WIP Wednesday - Tula Pink Sampler

My first completed block of the new year.  Number seven block in my On Point Sampler is called Starlight Geese.  I'm not a fan of flying geese, mainly because I did a whole quilt border in them for my first quilt, BUT this was a breeze.  Flying geese in foundation piecing.... LOVE them :)

Starlight Geese
Tula Pink Sampler Block 7

I'm linking this post up with Freshly Pieced blog, pop over & have a look at some of the other WIP Wednesday posts.  It's very inspiring but be warned, you could end up with a new pile of wips!!!

Happy stitching :)

Cross Stitch Finish & More Tula Pink

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on a cross stitch for a friends birthday.  It's been a relaxing way to spend an hour each evening while catching up on some TV.  After finishing the stitching I decided to make it into a mini wall hanging.  The birthday girl will soon be having a dedicated craft room & I thought it could be a perfect addition to the wall :)

Cinderella Is Proof - Lizzie*Kate

I've also completed two new blocks in my WIP Tula Pink sampler quilt.  It's becoming increasingly more difficult to decide on the fabric for each block, but I really love how they're turning out.

Double Compass
Tula Pink Sampler Block 4

Pinwheel Delight
Tula Pink Sampler Block 5

This week I'm linking up to the WIP Wednesday linky party at Freshly Pieced so don't forget to head over & check out some other lovely WIP's :)

Happy Stitching :)

WIP Wednesday - Tula Pink

I know it might seem like I'm only working on my Tula Pink sampler right now but I can assure you I'm doing other things too... I just don't seem to find the blogging time for them.

Here we have block 3 of my On Point Sampler.  The block is Red Cross & the fabrics are of course Tula Pinks Prince Charming.

Red Cross Block
Tula Pink Sampler Block 3

Tula Pink Sampler Blocks 1, 2 & 3

This week I'm linking up my post to the WIP Wednesday linky party over at Freshly Pieced.  You should pop over & see what some of the other lovely talented crafty folk are up to, some lovely WIP's on the go.

Happy Stitching :)

More Tula Pink

Week 2 of my college class & that means week 2 of my Tula Pink sampler blocks.

I realised that the photo I uploaded of the first block was square on & as the sampler is going to be On Point I thought it would be better to take the photos on point. Hopefully you'll get an idea of how the blocks will look in situ.

Cross & Crown Block
Tula Pink Sampler Block 2

Tula Pink Sampler Blocks 1 & 2

Happy Stitching :)

Tula Pink - It's Started :)

Today was the day that I cut my precious Prince Charming fabrics.

I bought these for a sampler project & today I made my first block.  All of the blocks are foundation pieced.  I've also decided to do the background of all my blocks in a darker teal colour rather than a traditional light colour.  Let me know what you think?

Tula Pink Sampler

Happy Stitching :)

In Love With Prince Charming

Prince Charming is a wonderful fabric range from the equally wonderful designer, Tula Pink.

When I was at Festival of Quilts back in August I was lucky enough to meet her & she signed a copy of her book for me.  I totally fell in love with almost all of her fabric ranges & especially Prince Charming.  It was then that I decided I wanted to use the range for this years college project.

Tula Pink & Lisa G

This years college project for me is an on-point sampler where the blocks are made using foundation piecing.  I had an image of this project on my mobile phone & once I'd decided to use the Prince Charming range I went back to Tula & asked her opinions on the fabric choice, possible back ground colours & connecting blocks.  I can't wait to get started :)

Tula Pink - Prince Charming

I'll post progress updates on the quilt once I get started.

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 :-)

Patience!

Patience is something that I don't really have much of & considering how little I have I am surprised that I get any stitching completed at all. As you know every Monday evening I've been off to an evening quilt class where I've working on Roberts sampler quilt. Every day I go i've been admiring a quilt they had hanging up advertising a Saturday workshop. Well at the last minute I booked myself up for the days course & took myself off last Saturday to spend the day sewing.
Our tutor for the day was the much published & author of her own book Quilting-on-the-go, Carolyn Forster. The quilt for the day is called Patience Corner Quilt.

There were six of us taking the class, a real mix of experienced quilters to the complete beginner. Carolyn was excellent & took the time to explain even the most basic parts of getting started. I was impressed with how the quilt top came together so quickly. The 9 patch start seems to give so many alternative patterns, I can't wait to get going on some more variations. As you can see from the pictures I chose a mixture of pinks & lilacs as this one is to be a quilt for Hannah.
The first quilt here top left is Carolyns quilt, the one that I admired every week for 9 weeks :-) Carolyn asked us to lay out what we'd completed during the day so that we could all see what everyone else has done, she is here at the head of the table. Some lovely coloured quilt tops, it's always really nice to see how everyones quilts turn out, especially as we've all done the same pattern but they took totally different.

Here are my completed blocks.

A very successful day, it was over far too quickly. A huge thank you to Carolyn Forster. So many little details that she mentioned throughout the day really made me think about the projects I'm doing & intend to do, so much so that some of them I have already changed thread colours & fabric placement etc.

This evening I have the last of my evening classes over at Thread Bear & will hopefully have a picture to show you later this week of Roberts Sampler Quilt. I know that I will stand & admire the next quilt Carolyn is to teach on a one day class, it's called Star & Lattice. They've hung it in exactly the same place that the Patience quilt was. I shall just avoid looking.

I may even get to post some cross stitch updates later this week. I have totally lost my Monday stitching day for 3 weeks now as the twins nursery is closed for 2 weeks over Easter & then another Monday for staff training... oh how I wish they'd do the training on a Friday!!!

Thats it for now... I'm off to play with new obsession of Selvage Edge Quilts. Thank you again Mrs Forster!!

Happy Stitching :-)

More Wonky-ness & Christmas Design Update!

Looks like I've now finished all of the centre parts of Roberts quilt & this week I have to start sewing them all together. I finally got around to taking pictures of the past two weeks work. The first is rather like a wonky chess board.


The second is Wonky Logs & this was completed Monday & I've already trimmed these ones ready to be stitched.


My other update is on the Christmas Design SAL. I still really love stitching this on the first week of the month & again this month I've managed to complete my goal that I set. Roll on next month :-)
This weeks stitching is on the little Sweet Dreams mini sampler for Robert & with not much left to complete I am hoping to share a picture with you before the week is out. Then I just have to choose which project to start next..... so much choice!!!!

Happy stitching :-)

Riding along

Last week I was stitching on two different designs. One of them I can't share with you as it's a gift for someone that visits my blog on occasion. The other is my HAED Dragon Riders. I haven't made great progress & I haven't even finished one page yet but I am really pleased with what was about 2 evenings stitching. I took the fabric off of my large frame & started using my 8in Q-snap which is what I use for most of my stitching & suddenly my stitching on it became a whole lot quicker :-)
Apologies for the slightly blurry photo.

My other picture this wonderfully sunny Monday is the latest panel in my Sampler quilt. I have to say it was the most fiddly thing I've done to date. It does look really lovely but when I come to make another one for Hannah there is no way I'm going to be making the bias stems, she can have just flowers. The stems were a nightmare, I certainly didn't enjoy making them but I am pleased with the result.



Being the first week of the month means that this week I am joining my friends over at Dragon My Needle for our Christmas Design SAL. I lovveee this SAL so I've got my drink, my snacks, my Waltons on the DVD player & my fabric in hand.

Happy stitching everyone :-)

Sweet Dreams & TUSAL

No posts from me during the last week as it was half term & we had visitors. It means that my stitching room was converted to "the guest room" for a while & since this is where my PC is as well I was unable to have much access.

I decided to stitch on Sweet Dreams for the full week as it's quite small & meant I could easily stitch on it downstairs without the need for my frame. I've made excellent progress, really pleased. I only have the bottom couple of stars & the birth details to put on. I've been so tempted to just continue on it until it's finished, especially as I haven't had a finish in a while, but I think it's important to rotate the projects to keep the enthusiasm alive. I'll be really looking forward to stitching on it again as I know it'll be almost finished.


Here's my latest TUSAL picture (I know... late again!). Not all that different from the last one but you will see all of the blues & yellows on top from the Sweet Dreams that I've just been doing.

Back at Quilt class this evening so hopefully will have a new panel to share with you soon. Not sure what I'm going to stitch on this week in the way of cross stitch, most likely to be me HAED Dragon Riders but I'll have to wait & see.

If you fancy a chance at a giveaway then pop over to Sarah's blog Craftymoo, she's having a giveaway to celebrate her blogoversary. Congrats to Sarah.

Happy stitching :-)

Quilt Catch Up

Another two parts of my Sampler Quilt are now finished. Both are versions of Layering & Slashing. The first is three layers with sections cut back to reveal the lower layers.
The second is a Chenille style of Layering & Slashing. An extra layer of fabric has been put into this one to make the chenille extra soft & fluffy feeling. One of my stitching lines went slightly wonky on this one & I was going to unpick it to have another go but have instead decided to leave it. This is my first quilt so maybe it'll be nice to one day look back at the imperfections.
This week I'm already making great progress on Roberts Sweet Dreams sampler. Bless him, he is feeling much better & is back to a lovely 12 hour night time sleep :-) Hopefully the coughs & colds will be over soon & Spring will finally be with us!

My Race For Life sponsorship is going well & I'm hoping to get some serious training in... just as soon as it stops snowing. Of course it does mean that I'm going to have to stitch the wonderful Lizzie*Kate design Peace, Love & A Cure... what luck... I just happen to have all the threads I need :-)

Happy Stitching everyone, Sweet Dreams update soon.

Quilt Update

Ok here we are. The first picture is of Heart Blocks that were completed last week. They are four patchwork hearts which have then been appliqued onto the green. I believe they'll be positioned in the quilt in twos.

The next part is Quick Crazy Blocks. I really like this & I'm not sure the colour translates that well on screen but I threw a dark purple into the mix of colours & it has little gold stars on it. It looks fabulous, I really love it.


On the stitching front I am totally engrossed in my Christmas Design SAL. It's the first week of the month & that means a group of us all stitching our christmas designs together. I love it, I really do. I can't wait to see what I manage to get stitched this week but at the same time I don't want the week to end so I can just carry on :-)

Happy stitching :-)

My First Quilt

Here we are, a quick picture of what I did last week at my quilting class. The first part of my Sampler Quilt, it's called a Wonky Star. I haven't got off to the greatest start with it but I'm not going to frog it. I quite like it & hopefully my little boy will too :-)


I have a new quarter inch foot for my sewing machine & a couple of fabric prints which I think work perfectly with the three that I'd already chosen (the three original ones are across the top in the image below)..... what do you think?



I'm having a bit of a quandary at the moment. It's regarding my christmas stitching. Now I love my christmas cross stitch, it's my favourite type of stitching, the colours & designs are fabulous & always make me smile. Anyway, I'd like to know what people think about keeping christmas designs up all year around. Do you consider them to be just another lovely design that deserves it's place or are they classed as decorations & should only be displayed at holiday time?? Let me know what you do or would do?

Happy Stitching :-)