Katy & Pink Castle Fabric's Contest

Katy & Pink Castle's Contest, a photo by mandalin18 on Flickr.

This was a fun thing to do! And if Brenda of PCF's picks your bundle, as the one she likes the most you win it!!! Go here, and read up on Katy's blog about all the how's and why's. It really was a fun thing to do, I might have another go, oh yes, you can enter multiple times!

The fabrics above are

1. Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton Ice Frappe
2. Heather Bailey Nicey Jane Hop Dot in Cream
3. Joel Dewberry Heirloom Rose Bouquet in Sky
4. My Mind's Eye Love Birds Mini Dot in Blue
5. Lizzy House Hello Pilgrim Pearl Bracelet in Soft Lavender
6. Moda Bella Solids Aubergine
7. Amy Butler Love Arabesque in Ivory
8. Sandi Henderson Secret Garden Vintage Ironwork in Midnight
9. Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow Herringbone in Pond
10. Joel Dewberry Heirloom Empire Weave in Amethyst
11. Free Spirit Designer Solids Gray
12. Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi Buoyancy in Deep

Been a bit quiet around here I know. Life is pretty full on at present, mostly pleasant changes that demand my complete attention.

Thanks for popping by

x Mandy

so what's New?

Well...........I'm making a row robin quilt! Huh, I hear some of you say.

Okay, so I'm part of a group of 7 or 8. And to start off, each member of the group makes a row of blocks, to finish up 48" wide. We each use the colours, and maybe a theme, which is an indication, to the rest of the group, of the direction we'd like our quilt to go in. We post it off to a specific row robin pal in the group, we each only ever send to the same person. And of course, we receive a row from a row robin pal. We then add a row of blocks to the row we received, and pass it onto the same pal we posted to before. She has, of course, added a row to the row she received, and has posted it to her usual row robin pal. And on and on it goes, until we all receive a complete quilt top in the mail, which has on it, the row we made for ourselves. I so loved this idea!

We decided to only use fabric from our stash, although we can send some background fabric for continuity if we'd like. Not too much though, as keeping the postage down is desirable for all. Even though we decided to make our rows 48" wide, we are leaving the height of each row to each sewist.

Here are the fabrics I pulled for my row, I decided to go with courthouse steps. My row is 10" high (finished), I put extra on the ends to stretch it to the 48". Actually I'd better check it's not too long, yikes! Oh, if it is I'll just, well I don't know, but I'll fix it.

I wasn't totally convinced by the end right one, but pushed on regardless.
It worked out just fine! Yay!
My friend Suzy, a fellow quilter, gave me that fab book for Christmas. I find I refer to it a lot!

Not a great photo, but we are having sooooo much rain, ugh, which makes for poor light in my old house. Plus it was taken by a young person, I think I was talking at the time as well. Something along the lines of, 'is my head in the picture' or 'you sure you can see my feet'? A bit hard to smile and talk, I don't know how those product pushing people in the tv ads do it!

Also, anybody swooning? I've started to make some 32" swoon blocks today, with my Echo fat 1/4's. A fat 1/4 of each fabric isn't enough to follow the pattern exactly while making 32" blocks, so I'm mixing it up a little. I'm having fun with it, will share by the end of the weekend. Or sooner on Flickr!

Thanks for popping by,
cheerio for now,
x Mandy

Doll Quilt Swap #10

I have always loved this fabric from Anna Maria Horner, 'Cathedral' from her Good Folks line. I love the simple duality of the pattern, circles and diamond stars or four pointed flowers. So, when I managed to purchase a yard of this I decided to use it as my inspiration for my DQS10.

I started to pull fabrics pieces from my stash but found I needed to do a bit of shopping! Dear oh dear what a bore that was.....not!!! lol It was tricky finding pinks that I was comfortable using, but I somehow managed!

So, this is where I started, grey HAD to be the background, and I decided that using 3 different greys could look interesting in the border. But it needed a bit of colour too, but not so much that your eye would be drawn away from the main pattern. So a thin scrappy border was the way, but in what colour?

These Anna Maria Horner 'Innocent Crush' blues provided the perfect answer. They blend so beautifully with the greys without detracting from the pinks and purples.

Next comes a little stitching in the ditch quilting, in the borders, then some hand quilting on the solids. I haven't quite decided on the colour, but maybe pink, actually I might have some already from another swap quilt.

I'm really quite enamoured with this one, even though I didn't get my stitches as close to the edge on the ovals as I'd have liked. I thought about washing the quilt when it's finished, to soften the edges of the ovals, but my DQS Flickr pals mostly say no! I'll make a final decision about that when the binding is on. Which is going to be my original fabric inspiration, of course!!!

After I finish this quilt, I've got another Doll Swap Quilt to think about! This time for the 'Down Under Doll Quilt Swap'! It will be fun to swap with 'locals'!!! One being my blogging pal Rachael of the Blue Mountain Daisy blog. You should check it out her blog, this lovely lass is not afraid of colour, and has made some stunning quilts.

Cheerio for now, and thanks for stopping by!

x Mandy