Lucky Number 13...

A new issue of Love Patchwork and Quilting landing on the doormat is always a treat and Issue Thirteen,, out now was right up there.

From first glance the pretty blue cover, with Lynne's stunning Medallion Quilt, along with Manda's gorgeous lampshade, oh and my deer cushion!, didn't fail to entice.

This is yet another stunningly put together Issue. Jen's styling brings projects to life in a way, as a contributor, you just can only imagine.

Lucky Number 13 for me though as I have not one, but 2 projects in this issue and, with both of them, Jen captured such a cool freshness that almost made me not recognise them as my own!

The first project was one I had a great deal of fun making, partly because I just love Carolyn Friedlander's fabrics and this quilt was inspired by a swap we did with each other with our respective fabrics.

The second project was a pair of vintage and linen cushions made with some vintage fabrics my dear friend Cathi had sent me. The reverse applique deer took me out of my comfort zone, but I am so pleased it did...I absolutely love the finished effect. Don't you find that is often the case? Push yourself out of the norm and something rather spectacular happens...if you haven't thrown the fabrics away in frustration and given up first!

If you want to see more of these projects, or some of the other great ones in the mag go here to get a copy before it sells out. You really won't want to miss out on this one.

Blueberry Park Makes 3...

So you have all been super busy over the summer and August's IG #blueberryparkmakes was full of gorgeous creations.

It was honestly so difficult to pick, but rules are rules soI could only pick 4...

clockwise from top left we have...

@greenandbell ~ Rebecca's scrappy improv quilt is an absolute delight...so much beautiful piecing for the eye to gaze over.

@nohatsquilts ~ Sarah is the queen of miniature piecing and I just love these pants!

@lisasew ~ lisa came to one of my first screen printed workshops and designed and printed up the central panel for her sewing machine cover...love it!

@isobel_hill ~ Isobel's drawstring bag is a win on every level...cute bag...gorgeous colours and hexies...ticks all round!

Thank you everyone for making and tagging your pics. I just love seeing your makes. Go check more about these and others in the group and keep making with my fabrics!

x

The long journey to happiness...

I love it when lovely customers ask for something a little out of the ordinary.

A week or so ago Adrianne, in New Zealand, approached me with a very unusual request.

She loved my prints ~ thank you Adrianne ~ but didn't love Kona cottons and how would I feel about printing on some Freespirit designer solids that she was planning on ordering from Westwood Acre Fabric?

Personally I will print on anything so that was fine by me.

And so began the long distance travel of a Pretty Potent Bundle from the US to me here in the UK.

It arrived on a sunshiny day yesterday and I set to print up as requested.

And now the said bundle has continued its journey down under. Talk about a small world and our amazing community.

I have to say, having never before seen Freespirit designer solids, I can see why Adrianne is so smitten with them and I think the next order will include some for me!

charm{ed}...

You know this strange old internet based world of ours and all the friends we meet on the way but only communicate through the screens and keyboard in front of us? Well, I'm very excited to be meeting one of my cyber friends at the weekend. 

I have been following Nancy on Instagram for a while now, having fallen in love with her quilting style and she was following me back, having been quite smitten with my fabrics. One of those online friendships developed. You know the type...I live in UK...Nancy lives in USA...never the twain shall meet...

but no! Nancy is over in the UK at the mo on holiday and is planning a stop over at mine on Saturday to pick up some fabrics she has ordered! I can't wait! Nancy has such a fantastic eye for colour (she put together the charm pack above and below) and I can't wait to meet her!

Building the charm packs for Nancy whilst chatting over IG was such a pleasure...seeing the colour mixes she was after was pure delight. I am very excited to hand them over to her and can't wait to see what magic she produces with them.

I really do get a kick of our cyber world and all the friends we make on the way. And if we actually get to meet in the flesh...well that's a real added bonus.

The yellows above and a blue-substituted-for-purple pack below are more charm packs that have been custom built for more cyber buddies that who knows maybe I will meet one day too. 

One thing I have learnt is never say never and keep those friendships blossoming for the day that it actually happens. x

default setting...

 at the beginning of april i declared that i had 4 quilts to complete by the end of the month. since it is still not quite the end of the month i can live in false comfort that i can still achieve this.

reality is...

not a hope in hell!!

having said that, I am 2 1/2 down and 1 1/2 to go...but even at my crazy rate, that's neigh on impossible.

so what has been holding me back i hear you ask?

well there has been the little thing of "the book". there were a few nips n tucks and tweaks that needed attending to but a couple of weeks ago it went off to the printers so all we can do now is wait!

i am beyond excited and beyond nervous about it in equal measure. it's my baby...and everyone wants their baby to be loved and adored, right? criticism is so hard to take...so be kind!

the publishers have been brilliant. it has all been such a journey and such a steep learning curve but i think they got me down to a T...they most certainly have with the front cover anyway. i only saw this complete for the first time today on Amazon and coincidentally i posted this picture below earlier today on Instagram talking about my default colour setting. i think there is little arguing now about this...one and the same! i do try to work in something fresh and different, but no matter how hard it always comes back to this. i guess i just shouldn't fight it. it's not such a bad default setting after all.

meanwhile back to the April Must Dos...no more book excuses, so let's just see quite how much we can do in the next 2 (2?? really?? only 2??) days...

all in a day's work...

 getting ready for the next edition of the blueberry park fabric club means there is a lot of this going on at the mo...



which means there is lots of this to do afterwards...my favourite kind of washing up.




there is trialling of new colour mixes...the perfect shade of mustard printed onto white...

all followed by hanging out to dry, ironing and folding, with a little caressing thrown in.




all in a day's play work.

dreams do come true...

 this week was a week where some of the secrets i have been hoarding have been spilling out...

the week started with my tumbling tinsel piece being featured in the fat quarterly scraps issue.

i really enjoyed devising this little quilt, using up precious scraps from previous projects.

i just wish i had had time to make a bigger version, but i guess we shall just put it on the ever growing to do list.

on friday my pixelated quilt, that i had been working on at the end of last year, achieved star status as this month's issue of love patchwork and quilting.

i obviously knew it was coming out, but to see my quilt and my name on the front cover of this fab mag was such a thrill! i am still recovering from seeing it!

and lp&q have done such a beautiful job on it. in fact they have done a stunning job on the whole magazine...the best edition yet i think. seriously if you haven't bought or subscribed to this new magazine yet, you really should.

i am very very proud of this quilt. 

i am very proud that it is on the front cover of a mag. and i am very proud of it being the first double size quilt i have made.

here's to many more of both!

this is definitely the year of hard work paying off and dreams coming true...

...and here's to seeing the big one coming true very very soon! 

a nice day for finishing a quilt...

2 miracles happened today...

1. i finished a quilt that had been sitting on a pile waiting patiently for its turn since january and...

2. it was sunny enough to take a stroll across the road to the park to shoot a few pics of it.

the quilt in question was my scrappy trip along quilt below, which was my xmas vacation project last year. 

oh so embarrassing to be about to embark on this year's xmas vacation and still have it unfinished. having found an unusual free gap in my week i finally set about to finish it.

there is actually something rather nice about revisiting an unfinished project...memories are wrapped up in it...you get to revisit and rework with fabrics that you may not be anymore.

advantages galore...and that's my story for being a lazy a*** and i'm sticking to it.

im so so pleased with how it's turned out and hopefully ruby, who it was originally made for, is still keen on it too.

i had a fun little photo shoot in the park...dodging the dogs and the wind (weather wind not the dogs' wind) and to show you a few more of the photos i have attached a little flipagram here, which may or may not work. i have never made one before, but have fun with it if it does!

what finishing this quilt has taught me is...

1. i can be a finisher...

2. i actually enjoyed being a finisher...

3. i really really must finish more things before i start anything new.

that last one is my new year's resolution...good luck with that huh?

oh and that first picture at the top?...

that's a sneak of a commission that i have been working on and is about to head off to its destination. just as soon as i can i'll tell you more about that one!

:: bpfc ::

it's here!!

the Blueberry Park Fabric Club!!

choose the size of your bundle from charm pieces up to full panels...

you can become a yearly member and receive additional discounts or spread the cost and pay month on month, either way you will receive significant discounts on regular panel prices.

go here for more details and to sign up. 

and tell all your friends about it...although not too many as i am keeping it small, exclusive and limited. after all if everyone has them, it won't be special any more will it?

i hope you will be as excited about it as i am and enjoy all the benefits of being a member of my club (i have a club!...i've always wanted to have my own club!)

introducing...

 the blueberry park fabric club!

i am very excited to tell you that my new fabric club will go live and ready to join later this week.

it is a club like no other...

:: choose your size ::

...from charm pack up to a full panel size.

:: choose how often ::

...join for a full year or month by month

:: unique hand printed unavailable-anywhere-else fabrics ::

i have taken all your comments on board and hopefully providing what you have asked for.

so what do you get for your money?

:: 2 designs a month :: 

...printed onto a carefully selected group of fabrics printed onto kona cottons

:: ideas sheet ::

...suggestions of what you can do with your special pieces of hand printed fabrics

:: mini project ::

...every issue comes with a mini project

all you need to do is purchase before the 10th of the month of that issue (blueberry park fabric club will be every 2 months, starting in january). there will be limited availability so do book early! if you want a special heads up email on release date to ensure you don't miss out, please leave your details here.

i hope you will be as excited as i am and look forward to telling you in full later in the week.

:: normal ::

another week, another set of projects...

it's amazing how much time you feel you have when things get back to normal. when i say normal i obviously don't mean normal, but rather back to routine. it's never normal round these parts.

having had our routine disrupted for 2 weeks worth of half term, i am always amazed by how much time i feel i have when the kids first go back to school.

without constant interruptions i have had a successful week getting through the long list of projects I am working on, all of which will be revealed in the up-coming weeks. I actually haven't finished any of them, but it has been fun having time to work on all of them.

a good productive happy week round these parts. no doubt next week will be back to the only normal i know about...normal mayhem.

hope whatever your normal is, it has been a good one. 

x

ps watch out for the middle of next week when one of these projects will be finished and be featured on a blog tour!

Blogger's Quilt Festival 2013...

 it's that time of year again.

the time when Amy inspires us all by running the blogger's quilt festival and when i get to catch up on all the amazing quilting that has been going on around blogland.

i love taking part in the festival, not because i have any delusions of winning, but to be a part of it.

to be honest i wasn't really sure which quilt to enter and then i realised i was actually impeded by the fact that this year i have started many quilts and finished very few so it was  more a case of what i actually could enter.

i have decided to enter my elephants love water in the baby quilt category.

as soon as i saw this fabric at the beginning of the year i knew i had to quilt something out of it (i am having the same feeling about the talented duo's new collection).

it is one of those collections that speaks volumes by itself s doesn't really need too much complicated piecing to make it look good.

i decided to make a wonky windmill kinda block pairing the umbrella prints with coordinating kona solids. i backed it in a simple solid red, again less was more.

i didn't have the right fabric in my stash for the binding. nothing was singing to me when i held fabrics up against the quilt top so it was down to the cellar to print a stripe.

perfect!

it is a simple quilt. it is a small quilt but i absolutely loved working with the umbrella prints fabric and was delighted when a reader loved it so much that they wanted to buy it. i wasn't so pleased to part with it, so i guess i will just have to purchase some floating world and make a substitution.

thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out what else is going on at the festival. x

i blame mrs e...

i blame nicky for this one.

she planted the seed in my head about green and how could i possibly not like green?

let's just get one thing straight however...

i'm not sure i ever actually said i didn't like green...just that i wasn't particularly drawn to it.

all that has changed however...

as long as it is the right shade of green and boy is fern the right shade of green.
i even managed to mix my own version of it today...i love it that much.

nicky has got me dreaming of this colour way now...damn you girl.

and the rest of you have her to thank as more green creeps into my work.

thank you all for your fantastic feedback on my soon to be fabric club...it really is invaluable. and if you haven't entered my giveaway yet where you have an opportunity to win some of my (green?) fabric please do. just go right here. x

:: molly's quilt ::

 i love quilt commissions. 

i love them because it gives me an excuse to make a quilt.

i love that people pay me to play with fabric.

it doesn't get much better than that does it?!

i also love quilt commissions because i love that other people come up with colour combos that i wouldn't necessarily be drawn to.

last week i had a quilt commission to make a quilt for molly's 1st birthday. 

all of molly's female relatives had clubbed together to buy her what will become an heirloom. how gorgeous an idea is that? not a plastic unnecessary toy in sight just a beautiful long lasting piece that i particularly am very proud to be part of.

even though i was working in a colourway that i wouldn't ordinarily do, i had a surprisingly good collection of fabrics in and only needed to top up a few which i found in the beautifully stocked Tikki.

i had only made my giant hexie quilt in my trademark teal grey and mustard before so it was a lovely refreshing change to make it up in something different.

i look forward to being paid to play some more.

(ps sorry about the blurry (atmospheric?) photographs...molly's aunt came to whisk the quilt away before i could take some decent shots...but you get the idea)

Guest Blogpost: Julie Ryan...

something a little bit special today...a guest blogpost!

please let me introduce the lovely Julie Ryan. Julie very kindly road tested my new Allotment Tote Bag Kit pattern. she has long since been a wonderfully supportive virtual friend and when she enthused about my new allotment design and suggested what i had been contemplating with it, a tote, i knew she was the girl for this job. it transpires that Julie was also an editor/proof reader in a former life so perfect for the job all round!

thank you so much for your enthusiasm Julie and road testing my latest pattern, and if like Julie you would like your own allotment tote bag you can purchase it here.

:::::::::

I’ve been a big fan of Karen’s screenprinted fabrics for a long time now, especially her geometric prints, so when she posted photos of her new Allotment print, I let out a squeal of delight. Teeny-tiny geometric bits, all in it together, patchwork-style?! My fabric-loving heart swooned!

I am also, it seems, going through a strange phase of tote-bag-obsession -- I suddenly want one for every possible occasion and see tote potential in every bit of fabric I see. (I’m not sure what’s up with that; I never even used to like totes at all.)

To have a lovely, made-by-me tote in Karen’s perfect Allotment print?! And in red, no less! (Another thing I never liked and now suddenly seem to want everywhere.) Eeep! I chose a sweet, girly lining to contrast Allotment and then a precious scrap of Cloud 9 Monsterz print for the inside pocket. I can’t tell you how happy this fabric combination made me - it came together like they were always meant to be!

The tote sews up like there's nothin’ to it - a perfect little instant-gratification project and I loved every bit of it. Now I get to carry my adorable bag around and make everyone jealous!

I'm everywheres: 

julie@button-button.co.uk

http://button-button.co.uk

http://twitter.com/gotthebutton

http://www.etsy.com/shop/littledorritandco

http://www.ravelry.com/stores/button-button

http://andstitches.blogspot.co.uk/