Happy Mothers Day!

I was a very lucky mum today - breakfast in bed, a lie in and.......The Great British Sewing Bee Book! I've not made clothes since school but intend to make many things from the book, I can't wait to get started. But first I ought to finish some of my WIP's.......

A quick update: I have cut to size the backing for my quilt and the wadding has arrived so I will get on with that this week; my mum has just helped me through a slightly tricky bit in the sewing up of my cardigan so I can get on with that now; I sorted through my scrap stash in the week and cut out 66 clam shell patches for a cushion cover I want to make.

And I've also been working on these....

A work colleague of my husband has just had his first baby so baby names have been the subject of many conversations. Knowing the baby was to be a boy, Mateusz had already been chosen but my husband thought that Jimski would suit him rather well - I made these personalised bibs, just in case they can't decide! They were really fiddly - the letters were small because they had to fit but were slipping all over the place. I realise that I could have stuck the letters down with pritt stick or some other, or tried to bondaweb them down and then sew them but I think whichever way, it would have been tricky. In the words of my niece, it's the imperfections that show it's home made so although my husband was expecting something a little more "perfect" and shop-bought looking, I think they're quite cute.

I shall link up with Handmade Harbour today, and hopefully I will be able to make more comments (my husband has shown me how to get around my problem). Thank you to everyone for such lovely comments last week about my quilt top, hopefully I will be able to show you the finished article soon.

Love Natalie 

Finished Quilt Top

There really hasn't been a lot of time for sewing around here of late but I was determined today to sit at my machine until I had pieced together my quilt top and.........

Voila! Looking at it now, I can see this picture is more than a little blurry but you wouldn't expect anything else from me, would you?

I'm so pleased with it! Seeing it held up like this I can see the advantage of those mounting walls that people with lovely big sewing rooms have. If I could have looked at the blocks this way rather than from above I might have placed them differently, but I'm more than happy with how they've gone together. I have spent lots of time tweaking this and that, not least of all fiddling with the blocks to make sure they were all 12.5" square (as I've mentioned before, my measuring and cutting skills have drastically improved during the making of this quilt). I will order the wadding this evening so that, fingers crossed, I'll be able to start quilting next weekend. Then the fun will really begin. 

I'll be linking up with Handmade Monday for the first time in a couple of weeks so I hope you can join me over there for a catch up.

Love Natalie

Little Blog Quilt Bee Block #1

This week I will be sending off the first of my LBQB blocks - a wonky star.

I really pleased with how it's turned out. I haven't added anything in terms of embellishment, and I went through a couple of fabric choices but I'm certainly pleased with the result. Hopefully, it was what this months Queen Bee had in mind!

Due to an unfathomable amount of child-led activities (and illnesses!) that's about all I've done this week. Can't complain though - I'm sitting typing this out on the patio, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. 

I'll be linking up with Handmade Harbour so head over there if you can.

Love Natalie

I finished my blocks!

I laid out all of the blocks I have made over the last few weeks on Friday and realised that just 2 more and I would have enough to make a single bed quilt. I was showing my sister and niece what I I had been up to when I made this realisation. Luckily for me, my niece adores the colours so I am going to finish it off and give to her for her birthday. In April. Eek! That doesn't give me that long to get all the sashing done, the quilting and the binding. I'm sure she won't mind if I run a little over time, but I will endeavour to get it finished before her big day.

The last 2 blocks I made were another wonky star and a log cabin (this will be my block as part of the Little Blog Quilt Bee in August so I wanted a practice).

I'm going to use a grey fabric to border each of the blocks, and then I need to choose a backing fabric. I did find one I liked but it worked out to be quite expensive. Crafting isn't cheap, is it? I asked some of my fellow Bee-ers if they had any suggestions as they are all more experienced quilters, and Ikea comes quite well recommended  for fabric. I live reasonably close to one of the London stores so may pay them a visit. It was wonderful browsing through many online fabric stores, there really are some gorgeous fabrics available. The temptation to buy a fat quarter here, a charm pack there, was almost too much for me to bear! I'm really excited about creating this quilt from all of the blocks that I've made, and I hope to have something to show you in a few weeks time.

I'll be linking up with Handmade Monday so join me there if you can.

Love Natalie 

A Wonky Star

Despite the school holiday, I managed to squeeze in an hour at my sewing machine yesterday. I decided to have a practice run at the wonky star block that I need to make for my Little Blog Quilt Bee. And here is the result

I've used some of the fabric that I've been making all of my other quilt blocks from so that it will match. There are lots of tutorials for this block, but I used the Missouri Star Quilt Company video - I'm a great fan of those videos! I did take some photos along the way but don't think I could explain it any better than anyone else but shall I give a quick run through?

This block used 8x5" squares of the dark fabric and 5x5" squares of the light.

If you fold one of the dark squares in half and run your finger along the fold, you get a rough placement of the centre of the fabric. To make the wonky legs, you place the light fabric past this centre line and then decide where to finish up on the other side (depending on whether you want short or long point).

Once you have sewn the diagonal line, your fabric will look like this

Turn the fabric over and trim the light fabric away to the size of the original 5" square.

And then trim the dark fabric from behind the "point" as well to reduce bulk.

So now your square looks like this, and you have a triangular shape piece of fabric which you use for the second point. This time, start sewing from beyond the halfway point in the other direction.

Again, after you've sewn the diagonal line, trim the light fabric back to the size of the original 5" square, and trim the excess dark fabric from behind.

And voila! A square with 2 "points" on it. You need to repeat this for 4 squares, then piece them together like a normal 9 patch.

I've seen photos of amazing quilts made up with these blocks. I'm looking forward to making one for March's Queen Bee!

Love Natalie 

18 out of 20's not bad.......

.....when it comes to quilt blocks that is!

I've been making quilt blocks from a little book that came with Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine a month or so ago. There were 20 blocks to showcase the Amy Butler Hapi fabric range. I wasn't using these fabrics but some others that I'd bought, and consequently 2 of the blocks in the booklet weren't really suitable - 1 was identical to another but with a different colour way and the other used a couple of identical patterns in different colour formats and that didn't work with my fabrics. So I've made 18 of the 20 but that's a good start for a quilt top, don't you think? Here are the last of the blocks, finished this weekend.

I've decided that I will make a couple more blocks using these fabrics as actually turning them into a quilt seems a bit daunting! I mentioned before that I'm taking part in the Little Blog Quilt Bee and so will need to make some blocks that I haven't come across before. I thought I could practice each one using the fabrics I've been using for these blocks. First up is a Wonky Star block so I will hopefully have a go at that during the week. I'm not working this week because of half term so let's see how much sewing I can fit in around the kids....

I'll be linking up with Handmade Monday for my weekly fix of crafty inspiration!

Love Natalie 

Clandestine Cake Club

Last night I attended my first Clandestine Cake Club and it was wonderful - an evening filled with making and eating cakes, what more could you ask for? This is a nationwide organisation so if you've not heard of it before, look at their website  http://clandestinecakeclub.co.uk  and you will probably find one near you. Essentially, you make a cake after being given a theme (last nights was Valentines) and then you all get together to try each other's cakes.

I only knew about the evening 24 hours beforehand so went with a simple vanilla sponge with a strawberries and cream filling.

My sister-in-law came with me as she loves all things cake and she made a Chocolate Box cake, with a chocolate and coke sponge - delicious!

My favourite cake was a lemon sponge with raspberry frosting. The flavours were lovely but my palate was confused because the sponge was blue (roses are red, violets are blue....) so I couldn't get my head around a lemon "yellow" taste with a blue colour. I hope I'm not the only person who thinks colours may be related to taste!

It's a great chance to try different recipes that you may not have come across before and, although you can take a guest, it's also an opportunity to meet new people. And at the end of the evening, you all get to take slices of the cakes home (it's not possible to eat it all!). A friend was previously the organsiser of these events but I was never able to make it before but I'm so glad I went along yesterday, and I wish Nisha the very best in organising future events. The next one will be at Easter - I think you can guess the theme!

Love Natalie