Sew-ichigo Strawberry

the sun has been shining here for a few days, it has made me feel a little care-free and wild ;-)

Hence my spur of the moment purchase last night when I saw the new Sew-ichigo Strawberry pattern, well it was less than £2, a bargain!

I don't know what I was thinking, I have only done freezer paper piecing once at the FQ retreat and even then not that well! It must be my general soft spot for all things strawberry and Kerry's cute curtain that suckered me in!

After a fair amount of unpicking (and trust me, I don't DO unpicking!) and a bit of huffing and puffing I have something vaguely resembling a strawberry! I have to say rather than put me off it has made me more determined to go back and try and get it better next time, perhaps in a few days though! Usually I abandon something if I can't do it well, I'd rather not do it all all I am that much of a perfectionist!

Just to clarify though, any struggles I had were down to my own in-adequacy! Kerry & Penny's patterns are so well written, with clear and detailed instructions, so easy to read and follow that anyone can have a go. So if you get it wrong, you've only got yourself to blame. Just sayin ;-)

Once I had finished the strawberry block I made it into a pot holder/mini quilt/mug rug (read multi-purpose thingy!). Vintage linen napkin used for background, bordered in Liberty Silk (do you see what is happening here? Now that I've started using it, I can't stop!) and an old Moda dot print for binding. Quilted in cross hatch by eye for a more relaxed look.

I love the way it looks in my kitchen on the rustic cabinet, perfect with all the vintage china, I think I may have to make a wall hanging with 4 of the strawberry's to go with it, if I can be brave enough!

Today has been about lots of visiting friends, a couple of commissions for sewing work (albeit boring ones, but they will pay for a day out at the Aquarium on Friday, hurray!) and sewing up the worlds fastest baby sling for my little nephew. When his mum came to visit this morning with a sling, some fabric and wadding and the idea that perhaps I may be able to make something similar I am not sure she expected to leave a couple of hours later with one! I was in 'that' kind of mood still and promptly relieved her of the fabric and scurried off to the sewing room to whizz it up. Unfortunately I was so excited to have it made for them I forgot to take any photos!

I wonder how much more I can get done while the mood lasts and the kids let me.......

Still looking for my pot of gold

I've been busy this week, busy feeling sorry for myself with a heavy cold!

But although I haven't been blogging I have been very busy doing other 'work'. I have been selling off my Strawberry Patch Craft Fair stock and taking orders/commissions all in aid of filling my little penny purse for London in 2 weeks time.

To be honest I am exhausted but it was nice to take an hour out of the drudgery of money making sewing (which I never seem to enjoy!) to play with some more Zakka style, and my little magnets from last week were featured on LR Stitched this week here!

I went with the flock and abandoned the needle turn applique in favour or bondaweb and raw edge applique. My swirly free machine wind is there, I just couldn't get it to show too well on the photo. I was honestly going to try needle turn for the first time, after all this is a small project, but the desire to just get it done overwhelmed. So even though there is no pot of gold at the end of my rainbow, it is now sitting on my bedside table waiting to host tomorrow mornings cup of tea (and hide the cup rings at the same time!). I meanwhile am back to the grindstone to fill up that pocket money purse!

I love this little design, I am thinking of repeating it on a top....although tonight I am learning that embroidering onto jersey is no fun! I hope to overcome the slippery stretchy bad behaviour of jersey and have a new finished top to show you tomorrow...for now here is a sneek peek!

Christmas Charm Swap Sign-up & Goodie Love

THIS SWAP IS NOW FULL - THANKS FOR STOPPING BY THOUGH!

Have you been thinking you don't have enough cool festive fabric in your stash? Well I have just the solution for you, sign up for the Christmas Charm Swap! A swap for cute Christmas fabric, no twee prints, just nice fresh and modern. The kind we would be proud to use.

We will have 28 participants, each to purchase just one meter of fabric and cut it into 56 charm squares of 5". You post to me, I do some jiggery pokery and send you back 28 different prints with 2 squares of each, magic! Then you can get to work creating a scrummy Christmas runner, perhaps to tie in with the swap over at Susan's blog Canadian Abroad? Or perhaps a cushion or stocking.

If you would like to take part just leave a message below. Please make sure if you are a no-reply blogger you leave your email address in the message so I can contact you. Feel free to grab a button (on the lefthand side of my blog page) and I'll set up a flikr group so that we can post our fabric choices to make sure we have no duplicates, but if we don't get all 28 spaces filled we wont be able to run with it so get outside, shout from the rooftops, blog it and spread it 'Emily is hosting a crimbo swap'!!

MESSAGE FOR REBECCA - Rebecca who commented on the swap post earlier this week, I am having trouble contacting you as you are set to no-reply. Please email me (you can click on my profile picture to do this) to confirm you still want to take part or I may have to fill your space. Thank you :)

In other news, this week has seen the end of the Goodie Swap :( I am very sad its all over, but SOOOO happy with my lot! Let me show you what yumminess I received

Ooo its like a game of pass the parcel!

Look another layer.....

...and another!.... (and tartan ribbon too!)

WOW! I am a lucky girl indeed. Look at all this loveliness! Sent all the way from Sheila in Ayr over at Bluepatch Quilter. For extra goodiness she put in a lovely FQ of sewing material and some Scottish tablet, yum!

The cutest little hexi pin cushion, there are even pockets on the back, the perfect size for my mini scissors.

And the coolest mug rug ever, not only a Union Jack but also a 'Keep Calm' ditty....perfectly me! Thank you so much Shelia :)

Then yesterday ANOTHER parcel arrived, oh I love my postman this week! And this was the best swap ever, Cindy was awesome for giving everyone 2 partners! Once again, beautifully wrapped and such a joy to open, I was so excited! This time from Jules at Daisy Made it.

I actually 'whooped' when I tore the tissue paper of this lovely, I am head over heels with Dresden's at the moment and this is just wonderful!

She also made me a lovely matching basket and notebook, pretty and useful. The little note card she sent me is a liberty print and I know its going straight in a frame and on the sewing room wall to remind me of what a fabby swap this has been. Thanks Jules, all so lovely and I am very lucky :)

Looking forward to the next few swaps to come, Modern Christmas Table Runner, Sewhappygeek Table Runner and the Brit Quilt Pillow Fight!!!

And don't forget, you still have 1 day to enter my giveaway here. Good luck!

Another Rug!

Oooo I love mug rugs! They are so scrummy, quick and easy and instant gratification for the quilting soul :)

Here is my mug rug for partner 2, I love it so much I may shed a tear or two at the post office next week!

I am head over heals with the kitchen print panel in the middle, I also cant stop stroking its 'puffyness' where I left it unquilted.

I decided a pieced back would be the perfect way to use up the leftovers and also pop in one of my new labels. It comes from Spoonflower where you can have your own custom design printed onto quilting cotton! Its a little hard to see in the picture but it reads 'a,b,c,d,e,f,g this quilt belongs to me' then my business name 'Strawberry Patch' and on the right hand side 'Made by Emily Levey South Devon UK 2011'

I also ran up a couple of fat quarter bags for partner 2's goodie, aren't they cute! I cant decide which to send to her, I know she likes them but she didn't say which was her favourite! I think I'm plumping for the dumpy birds on the left. I'm going to pop in a little felt brooch too as I know she loves them, but I wont show you a picture or it will spoilt the surprise!

Today I have also been working on my Lunch Bag for the Japanese Scrap Challenge. I have pieced the patchwork panels and cut the other pieces for the main body of the bag, now I am just waiting on the iron on vinyl to arrive in the post. I have been taking lots of pictures along the way and hope to share my first tutorial with you soon!

That's all for now, happy sewing! (oh I forgot to mention I started another quilt - a baby Maisie one this time, I just cant help myself, I think I may need professional help soon!!!!)

Mug Rug and Goodies

I've been indulging in quite a bit of selfish sewing of late, those germs I thought I had turned out to be Glandular Fever :( So I've been very tired and the thought of trying to wrestle with my Across the Sea quilt just makes me sleepy so the quilting will have to wait a little longer there.

I have been working on small projects because I simply cant NOT sew, I am sure that would me me even more poorly haha! So getting my mug rugs done for my swap partners seemed like the prefect idea.

This being my first swap, I spent quite some time researching their tastes, stalking through their blogs and flikr profiles. Partner 1 gave me some interesting colour choices (mainly because my stash was virtually devoid of all of the colours she mentioned!) This is what I came up with.

There is a sneaky clue as to who it may be for with the initial on the rug, hope it doesn't give too much away! I really enjoyed planning this out and love the texture of the quilting. I cant stop stroking it but I guess I will have to as it needs to leave me soon and wing its way to its new home. As for the goodie to go with it, my partner popped a picture of a Needle book and a pincushion on her like mosaic, so instead of picking one to make I decided to make both! Well after all they go together don't they?!

For the pincushion I just used eight 2" squares and a couple of vintage buttons. You'd be amazed at home much wadding went in there though! (Apologies to the wee yellow birdies for being stabbed with pins!)

For the needle book I used this tutorial from Kelly Rachel, its really straightforward and easy to follow. Here is the back, how cute??!



And the inside, there are 2 pieces of felt, giving you four 'leaves' to pop your needles onto. The tutorial used one piece of fabric for the inside, I decided to piece mine so I was able to incorporate a couple of my partners colour choices. All I did was divide the pattern piece into 4 and add a 1/4 inch seam allowance into the edges of the pattern I had cut along, then cut the fabric using my new pattern pieces and joined the seams.

I think my partner will love them, judging from the feedback in the flikr group. If you want to see lots more goodies and rugs, have a look at the group here.

I'm off to finish up sewing the binding on Partner 2's rug whilst Baby J is still sleeping, I'll leave you with some pictures of my rainbow scrappy quilt that Ive promised for a while!

Scrappy Rainbow Quilt

August 2011

2" scrappy squares and log cabin border.

Quilted with rainbow lines and bubble quilting on border.

Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Wadding.