FTLOS swap received SQUEEEE!

Oh my, what a happy, happy mail day I had today. I got home to a pile of (well, three) parcels on my doorstep - all tell tale flat rate envelopes from the United States. Now I was expecting two lots of fabric to turn up sometime, so I suspected the third was a swap item. Little did I know how awesome it would be.

I opened it up and found this package of total awesomeness....

I had been seriously hoping this little beauty was for me - and it is! It's even better in real life. And it was made by none other than Faith of Fresh Lemons. How lucky am I? I am so completely in love with it, it is perfect colours and so beautifully made. I just need to decide where to hang it... She sent me a lovely (huge) piece of deep purple solid fabric (not sure but I think it's Art Gallery solid - it has a very different hand to Kona, very soft and supple) and some dark grey Gutermann thread (which I recently ran out of, so that's perfect too!)

The other parcels are lovely, but how can they compare with such brilliant swap items? First was my bundle of Hello Pilgrim prints from Sew Fresh Fabrics. Despite my obsession with Lizzy House, I decided to just get some of the stripes (blue and orange), jewel prints (some of my favorite solid alternatives) and pearl bracelet in aqua and green. Plus there is a yard of Just Wing it there (the top one). 

And the third package was a bundle from Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop. I'm a sucker for a sale, and these were all 50% off so they were a total bargain. There's lots of Wrenly by Valorie Wells (which I'd been eyeing off for ages - especially love the bird print, so cute!) and Central Park by Kate Spain (my favorite of her lines) and a bit of Happy Mochi Yum Yum in pink, and some of the cathedral windows from Fly a Kite.

So awesome fabricy-goodness all around.

x Jess

For The Love of Solids Round 2

I finally got around to getting the thread I needed and finished off my For the Love of Solids swap big item. I'm pretty happy with how its come together, and I really hope my swap partner likes it!

My partner had requested stars in her swap info, and around the time this swap started Elizabeth Hartman had started her sparkle punch QAL, so I exhibited a total lack of imagination and went with a sparkle punch made from solids ;) I did make a small change, and used 2.5" squares instead of 3.5". The colours are based loosely on my partner's mosaic - I can't remember all of them but they include Kona wine, mulberry, lupine, lilac, berry, jade green and cyan (all from Sew Fresh Fabric on etsy) and the background is Kona coal.

I guess it could be hung as a mini-quilt (it measures about 19" x 30"), but I've sewn on some ties for it to be a sewing machine cover. My machine dimensions are bigger (so its a tight fit, and a bit short modelled on my machine) but I'm hoping it will be a perfect fit for my partner's machine :)

I've quilted it using a combination of machine and hand quilting - only because I am so insanely slow at hand quilting, it would have taken me weeks to get it finished!

All that remains is whether I make a small item or send something purchased (still not sure about this - but I am toying with making a matching thread catcher...)

Jess

WIP Wednesday - the one with a new obsession

I've had a fun week this week, trying a new-to-me technique: English paper piecing! I'm loving it, cos I can sit on the couch and sew and watch a bit of TV (Mr Elven Garden is working interstate at the moment, so I'm a bit tired most nights to sew on the machine.) I can only give you sneak peeks so far - this one is my mini quilt for the Modern Mini challenge:

And this is a secret project (so you won't be seeing any more of this one ;) )

Other that these new projects (I just can't help myself!!) I've finished off the quilting on my FTLOS project, and have made the binding so its ready to be finished finally. I've run out of thread though, so its waiting on me getting into the city to buy some more :)

I also finished and posted my Name Game swap mini quilt - and my partner has recieved it and likes it (so relieved - first swap and I was really nervous that she wouldn't like it...)

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced (no WIP stats this week - it will just depress me, what with the new projects and lack of finishes ;) )

xx Jess

WIP Wednesday: minis galore!

I've actually had my first finish for the year - and two more very near finishes this week. So its been a good de-stress week. I wasn't actually stressed precisely (I knew I had plenty of time to get them done) but didn't like the feeling of lots of projects with deadlines, and none of them done.

My finish was my Name Game swap mini quilt - I sent it today so I still can't show the name but this is it (please ignore my highly technical method of covering the name :p)

I really struggled with what to do for this one - my swap partner is into very country-style quilting (WAY out of my comfort zone!) so I was clueless as to what to do. I don't think I've mentioned that I'm doing the Curves Class over at Stitched in Colour? Well I am (uh, obviously now!) and the scalloped applique part was one of the projects from our first week - modified from a cushion into a smaller panel on my mini quilt. I used my Freebird by Momo fabrics (pretty, but not really my thing... the remaining ones might be a destash giveaway soon...), and actually quilted the name onto the mini. I wrote up how I did it - so you can check out my tutorial if you like (it may give away the name pretty well - but I'm positive she doesn't read my blog anyway!) It's not something I would usually make, but its a pretty little quilt.

I've made a fair bit of headway on my For the Love of Solids project as well. It's fully pieced and mostly quilted.

I was going to hand-quilt the entire thing - but at about 30" x 18" it was going to take forever (I'm VERY slow at hand-quilting!) so I've machine quilted around some of the stars, and I've started hand quilting the rest. Still not sure, but I think it will be a sewing machine cover rather than mini quilt.

I've made another swoon block as well - five down, four to go. I'm kind of enjoying the sporadic-ness of making these blocks, but another part of me wants to buckle down and get them done - I can't wait to see how they all look together.

I put together another mini quilt as well - which I am in the process of hand stitching the binding on. I'm doing the 4x5 bee, and I've chosen to make snail trail blocks. One of our hive members has asked for rainbow colours with dark grey, so these blocks were an experiment to see if it worked (plus its going to be a present for my mum).

Stats for this week:

Finished: 1 - yay!!
New projects: 2

In progress:
Swoon - another block done

No progress:
* High seas
* Pop garden
* Fandango
* Commissioned quilts (2) - waiting on fabric

Hope everyone has had a great week - I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced

xx Jess

WIP Wednesday: Stars in my eyes

After last week's stuck-in-bed sickness I am really, really glad to have my sewing mojo back. I tried on Sunday but still felt really flat, so it's been nice over the last couple of days to feel well enough to get some things done.

I finished my third Swoon block. This is all three of what I have so far:

I'm pretty happy with how they're going, although there have been a couple of great threads on working with large-scale prints which would have been brilliant to have read before making the centre block... I might possibly redo the big points, but I'll wait and see. I don't hate it, but it bugs me that the stripes don't align in all of them...

I've also started working on my partner's item for For the Love of Solids swap. I'm hoping she'll like it - she's a bit of a silent partner, so I'm working with what's in her mosaic and form. Here's what I have so far:

She asked for stars and her mosaic had similar colours to these (teals and purples, and wine-reds) so hopefully she'll like it. I'm (obviously) using the Sparkle Punch quilt along as inspiration - but I've made my squares 2.5" instead of 3.5" so I can fit more into the space I need to fill. At this stage I'm thinking a sewing machine cover, and I think I'll hand-quilt around the stars... It's a bit over half-way there size-wise.

WIP stats:

* New projects: 1
* Finished: 0
* In progress: 8 (I think...)

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday and Fabric Tuesday

xx Jess