the hurricane - a giveaway

First up - before I get folks too excited, this is a UK only giveaway so please don't enter if you're not in the UK.
Thanks!






Can I introduce you to THE HURRICANE a set of 19 fat quarters of klona cotton in rainbow colours from Backstitch. Klona cotton is not kona cotton - it's slightly thicker, slightly stiffer but it works really well for anything you would want to use a cotton fabric for.



I've used it in quilts (I used it in the bathmat pic above), Miss G recently recently made a covered canvas for her art homework using the white klona as her base fabric. It washes wonderfully and softens right up.
I actually love it for patchwork because it's so easy to finger press seams, which means my points are better (that has to be a good thing!).



Alice at backstitch is offering up this whole stack of all the different colours, worth £26 to one lucky UK BASED winner. If I won (and obviously I can't because I'm not allowed to enter my own competition) I would make this quilt - wouldn't it look fabulous as a rainbow of colours for a child's bed?

What would you use it for?

Leave a comment on this post and I'll pick a winner on Monday November 29th.


Small print - giveaway is for UK based folks ONLY. Winner will receive bundle of 19 different klona cotton solids as pictured above with a retail value of £26. Please make sure you leave a valid contact email in your comment or attached to your comment.

Thanks and good luck!


GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!!!! I'LL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER LATER THIS EVENING!

{Modern} Relief

Heather of { House } of A La Mode has gathered together 17 Modern Quilters to join her in making quilts to donate to a fund raising raffle for charity this Holiday Season. Heather explains what {Modern} Relief is all about.....

{ Modern } Relief is a simple concept. We are Modern Quilters uniting through the holiday season by bringing the warmth of our quilts and the warmth of your hearts together for others in need. This season, 2010, we will be supporting World Vision. We hope YOU will join us in taking a stand against hunger by participating in our fund raising raffle. Please let me introduce to you World Vision.

World Vision is leading the effort to end hunger.

In the next seven seconds, another hungry child will die.

World Vision is on the front lines of the fight against hunger. Today — and every day — we’ll distribute nearly 600 metric tons of emergency food aid, nourishing the hungry. We’ll give local farmers the seeds, tools, and training they need to grow their own food and feed their own communities. And we will plead the cause of the hungry in halls of power all over the world.

Please join us in creating a world without hunger — a world in which no child dies for want of nutritious food. This site offers in-depth information on hunger, its causes, and how it can be stopped. You can learn more about key hunger-related issues and share what you discover with friends and family. Use this link to begin your journey.

Please meet the members of this season’s event and view their donations that they have generously provided to this fundraiser raffle.

Heather from { House } of A La Mode

Amy from Amy's Creative Side

Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson!

Nettie from a quilt is nice

Aneela from Comfortstitching

Brioni from Flossyblossy

John from Quilt Dad

Kate from One Flew Over

Ashley from Film in the Fridge

Katy from i'm a ginger monkey

Tacha from Hanies

Amanda from Sasikirana Handmade

Jennifer & Jessica from Twin Fibers

Nova from a cuppa and a catch up

Ryan from I'm Just A Guy Who Quilts

Julie from Jaybird QuiltsJacquie from Tallgrass Prairie Studio

Alissa from Handmade by Alissa



The Guidelines:

- To enter this raffle please click on the PayPal button, this will bring you to the { Modern } Relief PayPal account.
- The cost to enter this Raffle is $10.00 per entry.
- Entries are unlimited, so please feel free to give till your heart’s content.
- Winners of the raffle will be chosen by a random generator on December 1st, 2010.
- Each { Modern } Relief Quilter participating in this event will post the entire list of winners for the donated quilts on their blogs during the second week of December and the grand total of our contributions to this cause.
- Additionally, they will also contact their personal winners at that time too.

We THANK you!

and the winner is....

I couldn't pick a winner. I tried but all of the entries were too good. So Mr Random.Org did the honours for me and he chose number 138 who is......drum roll......

......SARAH!!!!!

From now on Scrap Vomit will be known as Technicolour Yawn. Which I actually really like. It's technicolour for sure. And sewing all those little squares together is certainly Yawnsome.
Sarah, shoot me an email and let me know where to send your goodies.

Shall we have a look at some of the Technicolour Yawn quilts in progress?

Jane usually hand sews everything, but went on holiday to her mum's and took her squares with her to machine some....




Fiona has made a start....



as has Melanie...



Courtney has been storming along and is now onto the B blocks....



Plus we have 2 overachievers...

Cherie is almost done.



and Williamsj9 (sorry - I don't know your 'real' name!) has a top all done and dusted (click on the link to see a pic). Whoo!


GREAT work from everyone - I love them all so much!

I'm so behind on everything this week - little Ginge has been off school for 2 days thanks to an upset stomach and I've only managed a bit of hand sewing in front of the TV with him. I try to sneak off to the sewing machine but get shot a look that says 'oh no you don't, mother dear'. *sigh* On the plus side - hubs is out tonight so I'm squeezing in some technicolour yawn blocks and I'll show you my progress later this week.

an oopsie

LuAnn ever so kindly pointed out that I'd made a booboo with the amount of yardage you needed for the solids in the quilt along - I'd put inches when I meant strips so go and check out the amended post here and please accept my apologies for being such a dorkus. Feel free to hurl abuse at me - I can take it. I'm slapping myself as we speak for being a dumb ass!!!!

sunday stash - on saturday

One of the fabric lines I am most excited about right now is From Little Things by Sarah Fielke. (In case you've always wondered how you pronounce her surname - it's feel-kie. So no more pronouncing it Fillk or Feelk or Sarah from Material Obsession books or just plain old Sarah. Or was that just me and Brioni?)

It's not out yet. I THINK it's out early next year, or maybe Spring* (Sarah - correct me if I'm wrong). I Love it. It makes me so happy. The colours and the bold prints - and those slightly scary Little Shop of Horrors flowers that are likely to be meat eaters. And the dots. The dots are really gooooooood dots. I have a lot of dots in my stash, one day I might make a dotty quilt. Better add that to the list.
I can't quite decide what I'll make with this stack. I might do something hand pieced. I might do the free pattern Sarah designed for Lecien, because that uses diamonds and I am a bit afraid of diamonds. Or maybe I'll use a wedge ruler - because wedges are calling to me. Or maybe I'll do a bit of everything. Either way I'll just stare at it for a bit longer, because it's so perfect sat in it's stack.....



So what I want you to do is pester your local quilt shop for it. Or your favourite online quilt shop. Just pester everyone you meet. Sarah is amazingly lovely and I want her first line of fabric to be a complete hit so she can make a million more lines and keep doing what she does. Because she's incredibly talented and incredibly lovely with it (her new book is coming out next year, by the way - let me tell you now, if you liked Material Obsession you will DIE for her solo book. I'll keep you posted on that one, because, seriously, it's OMG fantastic. It's due out in Australia April 2011, so a bit after that in the UK, and then who knows in the US. Hopefully pretty soon after). Please - pester them, ask for From Little Things by Sarah Fielke for lecien and buy lots. If you can't buy lots, buy some. Thanks xxxx

*EDITED TO ADD - Lecien have confirmed it will ship to shops in January!!!!!

PS. The giveaway is still going on over here. Just leave a comment on that post to enter. Not this one, because I'll get confused. It's easily done.

why finish stuff when you can start new things?

I'm drowning in quilt tops that either need quilting, backings made, or finishing with borders but I'm waiting to order a new roll of batting (putting it off somewhat in order to avoid the quilting, if I'm honest) and when new stuff pops up courtesy of Aneela it'd be rude not to start cutting it up and sewing it back together, wouldn't it?
People were all in a frenzy for Aneela's first fabric line with Moda at Market. It sold out at sample spree before I managed to pick any up. Which would have got me very upset had I not known I was getting some of my own (thank you Aneela - big kisses).
A layer cake and some kona coal - I'm sewing big crossy, windmilly blocks. It's a quick one to throw together, and would only take a day if I wasn't so easily distracted. It'd look great in smaller blocks made with charm packs as well. I'll do a tute one day next week when I get the quilt top finished.

Another thing that's busy distracting me is the quilt along over on Cara's blog. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the 'manly' quilt she made for her husband so when she asked if I wanted to join in with her quilt along I jumped the chance. His Gingerness needs a new quilt since he got bunk beds, and I recently got the Dr Seuss fabrics from Robert Kaufman. Perfecto. Ginge and Daddy can use it to snuggle under to watch TV as well.
You can join in with the quilt along - just click here. She also has a giveaway to win 7 yards of kona solids of your choice for your quilt along quilt courtesy of Sue at Simply Solid on etsy.

give me a name giveaway

I promised you all a giveaway when I got home from market, didn't I? I hadn't forgotten. I just got sidetracked. I've still got to do Quilt Market part 2 as a blog post. I'll get there!

Here's what you get....

* FQ stack (12 FQs and 1 panel) of Created by Kim Schaefer for Andover fabrics (I liked these because I thought they'd be perfect for a scrappy quilt. Lots of purple and sludgy colours that you may not have picked normally. They're cute. I promise. Purple is very big in the new fabric collections - lots of it.)
* a set of Tina Givens notecards
* some insanely cute ribbons by J Caroline Creative
* a pack of precious (and apparently tasty - you're just lucky I'm allergic to dairy) Tula Pink M&Ms

What do I want from you?
New name suggestions for the scrap vomit quilt. Look at it - what does it say to you? What should it be named? I have to admit, I personally am very fond of the Scrap Vomit name, but admittedly it's not very pretty sounding. So I'm handing it over to you guys. I'll pick a new name with help from the small monkeys in a week's time.



Previous quilt along posts are listed below;

Fabric requirements and size options
Block A
Block B

In other news......



Issue 3 of Fat Quarterly is out today. The theme this time is fussy cutting and we all had a really good time with this theme. I think it's the best issue yet. I am a little biased, but there are a couple of quilts in there that are totally on 'the list'. One day I'll get round to making everything on that list. My project is a nice easy weekend one - and perfect for Christmas presents too. All you need is one charm pack, an old towel and a scrap of batting. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

scrap vomit quilt along - block B

How are you doing so far? Anyone made any blocks? I've seen a few pop up on flickr, so I know I'm not completely alone over here.

I had a break from sewing to go to Houston for Quilt Market (as you know) but it's back to the grind stone again and we need to get this quilt moving along.

I still have about half of my A blocks to sew together, but if you feel like you want to give the B blocks a try and leave your others to one side for a while, then here's the instructions for block B....

First off you will need to select (for each block);
12 black squares*
8 blue squares*
29 mixed scrap squares

*or whatever colours you chose for your inside rings

Lay your squares out in the formation shown below;



Sew your rows together. It really helps if you can leave your block laid out next to your sewing machine. I use my cutting mat and just lift it onto a table next to me. That way I can grab a row and if I do happen to make a mistake it's solved quickly before I've finished the whole block.

Press your seams to alternating sides, so your seams butt together. Like in the picture below;



Sew your rows together to form one block. Give it a nice press and maybe a spray of starch.



Repeat to yield a total of 17 B blocks for the large size quilt or 13 B blocks for the smaller quilt.

Instructions for Block A can be found HERE

Fabric requirements/sizes etc etc are all HERE

Alternative Strip Piecing Method for Block B can be found HERE

Krista's anti voodoo chain piecing tute is HERE

Have you seen the scrap-along over at Jodi's blog? She's got some great ideas for using up those scraps. If you haven't been over already, go and take a peek.
Whilst you're in the scraptastic mood you may as well jump in with both feet, right?

Be sure to keep me posted on your progress. Email me with pics - I want to see how much more beautiful (or not) your scraps are. Remember, I LOVE ugly ones, so if you've got something hideous to show me, please do. It'd make my day.

Quilt Market - part 1

I'm back!
Did you miss me? Notice I was gone? Care?
Houston, Houston, Houston. It's a strange place - I hadn't heard great things about it (the City not the Market) but it's really quite lovely. So clean. Hot. Humid. Oh man, so hot and humid. I still have prickly heat from my poor English skin trying to cope in that climate. Never did I think I'd be pleased to see the grey skies of England.
Every single person I met was lovely. Not just polite and kind of nice, but REALLY lovely. A lot of the new friends I made I hadn't really 'spoken to' or not spoken to before at all. But maybe it's the excitement of Market, or just the shared love of quilts it was like we were old friends reunited.
I'm not even going to begin listing who was there, because I'll miss some out and then I'll feel awful. So just check out a few pics (I was so bad, I didn't take anywhere near as many as I should). And if you get the chance to go to Quilt Market one time, go. Just go. It's amazing.


we hung out in the party aisle (left to right me, Heather, Brioni, Tula Pink, Lizzy House) Note; not only are Tula Pink and Lizzy House supremely talented, they are also 2 of the nicest girls you could wish to meet. Down to Earth, funny, totally grounded despite their immense talents. It was a delight to meet them both.


We did some learning at schoolhouse - because Quilt Market is not just party time, it's work stuff too. I even had my 'learning glasses' on. See? They make me cleverer.


Won some good stuffs thanks to the fascinating schoolhouse by Cherri House. It really is no wonder Lizzy has so much talent, her mum is an encyclopedia of knowledge.


We hung out LOTS with this lady (don't trust that sweet smile, she likes to party). In fact, meeting Sarah (who I have shamelessly stalked for some time) and her awesome hubby as well as my long term quilt guru and teacher and all round wise woman, Amy, was the absolute highlight of Quilt Market. Sarah is clutching her latest book, Material Obsession 2 which has just been released in the US. Have you bought it yet? You need to buy it, the MO books are my favourites, full of great inspiration and Sarah's style is just so amazing. I THINK I'm ready to decide which quilt I'm making from the book, it's a tough choice though. Too much to choose from (in a good way!).


Met some of Portland's finest. Elizabeth wore heels the whole time. Any woman that can wear heels for 17 hours a day and claims they're comfortable is God like to me. If you haven't already please please please go and buy her book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork. It's a really good book, one you'll use and not just like to look at. Amazon have it in the US and the UK (release date for the UK is November 15th). Get it on your Christmas wish list, it's a keeper.

I'll be back with more pics soon!