got just recently... no chance I'll be giving up quilting any time soon!

Aviary Quilt Finished

I finally got round to finishing the Aviary fabric quilt, which I pieced together last summer in France.
I added on a border in Kona Snow, and then did simple quilting in the ditch for the main piece. I don't think I like quilting on the bias, because the quilt seems to come out a bit 'puffier' than when I am quilting normally.
I couldn't really decide what quilting to do in the border, but came up with this scallop & lines pattern. The resulting quilt is quite old fashioned looking I think, and I'm not sure if I 100% love it yet. I rounded off the corners too (using another dish!), and cut my binding fabric on the bias, so it would stretch nicely round.
It's the largest quilt I've done - an English double bed sized.Ready for trimming, and binding.

Advent Calendar

An advent calendar which I made for my sister-in-law. (I made it the same way as a normal quilt, just with pockets sewn on, and some thin dowel threaded into the top edge of binding.)

Smells nice around here!

Some small gifts I made yesterday, to give to some friends. I have a food dehydrator, and I LOVE it when the oranges slices are done!

A Snow Card

In keeping with the snowy week we've just had, here is a snowy card - on dark blue sparkly cardstock, to go along with the 'Blue' challenge at Cute Card Thursday.

Bits and Bobs

I've been pretty busy lately, and not had much chance to quilt or make cards.
I painted this MDF board though, and stuck on little paper houses, with button door handles, for a stall at the school fair - people paid to choose a house and one of the houses represented a prize. I was also asked to make a cake for the 'Guess the number of sweets on the cake' stand. it turned out to be a hefty old cake... 12 eggs, 24oz flour etc... and in case anyone is wondering - I put 381 sweets on it!

Also, on Tuesday morning I got to see our charity quilts all together for the first time. Here they are with some of my quiting friends from church.

More Bunting & A New Machine!

My brother and sis-in-law bought a new house a while ago, and my niece's room has a bright red carpet, which they won't be changing for a while, so I made some bunting to match it, and tie in some softer shades at the same time. I sent it as a present in a muslin bag which I embellished.

I did my little craft stall last week too (forgot to take any pictures...) I didn't get round to making lots of things for it, but made well over £100, and had a few other orders. I was quite happy with that, and enjoyed myself!

Also last week, my old sewing machine sewed it's last stitch, and I bought a Husqvarna 850. Haven't had much time to make anything with it yet, but I can already tell it is sewing in a whole new league!

Birthday Card

I used the sketch from Card Patterns for this card, and a QuicKutz rainbow die, that I bought on eBay from America last week.