fabric love

A bit of retail therapy to brighten up a wintery day

Fabrics from MarilynsPatchwork in England - the postage to NZ was unbelievable!

But  . . . the fabrics are gorgeous

a long quarter - that's all that was left - of 'peony & butterfly'

from Philip Jacobs "snow leopard designs"

a 'classic floral shirley poppies', another new one from Philip Jacobs "snow leopard designs"

and a vintage 'special' 

which will be perfect with those HST's I've beeen making.

#fabriclove

sew stitch snap SHARE #9

Hello again, time for another fortnightly 'Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE' linkup

First up, what's happening in the sewing room here?

Well, I've been faffing around with some improv borders for my 'florabunda' quilt, wasting time busy trying out lots of options. And, I think I'm getting there. Loving the Kaffe stripe, it seems to keep my eye moving around. The next border I decided on was simply to use one bright feature fabric along with lots of neutral fabrics, and I kept the same size flying geese for this border, to help with design continuity. 

- a bit of improv touch & go at the corners!

All ready now for basting & quilting. And, rather timely, I see Angela Walters has new blog series called 'deciding what to quilt'  - it looks very interesting, see here for lots of practical tips, pics and inspiration.

There were lots of inspiring projects shared last time too.

What really interested me was how Kaja from sewslowly
is progressing with her latest WiP. 

She starts out with a fabric pull, and a little seed of an idea, and away she goes.

Love the colours she is using,
they remind me of days gone by, of vintage tea dresses and garden parties!

Pop on over here to read more as she shares her improv journey with us.

And what are you working on right now?

Whatever you're sewing or stitching, you can link it up here.

Just follow these simple guidelines:

1. Link up from any post from the past week that features something you have been sewing or stitching. You can write as much or as little about your project as you like, or simply let your photos do the talking.
2. Somewhere in your post, please link back to this post.

3. Please comment on a couple of the other Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE links - its fun to receive comments from new people, and we are trying to encourage people to read blogs and to keep blogging. Hope you find some new inspiration too!

Thanks for joining us again, we can't wait to see what you have all been creating
Julie & Linda

florabunda

Thanks so much for all your helpful comments about my 'florabunda' quilt. The deciding factor in my setting & border decisions was design - no, no, it was which fabric do I have enough of left!

Loving these dense clusters of starflower blocks, using simple shapes & random colour surprises. Such a fun way to use up some of my large scale florals.

It's all coming together nicely now . . .

- the Kaffe Marquee stripe was an afterthought late this afternoon!

 I found heaps of ways to create variety by playing with the value placements in each block.

I'm using Amy from diaryofaquilter size chart for cutting these 'sawtooth star' blocks
{you can find it here}

. . . onto the next border now!

Linking up with Myra here at busyhandsquilts for 'finished or not friday'

and with Cynthia for 'oh scrap' over here

florabunda mish-mash

A few more to add to my 'florabunda' mish-mash collection 

Time to start joining these blocks with stitches instead of using picasa camera collage!

And I guess I should explain . . .
I had this idea to make up a whole lot of blocks, easily recognisable, using just my stash
and with really random fabric choices that played with the value placements in each block.
It's certainly taken my traditional background to another level

#1 sidebyside, alternating light/dark a bit, original idea
* EDIT : with AMH border maybe

However, I seem to be more indecisive than usual and, as you can see,
there's lots of options . . .

#2 onpoint & going for more of an overall merging look

#3 going mad with plaid

What's a girl to do?

'florabunda' {a WiP}

The days of July have just flown by, and it's still wet, and it's still windy here. I'm kinda happy when it rains though, nothing nicer than staying at home & sewing on these really yukky wintery days.
My time this weekend was divided between making up more blocks, and *cutting up more scraps, for making up more blocks. Loving these dense clusters of flower blocks - who knew I had so many floral fabrics in my stash!

 Simple shapes & random colour surprises,

like this block using a little bit of Kaffe, Liberty, 'wild & free' from maureen c and a solid . . . 

Always interesting to check things out with a b&w pic . . .

and this is how it's looking in colour so far . . .

I stumbled across this quote on IG recently -

* "There's a great satisfaction in seeing a thing take shape and form under one's hands. 

Especially if they are made from oddments into something worthwhile."

~ Nella Last, 1945

For more progress pics . . . watch this space and over here on instagram too

Linking up with Cynthia for 'oh scrap' here

sew stitch snap SHARE #8

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Here in NZ we are about 1/3 way through winter. It's been wet, and windy, and cold, we've had our fire going 24/7 these past few days. Finally saw the sun briefly over the weekend, but it's gone again now! I popped up to the village this morning though, and brought back a little bit of happy colour with me . . .

I'm slowly adding to my scrappy mish-mash collection of 'sawtooth star' blocks
Loving these simple shapes & lots of random colour surprises . . .

and a couple more . . .

That's all from me at the moment,

time now for another fortnightly 'Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE' linkup

There were lots of inspiring projects shared last time around.

These 'smitten' blocks made by Rose from somethingrosemade caught my eye
- there's some cute fussy cutting if you look closely.

I think Rose has great taste and mixes her colours well, scroll through her posts
to see heaps more

And what are you working on right now?

Whatever you're sewing or stitching, you can link it up here.

Just follow these simple guidelines:

1. Link up from any post from the past week that features something you have been sewing or stitching. You can write as much or as little about your project as you like, or simply let your photos do the talking.
2. Somewhere in your post, please link back to this post.

3. Please comment on a couple of the other Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE links - its fun to receive comments from new people, and we are trying to encourage people to read blogs and to keep blogging. Hope you find some new inspiration too!

Thanks for joining us again, we can't wait to see what you have all been creating
Julie & Linda

having another go

Last week I was busy trying to blend a great mish-mash of colour together
and went right off track {you can read all about that here!}

And this weekend I'm having another go, just before I tidy all those scrappy fabrics away 

I'm using a free tutorial for these 10" sawtooth star blocks.
Amy from diaryofaquilter has made a great size chart for cutting these blocks here
- you can make them as little as 4" x 4" right up to 20" x 20"
My plan is to set them block to block - sans sashing this time!

. . . ah, now this is a bit more like what I had in mind!
and last week's version will do nicely as a donation quilt I'm sure.
Linking up with Cynthia here for 'oh scrap'
- if you love scrappy projects like me pop on over for a look