WIP Wednesday - Buzzing Along...

Happy hump day! I'm especially happy it's Wednesday already as I'm single parenting again this week (as I have been for one in every two weeks for the last few months - Mr Elven Garden is working interstate on a big, stressful, important engineering project.) As much as I'm used to him being away (A. Lot.) my wee babby (well 18 month old) has decided that sleep is not cool, and is waking heaps over night. And thinks 4am is a good time to play. So I'm really not coping quite as well as usual. Add to that my boys being little shits buggers  naughty things because they miss their Dad. So just a little bit over it. The dismal rainy day today isn't helping a whole lot either.

Ok enough of a whine. So what's my week been like since last Wednesday? On the sewing front, it's been goodish. 


I finished quilting this monster (sorry forgot to put up pics earlier!!)

All ready to be bound. Plus during the great fabric sort, I found the perfect pink and white stripe for binding (yay!!!) So now I'm just trying to keep motivated to finish the second one. Not loving making two quilts the same...


I started another project over the weekend - the Stained QAL. I've cut my fabrics (mammoth task) and put the first block together - on hold until I finish off both the commissioned quilts. It's such a great pattern that Sarah has designed, and I'm really looking forward to quilting it - it's going to be fun!

I've also made a really good start on my 4x5 bee blocks - should be finished off tonight. 

If you haven't already, you should head over to Lucy's blog - there's a great Stale Stash Swap happening...


WIP stats:

New projects: 2
Finished: 1 (secret project ;o) )

In progress: 5
* Swoon - completed 5/9 blocks
* Commissioned quilts - first quilt top nearly done done except binding, second one cut ready to assemble started putting together.
* Secret project Done
* Stained QAL 
* 4x5 Bee blocks
 
Long term WIPs: 3
* Outfoxed on the High Seas
* Fandango
* Pop garden
plus a few other abandoned projects that may never see the light of day again ;) 

Stale Stash Swap

The time has finally come for Lucy's Stale Stash Swap! After sorting and folding my fabric last week, I've come up with quite a pile of potential swap fabrics so get ready ;o) None of them are particularly nasty, either I accidentally got more than one piece of them, or I've fallen out of love with them. 

1. Royal City in Purple, 1001 Peeps by Lizzy House

I have a half-yard of this one so I can cut it for two people, or am happy to swap the whole thing for two FQs Swapped!

2. Frieda Frill (Michael Miller) - one FQ Swapped!

3. Peeps in Purple (1001 Peeps by Lizzy House)

half yard of this one too - so 2 FQs available Swapped!

4. Paisley party (Red Rooster Fabrics)

half yard of this one - so 2 FQs available 

5. Belle Paisley (Amy Butler's OOP Belle collection) washed

I have a metre of this, so 4 large FQs 

6. Metro Living (Robert Kaufman) - aqua

one FQ Swapped :o) I actually had a yard of this (who knew?) so I have one more FQ available :o)

7. Metro Living (Robert Kaufman) - surf Swapped :o) I actually had a yard of this one too so I have one more FQ available :o)

8. Poppy parade (Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet) washed

1 yard, so 4 FQs available   Swapped!

9. Raise the roof from Habitat by Jay McCarrol

2  1 FQ available

10. Pillow and maxfield (Michael Miller) washed

2 FQs available

My stash is sadly lacking in purple, red and pink, so they'd be great to swap for - but I will consider any fabric :oD

have fun swapping!

Give away Winner!!

I'm completely overwhelmed with the number of entries into the give away! 95 of you entered, so thank you for helping me celebrate my century of followers. Although that's been blown out of the water now anyway ;o) so it may be time for another give away sooner than I would have thought!

Mr Random has picked #15 (sorry I couldn't work out how to capture the image - might need some advice on that before the next one ;o) ) and because I'm completely technology un-savvy I also haven't managed to number my comments. So counting down the comments (d'oh!!) we have:

JessicaMar 13, 2012 02:20 AM

Yay Jess! It is a great feeling getting 100!
I couldn't say exactly what I would make but it would be patchworky!

Congrats Jessica, I'll send you an email now.

xx Jess

Another blogger bundle...

I couldn't resist making another bundle - this is one I would love to buy (amazingly I don't have any text prints in my stash!)

A texty little bundle:

1. Reunion (Sweetwater) daisys dates cherry, 2. Reunion (Sweetwater) daisys dates graphite, 3. Reunion (Sweetwater) noras news ink, 4. Hometown (Sweetwater)town news cream red, 5. Hometown (Sweetwater) town square cream red, 6. Hometown (Sweetwater) town square sky, 7. in the doghouse headliner black, 8. Annie's farm stand etched blossoms black, 9. Going coastal bottle caps multi, 10. Cosmo cricket typewriter red, 11. Punctuation alphabet toss blue, 12. Fine Lines color me check in natural

Since text prints are so popular at the moment, this would be a great stash-builder. There are some amazing bundles already entered in this competition, but I thought I'd give it another shot ;o)

Pink Castle Contest

Katy the ginger monkey (aka the pied piper of quilting - thanks Lynne for that one, love it!) is running a contest on her blog at the moment. The brief is to pick a selection of 12 fabrics from Brenda's store (Pink Castle Fabrics), make a mosaic, blog it and link up to Katy's blog.

So here is my bundle:

1. Hello Pilgrim Jewels in Purple Lizzy House, 2. Illusion in pink by Lizzy House, 3. Blockprint blossom in pink by Joel Dewberry, 4. Time for Tea Floral in Aqua Liz Scott Domestic Bliss for Moda, 5. Sea Garden in Ocean - Salt Air by Cosmo Cricket for Moda Fabrics, 6. Metro Living Lattice in Dusty Blue by Robert Kaufman, 7. Empire Weave in Garnet Heirloom by Joel Dewberry, 8. Hello Pilgrim Jewels in Turquoise Lizzy House, 9. Vintage Ironwork in Berry Secret Garden by Sandi Henderson, 10. Basketweave in Pink Magenta Dazzle by Melissa Averinos, 11. Daisy's Dates in Graphite Reunion by Sweetwater for Moda, 12. Mono Pez in Gray Pezzy Prints by American Jane for Moda

My inspiration for this was my daughter's favorite tunic top - shades of purple and aqua with a few pops of pink. The grey is there to mellow it out a bit (plus who can resist text prints and pez?!?) I think it would make a super pretty quilt. If I win (yeah, right!!) I would probably use them to make something using the Spring Carnival templates I got the other day :o).

PS - if you haven't already entered my giveaway, hurry up! It closes tomorrow night :o)

Stained QAL - a start

Ok so I'm a month and a half late to the party (middle of March already? Yikes!) but I've been so inspired by some of the Stained QAL tops popping up I pulled a bundle of fabrics out the other day and have spent this weekend stealing some cutting time. 

I should back track a little. Last weekend, I mananged to convince Mr Elven Garden that I really needed some shelves in our bedroom to stash my fabric. Surprisingly he agreed (:oD) and so this week I spent a LOT of time this week folding all my fabric (sort of using Jeni's tutorial) and putting it on my new shelves. It's been a bit of an eye opener for me (in a good way) to see exactly how much fabric I have. It's a bit ridiculous, and now the other half is commenting on our 'bedroom fabric shop'... hence I am actually on a fabric diet. For a while at least ;o)

It's mostly sorted by colour, but I couldn't bring myself to split up some of my collections - so Lizzy House has her own shelf and I've kept things like my Japanese linen, AMH, Heather Bailey, Saffron Craig etc together. It was also a great way to pick out some bits to list in Lucy's Stale Stash Swap this Tuesday :o). 

Anyhoo, back to the QAL (since this post was meant to be about that!!) When I was folding and sorting,  I kept coming back to an idea of using Saffron Craig's Magical Lands for the Stained quilt. I pulled a few other prints as well and came up with this little stack:

I've cut all the pieces (Sarah's instructions are amazing! It could have been a nightmare, but it totally wasn't.) and now I'm trying to decide on sashing colour. Some help here would be awesome ;o) I'm trying to decide between this one (Kona PFD):

And this one (Kona Hibiscus):

Or I do have enough black which might work... I'm really, really stuck on it. I love the purple, but I think the whitey one my help the colours pop more. Which would you choose? I need to make Just Wing It #2 first before I start cutting sashing anyway (so lots of time to try and decide...) but I'd really appreciate some input :o) 

xx Jess

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