FQ London!

I am so excited that in just a few days time I'll be heading up London town with my sewing machine and a cheeky swagger to spend two days sewing and hanging out with crafty friends! 

Sample swap goodies made by me!

For those new to my blog, hi! Come look around, isn't it impressive (hangs head in shame)? To those who started following me during my 'false start' period, hi! I'm not dead, I just had a lot to do work wise the last few months and, well, I kind of struggled with the blogging malarkey. I'm hoping that new iPad App releases will make it a ton easier to blog from my iPad and I'll be back on the wagon soon (currently writing this at work whilst looking over my shoulder all the time, not good!)

A quick bit about me:

Name: Helen

Age: 30

Job: Assistant Headteacher (secondary)

Lives: Currently South London, shortly to be the magnificent county of Yorkshire

Obsession: Fabric...

Guilty secret: I am the world's worst blogger (okay, not really a secret!)

Quick pic of me for identity purposes:

My nephew won't be there so I will be without the soppy look on my face for the weekend.

I'll be wearing a super cute Union Jack coloured name tag made by the fab Twinkle Toes. Currently it is packed in my case at home so please imagine it for yourselves, isn't it lovely?

Can't wait to meet you all, and if you live in Yorkshire, please come say hi, I need some new Quilty friends now I'm abandoning this lot!

H

x

A Mixed Weekend

Ah, the joy of friends! Thank you to the lovely Helen of Archie fame for the bloggy version of a 'shout out' and to the lovely people popping in here to say hi from her blog. It's lovely to have people around!

So, a mixed weekend for me. The bad part was the pain from my tooth removal last Monday. A week on and I'm still in agony! The good news is it is the single. best. diet. I have ever been on, the bad is that I am moody as hell thanks to pain and hunger. Don't think I was popular with my classes today, especially the young lady who sprayed Justin Beiber purfume in my classroom whilst my back was turned. I may have shouted at her for making my room smell like a tart's bedroom....

  
On more positive news, we had the first meeting of the London Modern Quilt Guild on Sunday. What a lovely bunch of ladies! A really positive first meeting and I can see the group growing by the day. Well done Annie for organising, and if you are based in this the neck of the woods (or can even get to London one Sunday a month) come say hi!

Slight trauma in the Northern branch of my family this weekend when Owl's eyes started to fall off! A quick trip round to Grandma's house to sew them back on, but Little H was deeply suspicious that he could now see the stitches. Big Auntie H has been warned not to cut corners again as the emotional bond of a two year old to an Owl is big, and watching eyes be sewn on is apparently a little traumatic at that age...

Speaking of traumatic, I think it may be time to introduce you to my version of the wonderful Archie. This is Cass, he is apparently a parakeet.

I think he is a cross between a magpie and a rhino considering the amount of things he steals and the mess he creates. Here he is helping me with the piecing of my next rose star block. I had to chase him around the flat to get that back...

Rose Star love

photo.JPG, a photo by helenjanei on Flickr.

Having really enjoyed the hand piecing I did over christmas, I decided I wanted more hand projects. Then I found this;

http://summerfete.blogspot.com/2012/01/rose-star-tutorial.html

Perfect! English Paper Piecing is really enjoyable and I turned the practice block into a cushion cover. Next time fabric with smaller prints and more distinct colours I think...

See some excellent examples in the Flickr group,

http://www.flickr.com/groups/rosestarblockparty/

Spools

Spools 6, a photo by helenjanei on Flickr.

After a lot of effort, all 84 spools blocks are finished. Sadly some are not exactly, er, square...so 3 have been sacrificed to leave a 9x9 layout. I'm pretty happy with that.

Thanks have to go to my Mother who sewed exactly 25% of them, I'll keep it private who sewed the 3 dodgy ones...(it was actually me).

Since they are all sewed by hand (strangely relaxing in front of Christmas TV) I'm thinking of keeping this a by hand project and doing the rows this way as well.

Sadly this is sinking on my WIP list as there are other projects which need to be finished and this is just for me. I'm hoping it'll be done before next Christmas though!

Owl for Little H

photo.JPG, a photo by helenjanei on Flickr.

I knew over Christmas that I wanted to make an Owl for my nephew Little H. He is pretty into owls at the moment, in fact every bird (or indeed chicken) is called an Owl by him. I had a look on etsy and found this pattern One instant download later...


And here he is, owl!

The pattern was really easy to use and quick to make. Apart from the feet... I tried twice and I could not do the feet the way suggested without ripping them to shreds when turning them through. In the end my Mum and I can up with the 'Duck feet' version, and I'm pretty happy with this. After all, Little H thinks Chicken are Owls, so I'm sure he won't be fussy about feet? It's his birthday tomorrow and Owl is heading up to Leeds with Mum in the morning. Bye bye owl!