How Time Flies!

I'm not getting the timing right at all on my blog posts! I'm either mega blogging or missing in action??!!

I've been hoping to blog at least twice weekly and up to last week I managed this, then I worked two horrendous night shifts and it threw me all out of synch. Sorry!

So here we are having to have a little catch up on what's been happening. First up I've managed to at last start my Quilt-As-You-Go quilt!! I've pieced two blocks so far:

The idea is to piece quilt blocks with scraps and then quilt each block individually before putting them altogether as a quilt top. I've deicided to piece a few blocks and then quilt them all at the same time to save changing needles on my machine - lazy, I know! I'm going to practice lots of different methods of quilting whilst making this quilt top.

I've also got the Flower Sugar in place in 'Little Miss H's' room. Did you guess what it was???

That's right a pelmet for her window!! It looks so cute and come summer will also hide a blackout blind too!

On Saturday I attended another Grey Circles Workshop, this time it was children's clothes making. We made gorgeous tunics, clearly mine was for 'Little Miss H' and we also part made some simple pull-on trousers. I made the trousers for 'Master M' and didn't quite finish them so will post a picture when I've finished them off!! Here's the tunic I made:

Its just so cute I love it! Now that I've tried it on her I've decided to make the sleeves shorter and lengthen it too! I'm going to use more of the stripey sleeve material around the bottom to lengthen it and then add some simple patch pockets to the front in a cute pink fabric from my stash. 

Manda and Karen are just so good at teaching, even when they're not on their usual form - poor Manda was struggling with a cold and Karen is still in the midst of the grieving process having lost her Grandad recently. We were provided with patterns to bring home in all sizes from 6mths - 7yrs for the tunic and the trousers and all materials used were provided on the day too - oh and lets not forget the gorgeous homemade lunch! This time it was soup and tuna pasta bake, clearly we all had both! Another really excellent part of the day was that one of the other attendees was my friend Julie who blogs here. We started our blogging journey at a similar time and have become really good virtual friends, it was a huge and lovely surprise to be able to meet her in personas I had no idea she was going to be there, plus she had travelled all the way from Scotland!!

Yesterday was a really lovely day too, spent in York with the hubby and kids. 'Mr. G' bought me this book:

And we had tea at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen where we also got these:

How fab are they?? Ours will hold ketchup, brown sauce & salad cream!

Now as this is post 97 it means that my run of giveaways is fast approaching!! I will be having 3 giveaways of fabby prizes donated by some of my bestest bloggy friends starting on post 100!! Stay tuned over the next week to be in with a chance......

On fire.....

Not literally of course as clearly I couldn't blog at the same time as being on fire! Now I wasn't scheduled to blog today, it deffo wasn't on the list for today but I'm just so excited that I had to share my morning with you!!

 
Ok so I embroidered the Merry Legs on the Flower Sugar as I said I would and I quilted in a shadow style a 1/4 inch either side of all the seams. I was then interuppted by the postie who was bringing me a box of goodies all the way from the USA!! It was my swap goodies from the Tim Burton-esque Valentines Swap organised by Apryl.

Look at the lovely things Deanna sent me, I'm so happy! The remit was something crafty, something handmade and some chocolate and we had to answer questions regarding our fave Tim Burton movie to help our partner, so you can guess mine yes??!

Deanna has clearly stalked my blog as she made me a new Kindle pouch and sent me a book to read too. Here's the fabric and chocolate she sent::

Its just so lovely! When I bit into the chocolate heart it was jelly inside. Yum Yum!!

So back to the Flower Sugar::

I've finished it and am so damn pleased with it. It looks awesome and will be great for 'Little Miss H'. Can you guess what it will be?? I'll have a Ta Dah! moment in a few days when it's in place and you'll be amazed - promise!

Now for some important news:: Within the next week I'll hit my 100th blog post. Wowser! So what's a girl to do to mark such an important occassion????


Thats right I'm having a giveaway!


Not just any old giveaway this one is sponsered and features at least one very sought after thing......keep checking back to find out more!!

On a roll.....

Yesterday I stated that I hadn't done much on the home organisation front, bar doing a better job of keeping on top of the household chores!

Well I've been pondering that statement this morning whilst I've been doing a few bits (more on that later) and to be honest it was an utter lie!! Let me explain::

When I decided to get my proverbial arse into gear and get my home organisation sorted out (inspired by this), I got myself a notebook to do some lists. I feel much better when I have lists to work through, such an achievement crossing items off said list, don't you think?!

Inside my notebook looks like this::

Now I particularly like this notebook as it has a space at the top of each page for the date. Handy yes?. So I've wrote the date of the Monday for the week I'm working on and then I've listed 'Things to Acheive this Week' as the title followed by said list of tasks. I've then broken down the list into tasks to do each day. Genius. Anyhow, so far so good I'm getting more done than I ever have and am spending less time surfing the net which is an acheivement in itself!!!


Remember the Flower Sugar from yesterday??

From my list for today!!! I decided to add in a square of embroidery that I will do tonight whilst re-watching the Brit Awards with the kids. My kids love music as much as I do (yeah! she cheers) and 'Master M' especially loves Take That and the Beiber (honestly I had nothing to do with the Beiber, though I am overjoyed he loves TT!) The pattern for the embroidery is by my lovely friend Katy and was in the special Christmas Issue of Fat Quarterly. If you've not seen FQ before you need to pop onto their blog where you can view samples of this fab e-zine. Honestly there is sooooo much inspiration for quilt making and such like by a group of the most talented guy and his gals!!!!

I've also done this from todays tasks::

Again it just needs embroidering which I'll do sat in front of the TV over the next few nights.

Now I need to go do the boring cleaning jobs from the list before I go and collect the kids from school! Poo.

Catching Up......

Now that things are getting back to normal here (well as normal as they're ever going to be at our house anyway!!!), I've been able to get a few bits of sewing and fabric prepping done here and there.

Firstly I've prepped my fabric for the Wonky Star Quilt-A-Long that Kerry is hosting on her blog.

This quilt is going to be large lap size and is for 'Little Miss H'! To be honest it wasn't in my grand scheme of quilting plans for 2011 but I did want to have a go at wonky stars and thought the opportunity was a good one, both in terms of busting some stash and learning how to do wonky stars! I'll be piecing a couple of blocks per week over the next few weeks and hopefully 'Hey Presto' a cute scrappy quilt will be born!

I've also finally sewn the binding down on my nephews quilt. I used a great book to help me 'The Pratical Guide to Patchwork' by Elizabeth Hartman of 'Oh Fransson!' fame - invaluable photo guide to all aspects of quilting - Love it!

I just need to hand sew the other side of the binding down and it will be ready to deliver next week when we go visiting!!

I've also been prepping another small project::

This again is for 'Little Miss H' and all should be revealed by the weekend! I've had this Flower Sugar from Lecien in my stash for a while. It was always meant for 'Little Miss H' but the projects (big & small) are now under way so you'll be seeing more and more of this great line over the next weeks and er months knowing me!!!

On the home organisation front I've not tackled anything new. I'm still waiting on the delivery of my comic boards so I can continue tackling my fabric stash, the hallway is still clutter free and I'm managing the general tidiness of the place a little better I think, we'll see!

Guess What????

Just a couple of things I wanted to share now I've finished a hard couple of days at work!!

First up:: Tell me you already know that my lovely blogger/flickr friend Lynne of Lily's Quilts has had her first Moda Bake Shop quilt published today?? Nope, well here's what it looks like - gorgeous don't you think??

Lynne's also having a giveaway on her blog where you can win some of the much coveted 'Sherbert Pips' line from Aneela, so you can make your own Hexagon Park quilt.

Secondly:: Rita of Red Pepper Quilt fame has started a master list of quilting blogs. Have you added yours??




There are some great blogs to cruise including lots of new ones to me - Yay!!

Busy Busy Busy

This is going to be the most random post ever! 

After a flying start to the year I seem to have been knocked way off course this last couple of weeks and have acheived 'zilch' in the creativity department. I am really hacked off about this.

So in no particular order here's why the creating has had to take a back seat!!

One of our lovely rabbits has been very ill, so much so we nearly lost him. This meant he's had to be nursed inside for a week, medicine x3 per day and virtually hand fed = very time consuming, especially when hubby was away on holiday snowboarding and I was flying solo. I then had to purchase a new giant hutch 7.5ft long to accomodate his potential disability, we've got big rabbits!!

I've also been trying to sort out my somewhat wayward, out of control home organisation!! I've been following with interest Megan of MouseHouse as she  tackles a home organisation issue each week and then blogs about it. It's a really cool idea, surely one project a week is do-able???

This is the first area of our house which needs organising::

How bad does that look?? Fortunately we don't use the front door and visitors to the house don't see this mess! We live in a 3 storey house with this been the bottom floor which is home to this hallway and has the washing machine and dryer under the stairs that come up to the middle floor. There is also a large unused bedroom and ensuite down there which will hopefully soon be my sewing room/guest bedroom!

So I've ventured down there and cleared out all the shoes that don't fit etc and given it a good tidy up. Here's what it looks like now::

There are no shoes strewn all over and the bench is cleared. All I need to do now is paint the bench white and add some cute little cushions to it. 

The second area of home organisation that I need to work on is huhum my sewing stuff::

This area is on the middle floor of the house at the bottom of the stairs leading to the top floor. This area visitors can see *shame*

So I've been tackling this area a little each day, I've decided to move my supplies slowly but surely to some different shelving on the top floor of the house, these shelves are much wider and hence hold more of my fabric!!! I also decided to go with the comic board method of storing my fabric which I found out about here and here. I stole a few of said comic boards from Katy and have now used them all, here's my stash WIP::

All my 1/2 yds or more will be  wrapped round comic boards and stored like a bolt of fabric and my FQ bundles are all stored in neat piles. I'm waiting on more comic boards being delivered so this project has stalled until they arrive.

As you've probably gathered I'm not the worlds most tidy person and keeping my home tidy is something I have to work on daily. It is something that I'm determined to do better as I'm sure the untidyness is hampering my creativity. Seriously!

I've managed these teeny tiny bits of creativity this week::

The beginnings of a little cross stitch for 'master M' and a little knitting! I've always wanted to learn to knit and my local yarn shop does lessons so I started my beginners class last night!! 


Finally, the main reason for my lack lustre sewing is this::

Finally 'Miss H' has had her long awaited eye surgery. This picture is from today, I didn't take one on Monday when she'd had the surgery it was just too awful. She's feeling much better now and her eye is much improved already.


So I'm working Friday and Saturday and hopefully will collect my new car on Sunday. I'll be back then with pictures and hopefully a fresh start on the sewing front from then on!!