Long time no blog

Been a while since my last post for some reason, think I just got out of the habit. So, to update whats been going on since April (wow, that long!)

Had a lovely visit from Mum for her birthday weekend in April, with much shopping, cake and local attraction visits.

Not much going on with my stationary shop at the moment. I do want to get this off the ground so I have another focus when kiddos arrive in the next couple of years, but it seems like a big long slog to get things going for it. I've printed a sample set based on our own wedding stationary, but not sure if I can use it after expensively buying our supplies from America. Will possibly use this to show what I can do rather than what you can buy (unless you want to pay the shipping fees). Will keep thinking about this one, so all is not lost!

Back for now

So it's been a bit of a while since I finished the runner in my last post, where did those months go?!
What's happened then?
The birthday girl loved her runner and accompanying cushion & suited her newly decorated spare room.

I started and finished mums Christmas lap quilt, pieced, backed before we left. I hand quilted it using an enlarged version of this great pantograph (link to follow) - hearts, flowers and trailing leaves, what more could you want?!

Glad for a few days before the big day, i was still hand-stitching the front of the binding and quilting until 2am christmas morning! But it was done!

She loved it, cried almost instantly and was snoozing underneath it within a few hours :)

 

And a cushion for luck

I finished the bed runner and thought it looked a bit strange on its own, so I whipped up a little cushion to go with it with the scraps and bits left over.

Nearly there!

Ok my last post was in draft for two weeks after being on holiday for my grandads/husbands big birthdays - born exactly 50 years apart in the same day.
But I finally sat down to the runner again this weekend after really missing it.

Its looking pretty!

I finished the top of the runner yesterday, hibernating in my sewing (spare) room most of last Saturday afternoon and evening, but I'm really proud of how it turned out in the end :)I added some trimmed grey bias tape as flat piped edging (thanks to this great video tutorial)

The piping was re-ironed pre made bias tape and I sewed it using the needle slightly right to centre to minimise the seams & it worked really well I think.

Not the dirty kind of stripping

The complicated part of the runner is finished! Once I got all the measurements right it all fit together with little problems along the way. Had a few times where the pinwheels were larger than the blanks but with a bit of careful pining, I minimised the pleat effects and got them together.
Here's what I did:

All the squares were sewn in strips according to the grand plan, if any overlapped with a large square pinwheel, I left them as much as strips as possible, sewing any single rows together and then onto the large squares (if that makes any sense!)

All planned out

Planned out my pinwheel runner at the weekend, so just need to trim all 90 of my white squares now, woo!

Weekend fun & my fabric addiction

Had a long week without blogging, but back now :)

At the start of the week my husband too me to an aquarium for a pre-birthday treat (touched a rays nose!) so exciting like a five year old.

Had a fab birthday morning on my own, so dashed out to the local village, frustrated & unable to get a manicure anywhere, the fabric shop was open to save the day! Got some FQs and sample strips in the sale for my windy days runner & Christmas quilt for mum, yay birthday sale! Then had lovely afternoon with hubby & posh dinner in the evening (with much wine)

Bought some more sale strips in John Lewis, who've got some lovely Tanya Weylyn and Amy Butler pieces that I'll use for the runner.

Then had a super busy few days at work of meetings & big brain needing things for starting my new job in the next few weeks, not good when you're full of birthday cake...

But found the time through the week to experiment with embroidery from my new doodle stitching book (ignore the odd cat, it's very odd...)

Garden Quilting & Future Projects

My quilting’s going well, I had a gorgeous day in the garden on a blanket, quilting in the sun with a cup of coffee. I really got into the swing of it and got nicely brown in the process, all be it on my shoulders and on one arm as my other arm was underneath the quilt helping with my stab stitching.

Our pusskins was running about causing havoc with the birds and voles as usual, but kept on coming up to me to see what I was doing and as if asking me why I was sitting outside with the garden being her territory :)