Block of the month, number 1

This week, I have done nothing.  Apart from swelter...  

I spent the week vising my sister-in-law in Mozambique, during the hot, wet season (summer's not really the right word for it, winter doesn't really get very much colder, just drier).  So in anticipation of my bi-weekly quilting meet at the Aldington Corner Quilters, I have finally got round to doing the first block in our BOTM series.  It's an interesting one, definitely.  They are being designed by my very good friend Julie Coney, and everyone else managed to do it for the last meeting, but I never got round to asking her for the pattern - there weren't quite enough printouts, so she promised to email it.  Guess who never remembered to send it or ask for it??  So I asked tonight and finally sat down to do some sewing after a good hour trying to sort my room out after getting it into a blooming good mess these last 2 weeks.

 

So I cut out all my pieces.  Very carefully, because I'd been told there are some corners to keep sharp.  I'm not usually that good at sharp corners, but something about the way Julie says it makes me very careful.  Or is it that she would kill me if it turned out badly? hehe.

But it didn't!  Here it is!  Hopefully I have enough fabric of the right colours and matching ones to make a nice quilt....

  

 And now to do something with my random pack of squares that I won from Quilty Magee...  I've found some great solids and a couple of other patterns to add to it to make something.  No idea what still, but at least I'm getting there with thinking about it now...  Watch this space!

Babies babies babies...

This month has been all about babies.  Unfortunately not mine.  Still trying for ours, but at least I get to cuddle other peoples' a lot at the moment.

I am making 2 baby quilts at the moment.  The first is practically finished - I just need to tie a few threads in and it's done.  It's a panel piece I bought from Kathy's Patch in Folkestone (I think it was their last one, I'd been deliberating for a little while about whether I had a reason to buy it).

It's a surprise quilt for a friend who had her baby a few weeks ago.  I won't say who, in case she reads this blog!!  I had great fun quilting around the animals - such a quick project!!!  I started it a few weeks ago and got most of it done in a day.  Of course, then it became a UFO sitting there waiting to be bound.  But that's just how I roll!

The second one is a design project (my first, actually) for my boss.  She's due next week and doesn't know if she's having a boy or girl, so she said that they have been buying things from the Babies R Us range of Olive and Henri... 

So, I decided to try and match the fabric colours and design my own, as it's cheating (and probably more expensive) to buy the real thing.

This is the sketch I came up with.... (can you tell that drawing really isn't my skill?)

I cut it out of paper first, then tried curvy piecing for the first time.  It worked pretty well I thought!

I decided the cream background needed to have different textures on it, so I found some satin and some velvet to go either side of the cotton.  I also found some water-like fabric which was perfect for the pond and a fat quarter of frogs, again from Kathy's Patch.  Some Spraytime green fabric, spotty green and a random bit of darker green from my stash and we have a background!  The green velvet I put on the sketch will probably be used in one of the tree bubbles I think.

 I have also been doing little projects, like this one here.  A sketch book case for my lovely husband, also out of scraps.

 

We had some great friends come round the other week too, partly to visit and partly so that our friend Chris Targett could continue to paint onto our kitchen wall.  We gave him a brief that went something like 'make it pretty', and this is what he came up with...  It's been work in progress for at least a year, but each time he comes round he adds some colour or definition somewhere.  It's all personal to us, designed around our tastes and our friends (that's who are on the picnic blanket...) and I have to say I couldn't have come up with anything more perfect if I tried!!

And finally, this is the dog that can sleep anywhere, as long as a quilt or duvet are involved.....

Linked up with the UFO Sunday blog with Leah Day...