i miss you

Dad

Normally, today I would be calling you to wish you a Happy Birthday

and my heart would be aching from not being with you

my heart aches so much more today

Forever in my Heart

Little update

Quilts For Boston first block, will get onto the second on Monday. 8 year old wants a pillow with the foxes on, very adamant about it, so I will oblige. The chevrons are actually navy, although they look black.

And these 6 blocks are my newest quilt along *sigh*, I know, but I just can't help myself!!
It's called the "St Louis 16 patch". It all started here on 'Sew with Sass', great blog name,  and has steam rollered into twitter at #stlouis16patch and has it's own Flickr group here!

Such a fab stash buster, I'm making a Queen *gulp*, my first quilt at that size. Which means 42 fat 1/4's, so I pulled and paired from my Amy Butler bin. Some of these fat quarters go back to the original 'Gypsy Caravan' line. I've tried to cut into this stash before and failed miserably, ie I put them all back and cut into less loved fabric! This time is different, just feels like the right time. Feels really good actually :D

Anywho, that's that!

I'm off to the Springwood Quilt Show tomorrow pm, looking forward to that. I put a couple of small quilts in, it's a non judged show so I feel very comfortable in doing that. I love the quilts that I make but am not at all comfortable with putting them up for judgement. I might feel differently one day, who knows!

Thanks for popping by
x Mandy

Boston

I'm confident that the Boston bombings affected you like it did me. With complete horror, disbelief and great sadness. Maybe like me you feel a need to reach out to those who were directly affected.

 

Well, today I came across this post from the Boston Modern Quilt Guild. Even we in Australia can help, we can send quilt blocks. Please read the post, it has all the info you'll need. There are specifics to take into account when making your blocks, but very reasonable ones. You just need to remember that they need to have arrived in the US by May 24th, very doable.

I know what I'm doing today, how about you!

playing with fat eighths

I've always been drawn to the little wooden box full of repro 30's fat eighths in a local quilt shop, but I'd never bought any, just looked and patted. Last visit was different, there was one that jumped into my hand, and I just could not put it back. The only thing to do was pick a few more! Driving home I tried to think of the best way to use these precious little beauties. Hst's seemed the obvious choice! I played with many patterns, and had to modify them as one of the eighths was cut short! gahhhh

I really, really love the result!

It made me wonder, as usual, what it would look like as a whole quilt. 

I logged onto Big Huge Labs, used Mosaic Maker, repeating the same photo,

and ta dahhhh!!!

 Isn't that just the coolest thing, ever! 

I want to make it sooooooooo bad! I love that yellow star! I love the red centers and I love the dark diamonds. So..........big quantry, cause I have to admit I get rather bored sewing the same fabric into the same block! Patience isn't my best virtue! The other thing I have to consider is, could I get enough of all those fabrics anyway? I'm wondering whether to change the fabrics totally. Say, use my multitude of Lizzy House pearl bracelet fabrics, with a white background, the colour combinations are almost endless. Or perhaps my Architextures, again with a white background. Oh the possibilities....... Stay tuned, as I think I'll be making these blocks at a Quilt Retreat on Saturday.

Oh the excitement!

cheerio for now
x Mandy

Walking in my garden

Essential Lavender

These, turned into

 this

thankfully!

Roses,

roses,

never enough roses!

Geranium Maderense

Pelargonium

ummm, forgot!

And this is Finn, from the 'Adventure Time' show. The youngest had this as his Minecraft skin. He coloured and cut (no colour ink cartridges at present, I actually love the hand colouring anyway though), and I did the sticking! He finished at 3 1/2"  and was pretty tricky for me. Next time I'm enlarging the print out. We did have enormous fun though!

I have been sewing too, but not that much.

Thanks for popping by,
x Mandy

a Little Trip finished

I loved making my little scrappy trip along quilt!

It finished up at 42" square after I added a 3 1/2" border, quite perfect for a cot quilt or a floor mat for little ones or to cover your knees or for the car, perfectly versatile! It took quite some time to find the right fabric for the border, but as soon as I tried the Lotta Jansdotter cross hatch, there was no going back. Similar story for the binding, which surprisingly is Tula Pink's 'Turtle Bay' from her 'Prince Charming' line. I did some chevron quilting, three deep, on every other row, worked a charm!

 I figured making lap quilts was the only way I was

a) going to be able to join in on all the fab quilt alongs 
and b) actually going to finish quilts this year!

 

I really love joining in on quilt alongs, for all the chatter, and to see so many versions of the same quilt!  I really, really love that aspect. But I also love finishing a quilt! Plus, I can't really quilt a big quilt on my little machine or afford to have one quilted either. So I feel really happy with this plan for the year. 

So much so that I've already started another, oops! *giggle* I was really captivated by this block called 'Grandmother's Frame' by the Gen X Quilters. There will be 10 blocks throughout the year, I'm assuming that, as it's the 1st block for the Sisters' Ten Modern BOM.

There are quite a few ways to interpret this block. I chose to use my 'Habitat' from Jay McCarroll. I thought that the dropsheet fabric would look cool as a biggish piece in the block, the large square is 7 3/4", when you make the 12" (finished) blocks. I'm going to put two more borders on, to extend and complete the outside pinwheels in the diamonds. Then I'll see how big it is before deciding whether to extend it any more. 

Love it so far!

And just for the hell of it, here's our cat Marble Marmalade, in classic pin up pose!

Thanks for visiting, hope you enjoy all the links!

cheerio for now

x Mandy

Scrappy Trip Along

1st quilt along for the year started today! Good job I never made any resolutions this year, like finishing wip's before starting a new project!! hee, hee

This is a very fast one, Katy of I'm A Ginger Monkey made her top in 3 days! But then she is a machine, a very inspirational machine, and super lovely to boot!

So, you can read all about the construction of the block here at Quiltville. See fabulous pics in the quiltalong flickr group here, you could also follow along with Twitter at #scrappytripalong.

Here are my strips, I'm starting off with 9 blocks. It might go to 16 though as I'm not sure if I'll be happy with overall pattern with just 9.

my 1st block

2nd

3rd

and 4th

All made this afternoon.

See I told you they were quick.

All you need to start are (6) 2.5 x 16 " strips.

Don't they look fab! I'm using all scraps for these 1st 9 blocks, ooooh idea, I wonder what a border of black and white blocks around the 9 scrappy blocks would look like? I wonder how many black and white prints I have? 

Anywho, that's what I'm up to, how about you? What craft project have you got on the go?

Cheerio for now,
x Mandy