A Book Review and a Birthday

Firstly, I wanted to share with you a book review that I wrote for The Sewing Directory Website, about this fantastic book by my lovely friend Lucie.    Click on the book and it will take you to my review :-)

 

 

Grab yourself a copy over at Amazon, you won't be disappointed :-)

 

I also wanted to share some of the birthday loveliness that I've received so far today - I'm doing well, it's only 10.30 am!

 

 

 

Can you spy the Liberty Watch - it's gorgeous! (Sending a big thank you to my sister-in-law xx)

 

 

 

And I  can now walk my daughter to school down the country lane that in style, come rain or shine.  (Thank you lovely husband xx)

 

 

 

And lastly, this wonderful card, from a very dear friend. 

 

 

 

Right, that's me done on the laptop for today, I'm off out to lunch with a friend then home for a birthday tea party. Good times indeed :-)

 

Sarah x



 

A Little Bit of Sunshine

Well, I'm certainly not talking about the weather at the moment, grrrr! 

 

The sunshine I'm referring to is the wonderful Strip Bee quilt top that landed on my doorstep a few weeks ago, which is bright, sunny and yellow.  I'd love to share it with you, but as all the quilt tops (6 in total) are going to be a surprise for each member of the Bee, I'm only allowed to show you little sneek peeks. 

 

 

And for the first time since I can remember, I actually managed to start a project and finish it in one day.  Here I am blogging about it too - amazing!  (My son was at nursery - did you guess??!) 

It turns out that sunny yellow was not a colour that I had enough of in my stash.  So in the interests of the Bee (ha ha) I purchased several yellow fat quarters to compliment all that sunshine in the other strips.  It was so fun to work with and great to use different colours. 

 

I'm gutted that I can't share my whole strip with you because I'm actually quite pleased with it.  I guess that will have to wait until the big reveal in a few months time.  

 

Thank you by the way for all the get well messages for my children.  My son is now fighting fit and causing the usual mayhem, and my daughter, well she's still not great, (I'm suspecting Tonsillitis) so it will probably be another day on the sofa resting for her tomorrow :-(  I'm just hoping everyone's fit and well at the weekend! 

 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Linking up with the lovely Liz:

 

 



 

 

Sarah x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only 97 days till....

Guess what??!!

http://www.xmasclock.com/

So I thought it high time I put my Christmas fabrics (there, I've said it!) to good use. 

I bought these lovelies at the Festival of Quilts, (which you can read about here) and I've made a start turning them into some festive bunting. 

I've decided to make two types, one with some lettering, and some with applique shapes and maybe, just maybe, a little extra embellishment.  I'm making good progress but you will have to wait and see how these ones turn out ;-)

At the Festival I also purchased these gorgeous ribbons and buttons. 

Aren't they just the cutest!  And a complete bargain too at a £1.00 for 2 metres.  I'm looking forward to putting these to good use, but it remains to be seen if they will feature on the bunting. 

 

In other news, I have 2 children off sick at the moment.  So that's my sewing day yesterday out of the window.  Both will survive, I have one happy boy who is well on the road to recovery and a very subdued daughter :-( I think we've entered the winter sickness season a little too early!

 

But on a positive note, it's less than 2 weeks until I meet one of my oldest and dearest blogging friends, Julie from Thimble Fingers!  I've known and been emailing Julie for over 2 1/2 years now, and although we live on the other side of the world from one another, (she's in Western Australia) we've become firm friends.  And tomorrow she is heading to UK shores for 2 weeks, before making the trip to Jersey to come and meet me and the family.  I'm so excited (and a little nervous) I can't wait!  Julie's work, in particular her embroidery is inspirational, so I highly recommend grabbing a cup of tea and looking through her blog and admiring her beautiful work. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. 

Sarah x

Linking up with:

Hearts, Cupcakes and a Lots of Pink

It's been a busy week of bunting, mostly of the pink variety. 

First up, I had an order for some pink on pink bunting, for a newborn baby girl.  So I raided my stash and put my precious pink pearl bracelets to good use, and came up with this. 

 

Next, someone wanted some Cherry Cupcake bunting but without the letters, as it's for her housemate rather than a child.  My first thought was to add a few more hearts, and then I thought, why not add some cupcakes :-)  So that's exactly what I did.  I found a template, cut out the pieces, and appliqued them on in the normal way.

 

 



 

 

 

It was really fun doing something different, I just hope she likes it! 

 

I've been busy this week adding more albums to my facebook page.  Including my photo quilt, which I am going to blog about in more detail very soon :-)

 

More bunting making is on the cards for the next few days.  And I need to purchase yet more fabric, this time for my Bee Strip, as it seems I have every colour in the rainbow in my stash apart from one colour, which I won't mention so as not to spoil it for my other bee members who may be reading this.

 

I hope you are having a productive week,

 

Back soon,

 

Sarah x

 

 Linking up with:

 

  

 

 

 

 

Stripping Again

Oh dear, I hope I haven't attracted any unwanted readers with a blog post title like this!  There most certainly won't be any public removal of clothing on this page, so if that's what you're after you best look elsewhere ;-)

 

What I'm actually referring to is my Bee Strip for The Strip Bees. A few weeks ago I received a gorgeous strip from the lovely Amy.  The idea is that there's six of us in the bee, we each make a strip, then send it on to the next person so that they can add a strip.  And so it goes, until a whole quilt top is eventually returned to each person.  A round Robin if you will. 

I can't show you a full picture of my latest strip, as it's meant to be a surprise for Amy.  But I can show you a few sneak peeks. 

Without revealing too much, what I will say is I took some inspiration from Lucie Summers new book 'Quilt Improv' which is now available on Amazon.  An excellent read and great value I might add!

I had such fun with this strip.  This is the first bee I've joined, and it really has encouraged me to try new things; different techniques, play with colour, and really think and work out of my comfort zone.  If you've not joined a bee before, then I can highly recommend it because apart from all of those things, you get to meet some lovely people! 

I'm linking up today on the page of a very lovely friend, Liz of Dandelion  Daydreams.

If you haven't met Liz already then I suggest you hop over to her blog and take a look around.  She is super talented and I had the pleasure of meeting her in person at FQR and she is even more lovely than you can imagine.  Get yourself over there and of course check out some of the other fabulous blogs taking part in the link up :-)

Thank you for stopping by,

Sarah x

 

A Catchup and a Giveaway

It feels like my poor blog has been neglected for months.  Well, that's not entirely true, it's been more like weeks, what with these summer holidays and various trips, first to the Fat Quarterly Retreat (which you can read about here and here) and then to the Festival of Quilts (which you can read about here) and finally a  trip to France for a week with the family.

 

 

I shall spare you any more family snapshots (700 of them in total!) and move swiftly on to much more interesting quilty news. 

 

A very dear friend of mine, Chrissie (who you may very well know) is having a fantastic giveaway on her blog.

 



 

It's the chance to win a free video class on the new TV channel  Daily Craft TV.  It's a wonderful opportunity to try something different, learn new skills and create something new.  So here's the link, where you can read all about the giveaway, as well as reading the review of Chrissie's experience of using a video tutorial with Daily Craft TV.  Check out her applique pet cushion - isn't it adorable! 

 

 

 

 

 But time's running out, there's less than 8 hours to go, so strike while the iron's hot!

 

For me, it's a big day tomorrow, my daughter starts school.  Ekk!  It's been a wonderful summer but I'm so looking forward to routine again, and hopefully more time for blogging, not to mention sewing.  I've got a lot of catching up to do.  But before I go, I just wanted to share with you my little bird embroidery that I finished in France.  It's the one I started at the Fat Quarterly Retreat in John's class. 

 

 

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I hope you all had a great summer too!

 

Sarah x