Nose to the Grindstone

Are the holidays over yet.... not that I am really counting the days... who am I kidding of course I am counting the days.  When the hell are they going back to school and DH going back to work.  I want some routine and my Thursday back to myself so I can do the stuff I want to do...need to do.   It 4 pm 6.30pm and I have just got back to my magazine project (we went out for an early tea), I have hours and hours of work to do on it and its just not happening.  I'm going to have to just shut myself away over the long weekend and get to it.  

Today Squid needed to use her gift cards that she got for her birthday so a morning at the shops was actually morning and most of the afternoon.  At least we also managed to get her some shoes for school that she was happy with.

Shoe shopping with Squid is a nightmare of epic proportions.  She hates it when they do up the shoes for her because they do it too tight and she really hates being bothered by sales assistants she likes to just decide by herself.  Of course I had a voucher for Athletes Foot and they are always all over you like a rash.  I think we've only managed to buy one pair of shoes for her there and today wasn't it.  Luckily on the way out of the shopping centre we looked in the Nike  shop and they had her size on display so she was able to try it on before the shop assistant came over to "help us" and she was able to decide with little interference from the assistant that the shoes were perfect.

I think the pebble quilting for the magazine project is just perfect for the overall design, you will understand when the project is revealed.

How are your Chocolate Marshmallow Samplers going? if you Instagram your block use the hashtag #ChocolateMarshmallowSampler so we can all see them.

This week I signed up for the I Quilt Sugar 8 week Detox.  I have managed to cut out a lot of the sugar in my diet over the last 6 months but I need to be more organised and add more vegetables to my diet.  I have the first week menu plan and it's all pretty doable I have most of the ingredients already in the pantry just have to add more of the green stuff (though apparently you need to eat 4 avocardos... yuck might struggle with that).    Catch you next week with fingers crossed lots of progress.

Chocolate Marshmallow Sampler Blocks 9 and 10

Well here are the second to last set of blocks a little bit late but not quite as late as I was expecting.  I will give you an extra 24 hours on the end anyhow.

Block 9 is based on the Whirlpool block and I show you another way to create flying geese units with no waste.

Block 10 is based on the Yankee Puzzle Block.

Both these blocks are relatively simple to put together.  I hope you enjoy and come back next month for the final block instalment.

Instructions will be available until the morning of the 16th February on the main sampler page then you can purchase from my etsy shop.

Chocolate Marshmallow Sampler

I think the Sampler is going to be 24 hours late this month.  Sorry everyone promise I will give you an extra day at the other end.

My excuses are: it's the first week back at work, I have a birthday party to arrange,  a quilt top to finish this week as well as edit the instructions for the blocks which I have only just finished writing (nothing like leaving it to the last minute).

First Finish for the Year

I've been busy the last week or so since Christmas.  If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you would probably seen my progress over that time.  As usual I always underestimate how long these things will take and I also got a bit enthusiastic about the quilting while watching/listening as I sewed some Crafty classes by Angela Walters on machine quilting.

Initially I was just going to stipple allover and then I had a play and decided I would incorporate a few different patterns which probably would have been alright if I had made those patterns a bit bigger but I tend to do small patterns more easily.  So 2 spools of Aurifil thread later and quite a few hours at the machine the first quilt for 2015 is finished.

The fabric is Tula Pink's Moon Shine with a couple of other fabrics thrown in.  

I will be teaching this quilt at Patchwork by Sea this year.  The class is the Beginners Skill Builder Class and it follows on straight from the Beginners Class each term for the first 3 terms of the year.    The idea being that students complete a simple quilt from start to finish in the Beginners Class and then move on to this class which teaches more techniques that allow students to complete more complicated blocks.  Each week students will learn a new technique and then they will have 2 blocks to complete that use that use that technique.  In the final week we will look at different ways to set the blocks into a quilt and change the fabric placement so that the block looks different.  

I am really excited about teaching this class as most of the students last year wanted more at the end of the Beginners Class and I think this quilt will tick all the right boxes.