.: WIP Wednesday - Cotton + Steel Mini Quilt Swap progress :.

Wahoo! - I'm finally back onto sewing my Cotton + Steel Mini Swap - the pieces have been cut and ready to roll for a few weeks, but have taken a back seat while I continue on with bee blocks and blocks for my girls' quilts.

I don't want to say too much yet about the reasons I've chosen these particular colours and the Mini Dwell pattern for this swap - as it's all very secret squirrel until it's been received.  :-)

There are 27 different Cotton + Steel fabrics so far in this mini - in fact, it'll probably stay at around 27 total, since I'm planning to sash with a mix of the low volumes I've already used.  At this stage, I'm thinking the binding will be scrappy.

I do love all the mini houses, but I think my favourite is the purple house in the middle, with the green rabbit in the doorway.

Linking up - for the second week in a row! - with Lee's WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  Hope you've been getting plenty of making done so far this week too.  xoxo cat

.: weekend sewing :.

I haven't shared bee blocks for ages, so thought I'd share these happy Lady of the Lake blocks I made over the weekend for Leanne.

Our doGoodStitches Care Circle has a little side-bee going on - the 'Sew Sisters' - and we have two months rather than just one, to make blocks.

Leanne asked for her blocks to include pink, lime, orange (wahoo, my favourite colour combo!), plus red, aqua and yellow.  I snuck in a few tiny fussy cuts.

These blocks were fun to make, and much quicker than the post-block fabric-mountain fold-and-tidy-up!   I sewed them up while watching Season One of 'Little House on the Prairie' with my youngest - she'd never seen it before and was completely taken by the Ingalls and their life in Walnut Creek :-)

I sewed up another couple of words blocks for my girls' quilts, again using the fantastic Moda Spell it with Fabric letter patterns.  Both my girls are huge readers and are rarely without a book tucked under their arm.



For the Moda letters, I cut each block out completely and then pop all the pieces inside the relevant page in the pattern book - and then flip through the book and sew the blocks in alphabetical order.   Once the letters are finished, I sew a one-inch-cut strip to the right-side of each letter (unless it's not needed), before adding it to the next letter.

Since this word was 'read', I made sure to use text-fabrics for all the backgrounds.

I couldn't help a bit of fussy-cutting from the wonderful Carrie Bloomston's Collage text-print for the A's.

And I liked the effect created from fussy-cutting the 'flower stripes' from Melody Miller's Ruby Star Polka Dot handbags.

Hope you found some time to sew over the weekend.  xoxo cat 

.: WIP Wednesday - quilt-accountability :.

I've been making blocks for my girls' quilts AND for my + the husband's quilt for an embarrassingly long time.

So long in fact, that my girls' tastes in fabrics and blocks have matured and changed - what's with kids growing up?! - and as well as sewing my own blocks, I've also now asked for blocks for our quilt from not one but TWO bees, stretching over two years ... oh yes, all three quilts have been several YEARS in the making.

The pics below are all of the DFTBA (from the Vlogbrothers' Don't Forget To Be Awesome tagline - if you haven't heard of them, make a cup of tea and click through for a little watch of some of their You Tube videos, they're very awesome) and 'sleep' blocks I made during the holidays.

It's time to finish these quilts!  I'm so very close with all three quilts - I need to make three more words each for the girls - then add them to the various houses, stars, churn dashes, log cabins and x+ blocks that are ready to roll.  Layout is going to take an age - and then I know filler-blocks will have to be made - but I'm so close!

I've been calling the girls' quilts The Blue and Yellow, and The Green and Purple - but now they're The Blue, Yellow, Red and Purple (The BYRP), and The Green, Purple and Blue (The GPB), since we've had a bit of movement in the favourite-colour stakes.

Our quilt is to be a random mix of words, x+'s, houses - plus every random, orphan block I've ever made is going to make its way into it - two Lori Holt bras are in the block-pile, a couple of pairs of Penny's undies, oh look, the block-pile is random and varied.  And they're all just going to magically work together when it comes time to lay them all out, I promise you.  I can't wait actually, I know it's going to look very awesome, somehow.

I should say a little something just about these blocks you're having to look at.  They're the Moda 'Spell it with Fabric' letter patterns, which are fabulous and so straightforward and fast to make.  The purple DFTBA and green sleep are for my older daughter's GPB quilt.  And the blue DFTBA and purple sleep are for my younger daughter's BYRP quilt.  I've quite liked making the backgrounds pretty much the same for each word block - so the girls' will have 'matching' words in their quilts.

Part of the reason these quilts are taking me forever, is my fussy-cutting obsession and consequent inability to just cut fabric into strips and sew it back together.  I have this real need to fussy-cut wherever possible, and struggle with just using fabric 'normally' - I see it as a bit of a wasted opportunity to let the fabric shine - unless of course it's not a fussy-cutting kind of fabric.  And I know my aesthetic is WAY too busy and too colourful for a lot of people, but that's ok - we can't all make and like the exact same kind of quilts because that would be odd, boring and no fun at all.

I also like to squeeze a bit of meaning into my quilts where possible - so I do hope you've noticed the sleeping girl in the 'L' backgrounds, the reading girls in one of the 'E' backgrounds, and that I've specifically chosen 'love', 'happy' and 'dream' for the other 'E' backgrounds.  The thing is - I notice, and that's enough!

Let's just see how long it is before I'm back sharing more blocks for these three quilts ... surely not too long ... though now that school's back, I need to get back on track with my doGoodStitches and bee blocks, plus finish my Cotton+Steel mini swap.

Linking up - for the very first time! - with Lee's WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  Enjoy the rest of your week everyone.  xoxo cat

.: Cotton + Steel Giant Vintage Star quilt - wahoo! :.

Another quilt finished! - this is my Cotton + Steel Giant Vintage Star quilt, made from the super quick and straightforward tutorial by Jeni Baker.



I made it for two reasons - one, because I loved all the Giant Vintage Stars I've seen all over the internet, and two, to use a few of the Cotton + Steel fat quarters that I've been slowly accumulating thanks to the Pink Castle Cotton + Steel club.



The star is all made of Cotton + Steel fabrics, and the background is made from different favourite low volume fabrics - with just the sweet blue C + S tigers sneaking in on the bottom right - I just realised there's a whole little cat line-up going on there too, with Lizzy House's Catnap cats, and C+S lions and tigers, oh my.



I took the quilt with us down to Lennox Head for a few days, so I could do a little binding by the beach.

I even finished the binding in time to take a few photos on the beach on Saturday afternoon - but the steady easterly and late afternoon sun meant that they were not quite the relaxed, arty, beachy quilt pics I was hoping for - so we quickly took a few more in the backyard this afternoon. 

These next two pics came out great, since the quilt was safely folded and not snapping in the wind like a sail, ready to take off over the water.

I pieced the back out of a few more favourite low volume fabrics.

The binding is the same Dear Stella navy confetti print I used on my Bob Box. 

Kelly from The Quilt Machine did the quilting, and chose a really great edge-to-edge design that really complements the quilt, I love it. 

I'll definitely make another Giant Vintage Star - it's such a great pattern for highlighting some favourite fabrics - both in the star and background - and it sews together so very quickly.  I think next time I'll add a border to make it just a little bigger for a single bed.  This one is already living happily on the lounge.

Back to school for everyone in Queensland today.  Hope you've had a relaxing school holiday, and are ready for an awesome week.  xoxo cat

.: My QuiltCon finish! - the Love Machine Sewing Organiser :.

So I went to QuiltCon last month - there are five posts in our March archives if you'd like to go take a look.  :-) There's one last post I've still to write - about all the people I met - I have high hopes for that to happen during the school hols.

But for today! - today, with much excitement, I'm sharing the Sewing Machine Organiser I started during Penny Layman's wonderful workshop - the only workshop I took while in Austin.

How fun is it!?  I had such trouble choosing fabrics for it - since I had to choose them and actually commit to them, then pack them in my suitcase and stay committed to them!  Usually when I'm sewing, I'm constantly back and forth to my fabric cupboard, swapping and changing as I keep thinking of 'just the right fabric'.  But - I wouldn't have changed a single fabric for my organiser, I can't tell you how much I love love love it!

I'm calling it the 'Love Machine' - since I've used Amy's 'Letters of L-O-V-E' fabric for the machine itself.  The pink is a Timeless Treasures sketch, and the grey is from Emma Jean Jansen's 'Terra Australis'.  The orange and white control panels are from Carolyn Friedlander's 'Botanics'.  The background is Pam Kitty Morning's white on white 'Picnic'. And the spool?

The spool would be a fussy-cut from Monica Solorio-Snow's 'Sew Yummy' - I took a big piece with me, so I could fussy-cut just the right spool.  I met fabulous Monica in the lift at our hotel in Austin, and saw her a few times at QuiltCon - and so wish I had more time to talk with her and take a pic too, but it didn't happen!

The pockets are Aunty Cookie - I am going to be so very sad when my stash of Aunty Cookie finally runs out!  Penny's pattern calls for a 'scissor plaque', where I've instead made a little pocket for teeny things (with the Clover clip up there) - and I also didn't do the sweet sashiko-stitching to label all the little pockets - but I figured the busyness of the Cookies meant I didn't need to do any extra stitching.  The little scissor-strip is Prints Charming - a print I picked up from Danielle in a destash.   The binding is also Prints Charming - lime starburst - and the blue/white background is a Lu Summers cross-hatch from her 'Summersville' line with Moda.

For the back I used a selvedge print from Spotlight.

Here is Penny's organiser from her book - she had it hanging in the class, and it was awesome to see it in person.

And here is Penny's book - it's truly wonderful- there are so many cute and fun projects in it.

And oh! - here are me and Penny!  I can't tell you what a treat it was to meet Penny. I've long admired her paper-piecing patterns and blog, and through our little chats on instagram and email, thought she seemed like a really lovely person.  Well, let me tell you, she's absolutely gorgeous in person - it was such a huge treat to met her and get to chat with her a bit.  Her husband Lenny was at QuiltCon too, so it was lovely to meet him too.

Looking at that photo makes me a little teary, as it reminds me of just how amazing QuiltCon was.  It also reminds me that I was sewing that sewing-machine block right up til the very last second of the workshop - I was so determined to get it finished!  Penny's class was really awesome - she is a fantastic teacher and made sure each person knew what they were doing and stayed on track - there were a few ladies who had never paper-pieced before, and I think each of them finished their sewing-machine block during the class - amazing!  Here's a pic of our class (that I took from Penny's blog post).

It was so fun.  Hope you all have a great weekend.  xoxo cat