The day Mary came to play....

I had my friend Mary over to play yesterday and what a day it was, we ate cake, chatted, cut and quilted.

This is what can happen when you stalk someones blog and repeatedly comment find someone who has a shared passion for the things you do, sewing! Mary's was the first ever blog I read and we met for the first time last year when she popped along to a craft fair I was selling at. We soon hatched a plan to run away to the Festival of Quilts together, we did come back, and surprisingly Mary was still talking to me after spending a day with her mad stalker me!

Well yesterday we chatted a lot, ate a fair amount of cake and I managed to get a tinsy but of sewing done in between  this which as just as well as it was Eloise's birthday present for today!

We got a free HD camcorder when we took out our insurance last year and Eloise is quite the film-maker! So we put it aside for her birthday, hopefully now my Blackberry will be safe from her. She had asked me to make her a bag for her birthday so I thought a camera pouch/bag would be perfect.

I based the pattern on this tutorial but added a few tweaks like a strap and funky button, very important when you are 7! I also 'stole' Marys tip of using a hair band for the elastic, funky coloured elastic, yes please!

Mary very kindly brought her machine with her and let me use it, without it I think the present wouldn't have been finished. Whilst I was working 'hard' Mary whizzed the offcuts from my Vintage Star quilt through her go-baby and left me with a pile of these

Look out for a vintage tumbler cushion soon, when I get my machine back. It is in the shop and will be looked at by the repair man tomorrow and we'll take it from there. I am hoping it will be covered under the warranty. In the meantime I have been playing with my Made in Cherry layout on the design wall. 

I am so over the moon with how this is turning out, I am using the Swoon line by Melissa Averinos, the same I used for the Across the Sea QAL. I don't actually like this line when I look at the fq's and really only brought it because it was a bargain at FOQ (silly me!) but now its cut up into little pieces I love it! And look at all that brown and that's not even putting me off!

I'm off to sculpt a Caterpillar from cake (eeek!) at the request of my darling daughter who turns 7 today and if I triumph with edible animal sculpture I may hop outside and snap some pictures of the Vintage Star Quilt which is finished!