Present Heaven

Today is my birthday.  And I have such wonderful friends, who know exactly what to buy me.  Here are some of the gifts I recieved;

And look at these beautiful books...

Perfect reading for these cold autumnal evenings.  I can't wait to get started.

I am one lucky girl!  xxx

A Basket for Baby

The hand quilting of my Trade Winds quilt continues.  It's taking a while, but these things can't be rushed.  So apart from that, there is not much sewing news to report.

But there have been a few other 'makes' of a different kind, including this basket of gifts that my friend Suzy and I put together for our friend Emma's baby shower.







We decided on a 'mum to be' theme and the basket was filled with treats such as bubble bath, chocolate, eye gel, moisturiser, bath bubbles and a craft magazine.  As if there will be time to read the magazine once the baby comes!  Oh and she has a nearly 3 year old too, so I think making things will be on the back burner for a while!

In other news, my daughter has to complete a page of a scrapbook for preschool every weekend.  And it was my job to help (ok, do) the front cover.

And the back cover too.

 

 

It's just as well I covered it in stiky back plastic.  Because I stupidly put it on the roof of the car in the school car park and drove off.  After 2 hours I realised and thought it was going to be lost forever.  Panic ensued and following a frantic return to the school, someone had very kindly rescued it and put it in my daughters's tray.  Some of the empty pages had tire marks on them - it had clearly been driven over, but thankfully it was nothing too serious.  Phew!!  Lesson learnt - never put anything on the roof of the car, not even for a minute!!  

Rainbows

Today is a big day for my daugher, as she has started at pre-school.  Just an introductionary morning session to start with, and then another on Friday, before starting full time on Monday.  (Tomorrow is the International Air Display and all the schools on the island are closed).

 

So what better way to mark the occasion than to make some bunting go in the classroom.

 

 

And would you believe it, guess what I saw on the way home from dropping her off...

I'm taking it as a good sign; hopefully if she works hard, she will one day earn a pot of gold!

Some hand quilting, an exhibition and a mini make

Well a week has flown by and I have been so busy making almost every night, that apart from reading blogs, I have hardly had a chance to blog myself!

 

 

 

 

But lots to share with you, starting off with a sneak peak of some hand quilting of my quilt using the Trade Winds collection...

 

 

 

I also wanted to share with you a handful of pictures of some quilts that I saw at an exhibition...yes, a quilt exhibition came to Jersey -hooray, we aren't a quilting wilderness after all!!

 

 

The small but perfectly formed exhibition was a collection of Welsh Quilts.  For more details you can see this link http://artscentre.je/event/antique-welsh-quilts-exhibition/ and here are some pictures...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is my favourite, an English Paper pieced quilt, made up of 17,600 hexagons!  It must have been a lifetime's work.

 

Some close up's so you can see better...

Amazing!

Thank you to my lovely friend Emma for the photos, and for a peaceful afternoon of quilts, coffee, cake and most importantly, no children!

Now for a mini make to share with you.  I had one teeny tiny scrap of the Little Red Riding Hood character left, so I just had to make myself a little pincushion. 

 

 

 

 

And last but not least, this weekend I purchased this darling little basket.  I can now move my little projects around the house and go to craft club with all my essentials in style. 

 

 

This basket was the bargain of the weekend :-)

 

In other news, we have had a lovely day today enjoying the sunshine out and about in Jersey.  Here are a couple of my favourite shots of the afternoon.

 

The harbour at Gorey

 

 

Mont Orguile Castle at Gorey

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, look who lives up the road from us...

Aren't they just soooo cute!!  (But a little too thin perhaps??)

I hope you all had a great weekend too  :-)



Fresh Sewing Day

So here we are again, the first of the month, and as always I feel that everyone else has made so many more things than me - not sure why this happens because I sew almost every night??!  I do have one small finished project that I can't show you till next month, and I have been doing lots of (time-consuming) hand quilting, as well as being away for a long weekend, so that's my excuse for my small number of finishes.  I'm telling myself it's quality, not quantity!

Here they are:

Top Left: Hand quilted baby quilt for my friend Sarah to give as a gift to her friend

Top Right: 8 metres of bunting that I was commissioned to make for my friend's daughter's  bedroom

Bottom Left: My 'Tea in the Woods' Mugrug - my tutorial for  the Plum and June Bloghop

Bottom Right: Another little commission - a cross stitch baby sampler

 

 

I have also been trying to catch up with some of my City and Guilds coursework.  It's not finished, but it's getting there, here is a little mosaic of some of the research I have been doing.  It includes researching 'form', my chosen artist, Phillip King, and the History of Quilting. 

 

 I have also been bitten by the 'I need to make another quilt immediately' bug.  Yesterday I literally dropped everything, and even skipped lunch as I planned and pieced a quilt top.  It's not quite finished but here is a little sneak peak:

I am completely in love with these fabrics - Trade Winds by Lily Ashbury

My other exciting new is I went to a (very small) exhibition yesterday of Welsh Quilts.  I have some pics to share, taken courtesy of my lovely friend Emma on her iphone (I SO need one for this reason!) but I shall save that for another post. 

Linking up with:

And:

 

 

Because sometimes I am a slow blogger and other times I'm not, it just depends if life gets in the way!!

 

Thanks for stopping by and here's to a productive September :-)