I know what I'm doing next summer

...that's like a film or something right?

Anyway, when I saw this on Katy's blog last night I think I actually squealed out loud.

Don't have any more details yet (watching the Fat Quarterly blog with bated breath) but I am drafting my Permission To Attend form for submission to Laughing Boy ASAP.

574, 575, 576...

...here I go, ready or not!

In this hat box are 576 grey lined colour squares that now need to be sewn together to make Lolo's city green quilt. I've included a couple of patterned fabrics to give it a little zhoosh (fingers crossed!).  Each wee pile represents a different colour so as you can see there is a lot of shades of green from all ends of the spectrum, along with some contrasting purples and whites.  Having given the box a big ol' shake, I've started picking randomly and chain piecing them together  (first time I've tried this and it's working for me).  The recipe says sew blocks of six then sew four blocks together to make one one long row but I'm kinda thinking of sewing the four blocks to make a bigger patch to make the whole thing easier to handle.

Here's my first attempt at a block:

One down, 96 to go.....

PS. I know I shouldn't and I said I wouldn't but I can't resist

scary stary eyes... he does smile sometimes

If you are interested, the wee man has embraced Movember this month - check out his progress and perhaps make a wee donation to a good cause?  http://mobro.co/hgps

Bloggers Quilt Festival Time

It's BQF time again over at Amy's Creative Side. Given my general lack of quilty productivity over the past few months, I thought it would be better this time to show a fabulous quilt my mother in law Carol has just finished.

a sampler quilt for granddaughter Molly

We bought Carol a new sewing machine for a ....ahem.... significant birthday last year and she decided to throw herself into quilting.  So enrolling in a class that taught a whole load of different blocks, she embarked on this sampler quilt.  I showed off some of the blocks in a previous post.  Not only embracing each new block with relish, she also decided to hand quilt the majority of the quilt.  It took a while and ended up much bigger than anyone expected but it is a triumph.  Carol says it's the best thing she has ever done and will always be her favourite, despite having made a few other quilts during its creation.

The quilt was gifted to Molly last weekend and she absolutely loves it.

looks like it's at home already :)

I've very proud of Carol and am really glad to have a kindred quilty spirit (and someone to share my fabric obsession with!),  Good job!

a comedy of errors

On Sunday, Laughing Boy offered to look after the wee man all day so I could have some time to do things like go shopping and get some sewing done.  Went shopping and made the mistake of trying something on - post baby bod shudders!  So I came home and decided to try to make a baguette bag using the kit I'd bought a while back from the lovely Lisa at U-Handbag.   I beavered away as my two boys slept in front of the footie and was getting right into the swing of things.  Just as the wee man woke up and morphed into Grumpy "Grump" McGrump of Grumpville USA, I realised that I'd sewn the pieces together wrong.  Here's where I went wrong:

the top one is wrong and the bottom one is the correct way!

So once the wee man was fed and had reverted to just Grumble McWaah, out came the trusted seam ripper and amends were made.  (It used to be that the seam ripper was my saviour but it has been bumped to second place since I discovered the power of Infacol!).  I was on the right track and on a roll - everything was sewn back up correctly, if a little haphazardly.  That shouldn't matter, right?!  And who cares if the effects of sleep deprivation were kicking in, right?!  Another school boy error from the Petrie Scothern.  Just as I was gluing the purse into the rather groovy frame, the spectre of accuracy and precision bit me on the bum again!

looking good so far.....

except the other side doesn't fit!

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the the second side to fit into the frame mostly because I hadn't centred the fabric purse properly and had gotten a wee bit carried away trimming the fabric.  So ANOTHER lesson learned.  On the plus side, I was super worried about being able to follow the pattern and get the bag into the frame but I know now that I can do this, it's not so scary.  On the down side, I have a ruined bag that I am going to keep in order to remind myself of where I can go wrong. 

Oh and I need to watch the glue too - heady stuff!