.: Me and My Sister class! :.

I recently went to an awesome class at Patches Indooroopilly.  It was with Barb and Mary from Me and My Sister Designs.  My class was the Slice of Cake 2 pattern - I've finished 11 blocks now, and am thinking of sewing a few more and including them in my girls' quilts rather than making them into their own quilt.  

It was a really fun day, with LOTS of fun giveaways thanks to Moda, Di Mill (a Moda rep in Australia, and the wonderful lady who coordinated Barb and Mary's trip) and Barb and Mary.  I won a gorgeous FQ bundle, and we all came away with at least two extra patterns.  I've already made a little something from the Buttons Jars pattern (pic below of Barb and Mary's cute Buttons Jar quilt), but can't share it yet as it's a secret pressie!

I went along to Barb and Mary's trunk show as well, and it was a lot of fun.  It was great to hear the stories behind their happy + gorgeous quilts, and to share in a lovely evening of quilt-love, snacks and champagne and even more prizes.

Barb and Mary have already blogged about their Australian adventures here and here - click through and have a read (and click here for a pic of me and Peta in the class, wahoo!).

Here's a pic of the bundle I won, the patterns and the sweetest little beaded scissor-charm we each got to make during the class.

{too cute, I say!}

And now I will leave you to scroll through all the rest of the blocks I've made so far.  I had to fussy-cut all the tiny centres - because I'm incapable of NOT fussy-cutting all the tiny centres ;-)  Please sing out if you'd like to know any fabric details from any of the blocks I've made, and I'll let you know, in the comments or by email.

Too much fun, do you agree?  Me too.  Happy weekend to you all.  xoxo cat

.: time doesn't just fly, it zooms :.

So time flies, doesn't it?  Really super fast and without stopping.  It's over a month since we've been in this space, and there's so much to catch you up on, but for today, here's some sweet kittens from Elizabeth Hartman's 'The Kittens' pattern.

They're really cute, aren't they? - I love this pattern.  In fact, I love all Elizabeth's patterns - they are really fun and incredibly clear and well written.

I'm going to try Elizabeth's rabbit pattern next - though before that, I need to sew up a giraffe to go with the orange kitty - all will be revealed on that little project in the next week or so.  The red kitten will become a little doll-mini for my youngest.

And seriously, how cute are the tiny pandas! - they're by Alexia Abegg, from her latest range with Cotton + Steel, called Paper Bandanas.

OK back to time going fast and all that.  Hope you've had a great weekend.  xoxo cat

.: catching up on bee blocks :.

Term 2 was some kind of crazy frenzy for us, so I fell a little behind on my bee blocks - this is really rare, as I hate being late for anything, ever.  So I spent Monday - the first official day of the school holidays - sewing up my bee blocks. 

For our Care Circle of doGoodStitches, Leanne asked for polka-dot quarter-circles (for May! ...), and emailed us all a template she had created in EQ7.  The polka-dot background could be any polka-dots, any colours.  And the quarter-circles had to be any-colour solids. 

Leanne also had July for our Care Circle (June was a rest-month, thankfully, otherwise I'd be sharing June blocks with you now too!).  These scrappy plus blocks are from this tutorial on the Bernina website, by Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts.  How cute will both these quilts be?!

And last up are Ocean Waves blocks for Rachel, for our Sew Sisters bee (which is made up of some of the girls from our Care Circle).  Rachel is currently working her way through making all the quilts in Denyse Schmidt's wonderful Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration - there's an awesome #quiltthebook hashtag going on on Instagram.  Rachel has already made + received quite a few blocks, and the quilt is looking fabulous already. 

OK so that's me caught up until our next Care Circle month in August, and whoever is up next in our Sew Sisters bee for August/September.  Next on my list is finishing my Riley Blake challenge quilt for the MQG's latest fabric challenge.  xoxo cat