Cushions!

My old string cushion project is nearly finished!


The front and back are completed and now all that remains is to insert a zip and finish the cushion off!


This is how they last looked....

This is how they look now...

I have machine stitched along the strings in my precious Aurifil 28 in a luminous golden shade!  No problem there and it looks lovely....a few wonky lines but that is the wonkiness of the strings rather than the stitching!

The other side is part machine stitched - in the string part - and part handstitched with large stitches in a variety of cotton perle colours!

So what do you think campers!?  






I am pleased with the textured result of the machine stitching and am thinking of using the same on my Brit Quilt Swap Cushion either in grey, green or blue??

I am working on the other side of this cushion now with a slightly brighter palette and a choice of backgrounds.

This is the linen I used on the front....

Or I could give it a brighter feel with a white background and just a border of the linen!

I think I am favouring the second option but your views would be very welcome....as ever!  Keep me on the right path people!

I'm hoping my partner will be able to enjoy her cushion all year and even at Christmas!

Coming home to wonderful post!

We went, we saw and I was conquered - oh how my feet hurt - all that walking around Rome!

But I came back to this.... 

Me thinks these delightful cranes are a bit of a trademark of the lovely and extremely generous Elisa!  The crane alone is lovely - complete with hanging ring and little beads ....


but here's some delicious chocolate - mostly gone already ....oops! And some postcards of Elisa's favourite paintings - love that you shared your favourites with me - that feels very special....pity we don't own them but postcards are not bad substitutes!

 Then there are these gorgeous fabrics - so many,  so much more than a fat quarter....drool....

Love the birds, the Japanese, the orange, the dots, the flowers - that is to say all of it really!



And this dotty packaged item...

Which contained this beautiful covered journal...had my eye on this from the start...

Thanks just doesn't seem enough Elisa!


So how about thank you very, very much - I love every little bit and how clever of you to notice I love birds, and green and orange and art and chocolate and cranes! 


I am one footsore but extremely happy person!


And thanks to Kat for her concept and her organisation!  We happy swappers certainly owe her a big round of applause!  Yeah!

Roamin' in Rome!

I have been here in spirit but not in body for the past few days.


My it's a lot of work getting posts ready to schedule while you are away!   But I have returned now and as you can see by the late timing of this post it is back to irregular and unscheduled posting!


We went to Rome for four nights!  We like a holiday with a bit of sightseeing or should I say we like sightseeing with a bit of holiday!  Rome is a city full of cultural delights, shopping and people watching opportunites!  I got a lot of the first, none of the second and some of the third!


Rome is famous for it's Colosseum, 

it's gladiator's ready to fight to the death....

the Pantheon...

 the Forum...

...and the Vatican City

 It has the Spanish steps....

and the Trevi fountain.....

..... but my son favoured Rome as his choice of holiday destination due to it being one of the locations used in his favourite video game Assassin's Creed!

So we went round Rome looking for sites that Ezio (the main character) climbed into, around and over!  


Could this be the start of a new themed holiday in Rome??  Ezio was here!

and here....

Enjoy!

Stomach lining - looks nicer than it sounds!

Here is my efforts for Free Motion Friday this week.




I did my preparation by drawing out the design - it is practice but as I'm a bit of a doodler I find this quite fun!  

I have to say that I was better at doodling with a pencil than with the machine.




I kept wanting to stitch this pattern from the middle and kept turning it round.  From the video it doesn't look like we were supposed to do that!  Ah well I cannot fight my instincts and if I tried my stomach lining became jagged rather than gently curved.  A bit of an ulcerated stomach!  Ouch!

I also found that I had to have my needle going quite fast to get a better curve so I revved up a bit in my second sample and it is smoother.

I am not bothered by an occasional slight lack of curviness as I doubt it would show up in a quilt!  This will be a great design for lots of texture and would make a great flower centre for applique or something! 




This is one I will want to keep practicing !   Good choice Cindy and I liked last week's Bright Star too!  Looking forward to more FMQ - who'd have thought it??  Certainly not me!


(Sorry if the pics are a bit gloomy but they were taken in the evening)

My first string project!

While making my cushion for the Brit Quilt Swap, which is string pieced, I remembered an old project I started in 2009 which was my first ever string piecing project!

It was on a workshop with Carolyn Forster called Strips and String Quilts (you can tell I like workshops with Carolyn can't you) and looking at the bag I found  it in I had every intention of making a quilt....!  Hmmmm!??


Well, I think it will make a great cushion cover and like Emily at the Strawberry Patch I can practice putting in a zip or whatever closure I decide to use on my cushion so that hopefully my swap partner's will be that much better!




So here is the front .....

and the back or vice versa...

See that pretty pile of perle - I have every intention of using it to quilt in that otherwise bare spot in the centre of the spiderweb!  

You may need your sunglasses looking at this 'cushion to be' - I am finding it rather bright even for my liking and am not sure what possessed me to chose this colour scheme but maybe I was channeling some Californian or Ozzie sunshine at the time - it definitely brings a bit of heat to my sewing room!


I may yet put this UFO project to bed, on the bed!

Gorgeous fabrics from Seamstar!

I made a dangerous visit to the Seamstar website.  Well it would have been rude not to as they did invite me on their newsletter to have a look! 




Strange that just visiting leads to parcels arriving on your doorstep!

I love these newly arrived prints from Lotta Jansdotter - they are Deep Indigo Moira, Brass Mesh Little Florine, Catalina Moira, Urban Sunrise, Catalina Aneta,  and Little Dusted Plum Florine! I have seen that they are in the UK before the US!  Must say that makes a change!




And am thinking what I can make them.  This is not my usual colour scheme - and I love that too - you are asking where is the green???!   I will add a few solids in the mix and see what other textural prints I have in my stash that will go with them.




So what pattern would you make with these fabrics!  It would need to work with the big patterns as well as the small..I would really love your input here as I am sure you will come up with suggestions I haven't even heard of!


My nightmare is that I will love every idea and want to do them all!

My October in fabric!

Here is what I got up to in October!

1. Doorstop, 2. Pillow Fight Cushion - one side! 3. Small Scandinavian Woven heart, 4. Applique mushrooms, 5.  Large Scandinavian Woven heart, 6. Puffy Pouch, 7. Fabric Basket, 8. Spools blocks, 9. Applique Robins.


A lot of skill building went on this month - prevaricating  ( but I was already really good at that),  designing for my swaps: 

•  a cushion (see mosaic 2) for the Brit Quilt Pillow Fight  - half done!
• a Modern Christmas Tablerunner  - in Susan's swap - the top is complete!

and following Ayumi's gorgeous Puffy Pouch tutorial (mosaic 6)  for the Scrappy Fabric Swap with Kat




I also designed my very own block -  the Scandinavian Woven Heart (mosaic 3 & 5), I made spool blocks (mosaic 8) and drafted blocks on two workshops I attended and every Friday is Free Motion Quilting Friday with Cindy at Fluffy Sheep Quilting.  This is my latest effort in FMQ...

I would like to have a go at paper piecing next - although I am not really a neat and tidy sort of person ( you may already have guessed this!).  I have had a little go at it but no serious attempt as yet to master it - it is on my hit list of things to do so any tips on books, blogs etc as a starting point for a beginner would be gratefully received!