Woosh!

Got myself motivated.  Cleared the decks as best as possible, given the limited amount of space I already have (most of which are books!).

Finally got this off the wall, put borders on and its now on a hangar until I find time to baste and quilt it.

Then thought - what the heck - pulled out the red and white blocks bin .

Et voila!

Hmmmm.  Not too sure about that block second from the left, second row down.  My eye tends to go to it straight away.  Will have to find one a bit less bright.

See ya!

I wonder .......

.......... if this is the reason I cannot get any inspiration to sew?

Complete chaos does not inspire my muse, but I did wake up this morning planning the quilt for my niece.

The Young One starts Lycée on Wednesday afternoon.  We will take her there at about 5.00 pm, hand over a fortune for her text books for the coming year, and pick her up again on Friday evening.  The following week we shall deliver her to the door at 8.00 am on Monday morning and won't see her again until Friday evening.

Although I shall probably spend next week in floods of tears, it does mean that finally fnally finally, I may just be able to sort this mess out and start sewing.

On the other hand, I might just give up completely and give in to the mess:

See you soon.

Winning the Lottery

The fabric fairy came to visit last Saturday.

She bought these all the way from the US

Lots of different colours, all based on the same theme.

The same day she delivered this lot.

I love this one.

and these two are great!

The bottom one is perfect in a quilt for a little girl who has recently joined our family.

And oh my goodness!  Look what the postman delivered today.

j.m.b. was having a give-away to celebrate 4 years of blogging.  I won "west".  I love it!  It's going to hang  with the other mini's I've won or been given over the years.

Other than that, not a lot going on.  Still far too hot to sew and guests crawling out of, or back into, the woodwork.

I promise I'll post again soon, hopefully with some more quilty pictures.

See ya!

Losing the plot

I haven't done any more hexagons.

I lost patience and there is too much going on here to even think about quilting.

At this precise moment in time I would love to sit down at the kitchen table and quilt, but it's covered in left over cheese, bread, glasses of wine, not to mention mobile phones, iPods, digital cameras, usb leads and my house isn't my own!

Hopefully another week to go and then all will be back to normal

Please Do Not Adjust Your Set

Interference noises.

Screen flicker.

Black and white lines across screen.

I know - bizarre isn't it!  Me of all people!

Wordless Wednesday

Washed, Ironed and Stacked

but not sorted!

 Some of  of the fabrics went a bit blotchy, but there were no disasters.

Thanks for all your advice via comments and emails.

Pre-Wash Quandry

All the stash building I've been doing since May and I haven't washed anything yet.  Except the vide grenier fabrics which always get washed as they smell musty.

Now I'm building up enough for my new niece's quilt, I really do need to get piecing (more on that soon).

In the meantime, the days are hot and are ideal for washing and hanging the fabrics on the line.

Trouble is, I'm not at all sure how to go about it.  So I'm going to show you photos of what needs washing and ask you to tell me what should be washed with what.

Ready?

First off is this lot.  I'm going to split the darks from the lights and add to piles from ....

.... this lot.

Again, split the lights from the darks and split again, making a glorious pile of pink fabric!

However, the next photo is the problem.

The solids I can sort.  No problem. Apart from not wanting to untie them from their oh so pretty piles.

It's the batiks.  It says on the label "hand wash only".  The fabric is quite thick and I think will withstand a quick 30° wash.  I'll split them up into lights and darks, but am worried that they will run and I'll loose the pattern.

I'd take a chance, but the fabrics are so gorgeous I am dreading it!

Most of the pinks are going into my niece's quilt, which will get A LOT of washing.

Should I chance it?

Answers on a postcard please!

Next post will be photo of photo of proposed quilt.  I love it!

Sorry -  meant to mention I have loads of Color Catchers.

Mind in freefall

but there is something going on (occasionally).

I'm not at all sure where this one is going.  It's either going to V for her Bumblebeans Basics (see sidebar), in which case I'll add borders and just send her the top, or I'll quilt it, make another one and send them both to twins in the UK who were diagnosed with Leukaemia late last year.

I fianlly persuaded myself to attack the crumbs bins the other day and started  making another crumbs quilt.

From very small beginnings!

And to round off this post - last night's sunset!

 More soon.

Wordless Wednesday

The day Viv and I went shopping .....

....... I bought

A lovely book by Susan Briscoe full of lots of lovely tips and great ideas and some gorgeous FQ's.  (Actually I didn't buy the book with her.  I got it the next day;)

Some ric rac, pale lilac solid and some lovely fabric for my new niece's quilt. The rotary cutter I got the next day too.

We went round all the charity shops looking for bargains.  Viv got some lovely corduroy.  She's making a corduroy quilt à la Gee's Bend and she also got the bargain of the year.  She found this http://tinyurl.com/2arqm3g for the princely sum of £1.50.  I had to content myself with the Katherine Guerrier book for £1.00.  it's got some good ideas for colour combinations.

However, I did manage to get these lovely FQ's with a ric rac design before she did!  She was busy buying up the whole stock of ric rac LOL!

 I just love those FQ's together.  The colours are amazing.

And I just had to have that blue spotted batik and, of course, the spider web fabric.

Thanks for a brilliant day Viv.  Did you tell your Mother I'm not a mad axe killer!

Playing at being David Bailey!

A Panasonic Lumix DMCTZ10.  The most amazing camera

with a zoom that is awesome.

Will be back soon.