My Christmas Fabric Gifts.

This first picture is a lovely snowy panel called Winters Gleam from Wilmington Prints. Along with the panel I received the bag of batting & enough snowflake style fabric to back the panel. My parents bought me this little gem from a quilt store that they came across in Virginia while on holiday.


The next is also from my parents & that's a Moda Jelly Roll & a Moda Charm Pack both of which are from the same fabric line, Dream On by Urban Chiks. I'm already thinking about what quilt(s) I can make from these lovely fabrics.... do I use them together or on their own.... lots of choices here!



The last picture is of my new christmas fabrics. They include a Seasons Greetings Charm Pack from The Cotton Patch. I totally love this charm pack, it has 50 different fabrics & all of them are christmassy.... wooohoooo. The other 3 fabrics in this image are from a Secret Santa swap that took place on a craft forum that I chat on. My secret santa stalked me on the forum long enough to know what I really like & these 3 fat quarters were part of my gift. Thank you Santa.


What a brilliant christmas I had in the way of craft this year. I can't wait to get started on using them.

Happy Stitching :-)

Happy Christmas

I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas & a Happy & Healthy 2011


Oh yeah.... & I just unwrapped an Accuquilt Go Baby Cutter :-) WOOOOHOOOOO

Happy Holidays xx

Snow White

This post has nothing to do with the white stuff that is still constantly falling outside at the moment. Instead it's the name of a cross stitch chart that I've just bought myself for christmas!

It's a Little House Needleworks design which I think I'd really like to stitch on a pale blue.


I've started the quilting on my mini quilt so hopefully it won't be long before that's finished. I've managed to secure a spot on the wall upstairs to use for hanging quilts, maybe it'll be first on that wall.

Thought I'd share this winter garden image with you. This little fella here is a regular visitor of ours & has been for months now, after days of grabbing the camera when he turned up only to find him gone before getting chance to snap MrG has finally got a delightful wintery, christmassy picture. Don't forget to feed the birds this winter.


Happy stitching :-)

Almost a Finish & Lots of Snow

Monday this week I took my aprons over to Frans to finish off & I also took along a mini quilt that I started a while ago. I have a burning desire to finish something for myself at the moment. I feel like I've spent so long making things for either the christmas craft fair, christmas presents or customer orders that I need something quick & small to finish for me :-)

I made good progress on Monday & this evening I've carried on with it for the last couple of hours & I'm really pleased with how it's looking.


Our plans for tomorrow have changed, rather than going out visiting friends we've decided to postpone until after christmas & after the snow. It does mean that I hope to carry on with the mini quilt & should have a finish to share with you soon.

We had quite a bit of snow fall this morning. In the space of about 2 hours the whole place went from being clear to being coated in a rather thick blanket of snow. MrG decided he was going to build the twins a snowman & to start with neither twin wanted to set foot in the snow but it wasn't long before Missy Moo decided she wanted to play in the snow & then the Little Monkey decided it wanted to play too. This was their result:


Happy Stitching :-)

TUSAL

The TUSAL, Totally Useless Stitch A Long, has been going for a while now & I must admit I haven't posted mine for... Ooooooo... many moons now!!!

Here it is, most of the cream you can see comes from the quilting & the colours from the cross stitch. I'm now going to have to start hunting for a new jar for 2011.


If you'd like to join in the TU fun then pop over to Daffycats blog & sign up, it's fun, you'll love it!

Happy Stitching :-)

Happy Thanksgiving

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK but I'm thinking that maybe we should. It's a good chance to think about what we have & that there are others that are a lot less fortunate.

A few of the things I'm thankful for:

My wonderful husband
Our amazing twins (& the fact that they are currently sound asleep)
My parents & family
My fabulous friends
The art of sewing...


... there are so many things I could add but I have aprons to sew.

Happy stitching :-)

The Life Of A Quilt

Tonight I was supposed to be my quilt class but it's been cancelled due to the tutor being unwell. I thought that I'd take the opportunity to update you on how that quilt is coming along.

Piecing Commences

Chain Piecing

Quarter of a Pinwheel

Pinwheels Complete

Look forward to sharing the next blocks with you & the lovely colours that comes with them.

Happy stitching :-)

Bloggers Quilt Festival

This year I thought I'd add my entry to the Bloggers Quilt Festival which is over at Amy's blog. My entry is a quilt that I have quite literally just finished. It's a design by Cosy Quilt Designs called Butter Cake. Most of the fabrics I used are from a designer called Paula Ozier. Paula came to my quilt group, Shirley Quilters, & gave a talk about how she got into designing & producing her own fabrics. We all got a chance to purchase some of them & this is the quilt I made with mine. I added the pink, yellow & cream fabrics.


Be sure to head over to the Bloggers Quilt Festival & check out some of the lovely quilts that are being showcased. Some of them are totally amazing.


Here are two other of my sewing finishes:

Christmas Table Runner

Twin Pocket Apron

Hopefully I'll get to update you on The Life Of A Quilt later this week.

Happy Stitching :-)

My New Stash

Finally I got around to taking pictures of my stash haul from the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. I love this show & this year was better than ever. Lots of new stands & sellers along with lots that I was looking forward to seeing again.

First up is Lizzie Kate:
Tiny Tiding XIII
Good Things
Cleaning The House
Be Naughty
The complete collection of Living With Charm Double Flips

Waxing Moon Designs - Eat, Drink & Be Scary
Waxing Moon Designs - Primitive Stocking
LHN - Poinsettia House
Hob-Nobb Designs - Halloween Stitch Em

1 Metre of Star Fabric
6 Xmas Fat Quarters

I love this collection of 8 Fat Quarters

Christmas decorations made with Ribbon, 1 kit &
Instructions for several others.
Small pussy cat quilt pattern
Fabric Bag Kit
Tiny Kit for note pad & pencil holder

Austrailian Handmade Xmas Special Magazine
2 Irish Quilt & Craft Magazine

I have a couple of finishes to share with you but they'll have to wait until tomorrow now as I'm off to catch up on some sleep.

Happy Stitching :-)

Sew and Tell Friday

A very quick post to share with you what I made yesterday.

One of my twin mummy friends asked me to make a couple of little bags for her toddler boys. She purchased & supplied me with some lovely Cath Kidston fabric with lovely little aeroplanes on. I made the toddler tote bags yesterday afternoon & had some of the fabric left over. I checked with my friend & she was happy to let me run up something with what was left.

Here I give you the 2 toddler totes & the 2 "rustle something up" bags with the leftovers.


I wasn't sure what I could make so I had a look around to see what other supplies I had to hand & fortunately I had a nice blue & white checked cotton for a liner & 2 white zips which all seemed to go together perfectly.

Tomorrow they'll be delivered to my mummy friend.... I hope she likes them as much as I do.

For the first time I thought I'd link up with Amy Lou Who's blog & her Sew & Tell Friday. I hope you'll all pop over & check out some of the other items that have been made by her followers this week..... I know I've found at least 5 other things I'd like to make.

Happy stitching :-)

The Life Of A Quilt

Back in the summer I signed up for a 4 week quilt class at my nearest quilting shop Thread Bear. The day I booked the class my friend Franney & I popped along to another quilt shop, that just happen to be having a closing down sale, & I decided there & then to purchase my fabrics for the October class.

I decided to take photos from start to finish. Fabric choice, cutting, piecing etc etc. Here is the start:

Fabric Choice

Cutting in progress

Cutting complete

My next class is on Monday & thats when we start sewing so hopefully there'll be lots of lovely piecing to show you next week.

I hope to get around to showing you some of my birthday presents this week. I was lucky enough to have the twins looked after for a day last week so that I could attend one of the largest stitching shows in the UK.... The Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexander Palace, London. This falls every year about a week before my birthday so I often get money gifted early so that I can have a spend up. I've just been going through everything I bought at the show as it was all a gift from my DH & as today is my birthday I thought I'd look at it all again :-)

Happy Stitching all :-)

October Pink & Xmas Decorations

As you can see from my blog I've gone pink for October. As you may or may not be aware, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Make sure you give yourself a bit of TLC.. Touch, Look, Check. If you have an iPhone then check out Breakthrough Breastcancers' new app iBreastCheck. (many thanks to Noo for the pink reminder)

Moving on to the Christmas & Craft Fair. I've been busy making up some xmas decorations & today I finished them off with some embellishments. They are quite a quick make in comparisom to some of the things I make or attempt to make. Hope you like them.



Happy Stitching :-)

My First Quilt & An Exhibition

It occured to me the other day that I never did share with you my finished first ever quilt. This was a sampler quilt that I did at an evening class at a LNS at the beginning of this year. Some of the stitching is not the best but I'm really proud of this quilt. It's for my baby boy.



The other thing about this quilt is that i'm going to be entering it into an exhibition :-) It'll be the first time I've entered anything into an exhibition so I'm quite excited. I have two entries, the other one is the christmas table runner in the post below this one. Just in case anyone happens to be in the area... details of the exhibition are as follows.

Shirley Quilters Exhibition
Saturday 9th October 2010
10.00am to 4.00pm
Entrance £2.50 Programme 50p
Shirley Methodist Church, Eldon Avenue, Shirley, CR0 8SD
www.shirleyquilters.co.uk

Maybe I'll see you there.

Happy Stitching :-)

Christmas Stitching

Not quite cross stitching, although I have been making (very slow) progress on my christmas SAL, but a quilted table runner. I love it. It was quite time consuming to piece so doubtful I'll be making another one but I really like it. Hopefully it'll fetch a nice price at the Christmas & Craft Fair I'm doing in November.

Happy Stitching :-)

Lisa G Creations

This evening I've put a new picture on my blog... top right... over here ------------>

It's my logo for my new little venure. Lisa G Creations.

I know there isn't much there to look at right now but I assure you i'll be adding to it when possible with my new little makes & not so little makes.

Today I worked on finishing off my first Christmas Table Runner & alas I'm currently unpicking the binding. I'm slightly gutted, i'd gone around 3 sides of the runner before realising that i'd cut my binding too narrow. I could kick myself, it would have been complete by now.

Never mind, it could have been worse... I could have been alive 70 years ago.

Happy Stitching all

Some Updates

It's been major busy around our house at the moment. Mr G has been off in Africa for a Safari with my dad & I've been busy with the twins 24/7. Now they're just short of being 2.5 years old their energy levels have sky rocketed... couple that with the summer holidays & all of the playgroups being closed it's been pretty manic.
Some good news is that I'll be doing a Christmas Craft Fair in November, that means I've been going flat out in the evenings working on quilts, gifts & christmas fabric thingys. No pictures yet but hopefully soon. At the moment I'm working on a Star quilt, a lap or childs quilt & a christmas table runner.Working on the craft fair things has meant that my cross stitching has suffered a bit, not like I had hours available to stitch anyway but now I have even less. I do however have a couple of stitching pictures to share with you.
The first is Lizzie*Kates Peace, Love & A Cure. This seems to have turned into a travelling piece, I only appear to stitch it when I'm a passenger in the car. It's almost finished too, just the heart to finish off & the Peace symbol :-)


The next is the Lizzie*Kate Boo Club which is part of a SAL. I'm glad I've finally made some good progress on this, it's really enjoyable... if only there were more hours in the day!

Happy Stitching :-)

My Giant Pincushion

I simply have to share this finish with you asap.

I follow a blog called Spun Sugar Quilts, it's author is a lovely lady named Vickie whom I came across via Moda Bakeshop & have been following her now for many months. A few weeks back Vickie featured a giant pincushion on her blog & preceded to post a weekly SAL tutorial on how to make the pincushion either using a sewing machine or with traditional [English] paper piecing. You can see the steps for the tutorial on Vickies blog down the right hand side just underneath the photosteam pics. It is a great tutorial, easy to follow instructions & excellent images of the step by step process.

I really wanted to make this using my Liberty Prints that I picked up at the V&A Quilt Exhibition but before cutting up my lovely Liberties I thought I'd do a trial run using some of my favourite scraps. here's the result:

In the tutorial a button was used on the top of the pincushion & as I didn't have any buttons that went with my fabrics I decided to make a mini yo-yo & then stitch it upside down on the top of the cushion, I used the same fabric which I'd used on the bottom of the cushion. To me the yo-yo looks more like a fabric covered button so I'm really pleased with the result.

I can't wait to make another one now in my lovely Liberty prints.

Happy stitching :-)