Upcoming giveaway

I'm going to be taking part in:

...which is being organised by the lovely Michelle from Quilting Gallery. Host a give-away on your blog starting August 25th and lasting until September 3rd (or longer). What you choose to give-away and how you wish to run the give-away, is totally up to you. However, give-aways that require visitors to make a purchase before being entered in the give-away are not appropriate for this blog hop party. You must register your blog to participate and only quilt related blogs are eligible to register.

I have registered to take part, so check back on Saturday to take part!

Festival of Quilts pictures #2

Let's start this off with a bang, I think this was my favourite quilt:

Absolutely stunning!

And my second favourite:

The photo doesn't do it justice at all!

I also love-love-loved this one. Under the sea scenes have a tendancy to be all bright turquises and oranges, which is my favourite colour mix, but what I loved about this one was it's muted and realistic colours, and that totally doesn't lend itself to photographing well:

Speaking of orange and turquoise, this one is simple in its design, but my favourite colour mix, and some lovely quilting:

And then a few more that just caught my eye:

...and a close-up of the quilting on that one:

Lellephaaaaaaaaaaaaant!!!:

My mum's favourite (with her next to it!):

And one that's given her inspiration for a stash of white and blacks that she's had for a while:

And the best bit, my haul!



So here we have:

A2 cutting mat £12.95

3.5x12 ruler £11.95

Glue £4.50

Masking tape £1.75

Red and white guttermann thread (about) £5

2 pieces of template plastic £1.30 per sheet

Bundle of 4 FQs for £6 (more beautiful in real life!)

Curved safety pins £3.95

4m peach with yellow spots, £8!!!

2m pale blue, £3!!!

Heart hangers, 5" wide were £2.75 each, 7" wide was £3.60

FQ pale blue with toys, £1!!!

Pack of scraps (quite substantial ones, mind) £4.50!!!

Measuring guage £3.95

I could have bought so much more, I think I was quite a good girl really! The big pieces of fabric are to make more dresses for Dress a girl around the world, and the baby fabric is the first of several FQs to make more bags for Beads of Courage.

A closer look at the scraps:

...and at the FQ bundle:

 

I see these being made into little clutch purses or cosmetic bags.

So there we have it, over for another year :( I enjoyed it so much though, I am thinking of going to another, smaller one, like Harrogate or Chilford/Duxford.

Festival of Quilts pictures #1

I was too tired to post last night when we got back, so here they are: my photos from the Festival of Quilts! We had such an amazing day (we always do!). We arrived just before 10 and left just before 5 (we were the last on the bus, oops!) so we squeezed every bit of quilty goodness out of the day that we could.

So without further ado, here are my photies, I'm going to upload them in two seperate posts as there are loaaaaaads, but do be sure to come back and check out the second batch as I will show you what I bought!

...and a close up of the quilting on this one:

...and a close up of the detail:

Look at the quilting and embellishments on this:

My home county!:

I have tried to edit these a bit to tidy them up, but the photos just don't do them justice. If you haven't been this year, you should really go next year!

Check out the rest here!

I'm going to the quilt show tomorrow!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek! The Festival of Quilts started yesterday! Who's been? Who's going? What should I look out for? I will take loads of pictures for you, and maybe even bring back a little something to give away!

Loads of photos!

I am so bad at keeping up with this blogging malarkey! I kept thinking to myself during term-time "It's just cos of work, I'll catch up in the holidays"; 3 weeks in (that's half way!!) and I'm still being pants! In fairness, I was away for 10 days at Sandringham (the Queen's estate, don'tcha know?!) in the caravan, first with my mum, then with my darling OH. Here's a few piccies...

This is the gardens at Pensthorpe, where they film Springwatch. So beautiful, and as we are caravan club members, we get in for half price: that's £10 instead of £20 (£10 per adult), bargain!:

And some piccies from the aquarium.... An octopus:

Sea horses:

Giant sea turtle, who I had to talk to in a 'dude voice' because of Finding Nemo...he didn't look impressed:

Red squizzles!

Reminded me of the climbing nets on Super Mario, remember those?:

And the otters!! They are my absolute favourite and best:

Plus, I got my sewing mojo back! I have made a beautiful bag using an old dress that didn't suit me but I love the fabric. I used the tohoku tote pattern at "I am Momma, hear me roar". I am so pleased with it:

This was my first time using a magnetic clasp. It was so easy, and makes it look really professional... so I bought 3 more! I also used the skills I learnt from making my 241 totes to insert a couple of pockets:

And look, I bought labels! I got mine from Woven Labels UK as I didn't have to create a logo or anything, the gizmo on their site does it all for you.

I have also made a cover for my sewing machine. We spotted a pine table and 4 chairs for £30 outside someone's house the other day, ideal for us, so we snapped it up and so my sewing area is no more :( So my desk etc have been relegated upstairs and my sewing machine has to live on a set of drawers next to the dining table, so it needs to look tidy. I had been planning the design for a while in my head, so it came together pretty easily. Here it is on the new pine table:

And a better picture outside in the sunshine:

The fabrics are left over from my New York Beauty Quilt - notice in particular the petals, which were the middle piece left when I cut out two outside arches. A clever use of scraps, if I do say so myself.

And finally, hopefully a few of you dropped by and checked out my tutorial over on Lily's Quilts. If you missed it, check it out here. That was for the first part of my picnic bag/rug, that has bunting on one side and Union Jacks on the other. It's like a 4 for 1: bag, rug, bunting quilt, Union Jack quilt! I am hoping to get it all binded (bound?) and the handles on, and the tutorial finished by the end of the week, but until then here's a teaser: