and the winner is......(plus there are consolation prizes too!)

Do you like the highly techy way I've got a screen grab? Yes, I took a photo. I couldn't figure out how to do the screen grab at all. I am not techy at all.

Anyhoo. Number 12. Which is....

Rachel of the two windmills. Who I am pretty sure is from a land down under. Rachel - email me with your address details and I'll get your package mailed off in the week!

But wait. That's not all. Oh no.

There are 2 secret consolation prizes (which include a copy of mixtape plus something else. When I have decided what) going to....



number 85 is Jessica. Who is apparently on bedrest. Or is she just lazy? Hmm....Can't get a link to your details, Jess. Email me with your address please!

and number 37 is shegoesboom. No details for you either, so email me too!

There we go. My five minutes of fame are over. How sad.

sunday stash

Some dots. The colours are a bit squiffy on the picture. Boo for dull morning and no natural light.

Some are for a dino quilt I have planned (or at least festering in my head), others are just for emergencies (that Amy Butler cherry dot will surely soon be gone for good, I have had to stock up just in case).

Want dots?

I got the Amy Butler ones from quilthome (thanks Aneela for the tip!), the top 2 (Anna Griffin) were from fabricworm(who really cannot be beaten on speed of mailing and service), the blue is a Kaffe dot, bought from just fabric, the awesome Michael Miller quarter dot (yes, the dot is the size of a quarter - it's quite beautiful) and the orange one (which is a windham basic brights) are from spiceberry cottage

I do have a thing for the spotty dotty fabrics.

More stashes over in the flickr group

And don't forget - my celebration of being famous (if only for a moment) is still on. I'll draw a name tomorrow sometime.
Go to this post and leave a comment for a chance to win.

my brush with fame

Oh, look - there it is, sat in all it's glory, Donkey watching over it. Do you wanna peek inside?

Now, that's a familiar tattoo, isn't it? Justine asked for a pic of it, and I was grateful she didn't ask for one of my face because then I'd have had to try and sit and look professional.



In the interview I witter on about all sorts of things - my family, my addiction to fabric, making stuff when I was little. I think it's quite interesting, I hope so, at least.



How about a giveaway then? We can have a little celebration.
As you can see I haven't quite managed to finish the prize yet. It's a work in progress, but you get the idea, right?

One gloriously lucky winner will receive a (finished) grocery tote bag, 5 co-ordinating fat quarters (4 of which are Amy Butler, the other is a solid), some matching lace trim, and (of course) a copy of mixtape.



Leave a comment and I'll make the draw after the weekend!

a busy week

It was a certain lady's 10th birthday last Sunday, and (apparently, according to that certain lady) turning double digits is quite a big deal (maybe so when you're the last in the class, you have to wait all year and then get your birthday right at the end of the summer holidays). Wouldn't it be cool to have a fairground party, said Miss G. Well, it would, wouldn't it?
so, there was candy floss (that's cotton candy to you in the US), toffee apples, hot dogs, cupcakes...

much scoffing of faces...


hook a duck...


spinning tea cups...


big grins...


bigger slides...



Then it was off to London for a couple of days to see the Jeff Koons exhibition. Which was amazing, really, it was. Click on the link to have a look at the pictures, and even if modern art is not your thing take a close look at what you think is a pool toy. They're made of metal. Up close you cannot tell, I think you could only tell by touching and that wasn't allowed (which I think is a shame).

We stayed at a super cool hotel, and had a very lovely room.


we had krispy kremes from Harrods...


some culture at the V & A...


and, probably my favourite, admired the new dressing of Liberty (click on the pic to view it large)...




But that is not all, oh no, that is not all (as the wise Cat in the Hat once said). My baby niece was born this week too! 5 weeks early, so she's only a tiny little mite, but all is well, both her and mum are doing great and (hopefully) coming home today. Expect pics next time. Both of her parents are atrocious time keepers, so I'm hoping she can teach them the value of arriving early. Lucky I'd already finished the quilt off, isn't it? Phew.

I know I've promised you pics of my mixtape article. Is it ok if I come back tomorrow with it? I'll offer up a giveaway to keep you sweet?

warning - very picture heavy!

Are you ready for some photos of the festival of quilts?

Grab a cup of something hot, take a seat and chill out for a few minutes. I'll try not to drone on too much.

The one person I was really excited about seeing on Saturday. Other than the wonderful Trash was Yoshiko Jinjenzi. Not only was she the tiniest, most delicate little flower I had ever seen, with long flowing grey hair and a voice so soft you could hardly hear her speak, her work was all the more amazing in real life than I had anticipated.

You can't really tell in the photos, but her work is ridiculously simple, yet has an awesome effect of looking really complicated when you stand away from it.

Like this quilt. It was just squares. Heavily quilted with lines. The fabric she prints has no pattern repeat, just quite random graphic images in one or two colours, on a background of white. I have 20 fat quarters of her fabric that I've been saving, not sure what to do with it. Now I know. I just cut it up and use every last piece, and it will make something really beautiful. Maybe not as beautiful as her work, but I'm not afraid to use it anymore.

This quilt was just patchwork squares. The lines and the blocks of colour are from the cut up prints. It's quilted with lines, organically straight. It's beautiful, so simple but so perfect.



Now, I struggle with quilting. My machine has a small throat, I get frustrated trying to push a big quilt through, roll it up and get tangled in the excess.

Maybe Jinjenzi does too. She appears to have made this quilt in sections, quilted it, and then sewed the sections together to make a bigger quilt. Genius. Can you see the little ridge in the middle of the quilt? That's a join. Like a quilt as you go quilt - she's sewn a binding strip over the join on both sides. I'm going to try this. I love how it looked from a distance too, just like part of the quilting.



I don't like basket quilts as a rule. But this is my kind of basket. Even where it doesn't look like there's a basket, there is one - but in white, with white applique handles.



I have no idea who the next 2 quilts were by, they were in the general displays. They drew me in though. I really like the bright hexes. You can't beat a hexagon quilt.







Another exhibitor that got me all a quiver was Ingrid Press (no website that I can find). Her work was also so simple, and so effective. She was selling her quilts too, for really good prices. The 2 quilts that I liked best were not for sale, and the next 2 favourites were sold. Good job really, I think I'd have gone home with one.

She added little scraps of fabric to the quilting to get texture. Beautiful.




She told us that the house quilt on the left wasn't for sale because she lived in hope her son would give her a grandchild. She had already given 3 or 4 away to family babies. Imagine that? Lucky babies. The houses were my favourite. Again, I'm not a big house quilt fan, but how she made tiny little 2 or 3 inch houses and trees, even a church and then put them with all that plain background was amazing. The background was made up of a lot of different whites, some with texture, some plain. And she had quilted random tiny houses into the quilting.

The red one next to it was sold. It would have come home with me had it not been.



And this log cabin was another one that I really would have like to take home with me. Sadly, that was also sold. I think it had sold for £400. That's a bargain!




Moving away from the neutrals...look at this riot of colour!

Beautiful, isn't it?




Moving away from the 'proper' quilts we went for a little trip into the art quilts section. Now, I'm not a big art quilt fan. A quilt, to me, keeps you warm, whilst looking pretty. Are you with me?

So, this was a little odd. But I kind of liked it. Kind of. I don't quite get it though. How is it a quilt?

It's backing (if you can call it that) was paper shopping bags, opened flat, and there were all kinds of labels sewn on, buttons, a bit of trim.
Is it a quilt though?

You can see Brioni trying to decide. She's not convinced. Trash was even less convinced, whereas Maria really liked it.




But I've saved the best picture for last. Best as in worst. I really don't like to criticise someone's work, and I'm not criticising the work at all - that was meticulous. Thousands of maybe 1 inch squares, certainly no bigger than 1.5 inches, anyway, all hand pieced to form a picture that was almost 3d. It almost leapt out at you. It was certainly a labour of love, and would have taken hundreds of hours to put together.

It's the eyes. And the giant pom pom bee that are upsetting me. I wish I knew who had made it, I'd love to see what else they've made. There was a little crowd of people around it at any one point, all looking at it with the same kind of bewilderment. It was an emotive piece. That's for sure. I doubt it's creator would have anticipated it causing such a stir.

Or maybe they did. Maybe it was a deliberate ploy to get people going. Give them something to remember, because of all the quilts on display this one sticks in my mind more. I have no idea what won best in show. After I saw this I didn't take another picture. This did it, it was the grand finale. Maybe if you google rabbit quilt festival of quilts 2009 you'll get thousands of hits all with the same thing. I'd like to think it was entered by some kind of guerilla quilter. A Banksy for textiles. That would be something.




So, that was my day. We came, we saw, we ate a lovely lunch (the NEC is pretty good for food too - who'd have thought?), we shopped. We shopped without over-shopping. We were all very sensible, despite plenty of enabling going on from all of us. You have to encourage fellow ladies to shop, don't you?

I tried out a couple of machine quilting frames. I have to address my fear of free motion quilting, but thanks to a weak back (the husband would say the whole of me is weak) I hate hunching over the machine quilting. I did think those frames where you pop your sewing machine on top to give you a kind of poor man's long arm were a gimmick. I think I'm a convert. This was the one that finally convinced me. The man on the stand was eating a muller rice with a chopstick. He left us to it. We had a play, I managed some pretty pebble shapes and some lovely stippling. Brioni did some little people. We almost looked like experts. I like a salesman that has enough faith in his product to know that it sells itself. He sold it to us both. Even our menfolk are agreed (I think).

fiesta fiesta festival!

Today I went here. With this motley crew.




I'm very tired, very excited to tell you all about the wonderful (and not so) quilts and stuff we saw, the fun and adventures (actually there were no adventures, but it might keep you interested).
Pics of the delights will come later this week (next week?) but I will leave you with a pic of my haul (I was so restrained) and this amazing donkey pillow that Trash made for me. I'm so happy to own a piece of donkey, I think it's been a long enough time coming. Thank you, Trash, I love him. I really do (especially his pom pom trim).



Ok, back soon - with quiltastic photos, quiltnotsotastic photos and my copy (actually copies) of mixtape. SQUEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

oh good gosh!

I made something I can WEAR! Something other than a quilt, something actually really, really useful (yes, I know quilts are really useful too - but I thought you may be getting bored of them by now).

I made some shorts!!!

Well, boxer shorts. Or PJ shorts. Something to wear at night, other than my scruffy old sweatpants.

What do you think? (click on the pic and it goes big)




I've never made anything clothes like before. Well, once I made a skirt out of a pair of trousers, without a sewing machine. It wasn't great, I did wear it. Actually I wore it quite a bit, but it's not my greatest achievement.

I think these might be my greatest achievement. Having been afraid of dressmaking for as long as I can remember, I really wanted to make something with the far far away FQs I got last week. I wasn't brave enough to try my plan out with them first of all though, so I used some pretty precious liberty prints instead.
I used a pair of the husband's boxer shorts as a template (I like things to be roomy - can't be doing with tight PJs), and made sure I zigzagged over all the seams (next time I think I'll try french seams though).

Other than the ridiculously long tie (seems I'm not quite as large as I had anticipated) they came out pretty well. I'm actually looking forward to going to bed tonight.

I wasn't going to say anything....

...but I can't wait. I might wet myself if I don't tell someone.




mixtape issue 10 is out. I think it's the best yet. I wouldn't be biased. Oh no. But the crafty lady in this issue is just awesome. I love her. What's that you say? Oh, yeah. IT'S ME!!!!


My copy is on it's way from the land down under. I'm practically camped out by the front door waiting for the postman.

the return of Martha

She's back. Martha, I mean. Two days in a row. There's something not quite right going on here at Monkey Towers. I think someone's been slipping something in my tea.

This morning we woke up a little later than yesterday, and there was no cooking of pasta...because I'd already prepared Miss G's camp lunch the night before. Oh yes. Go me.

After an initial t-shirt trauma 'this one's too short', 'why can't I wear one of yours?', 'where are all of my t-shirts, mummy?' (all of your t-shirts are in your pile of clean laundry that you ignore in your room, dear child...and no, you cannot borrow my t-shirt, wear your own, you cheeky moo) Miss G was off for another fun packed day in camp. Hoorah.

Ginger and I went to the park to feed the ducks. There were no ducks. We went on the slides instead. All was going well, until he thought (whilst wearing a spiderman mask) that he could jump from the top of a slide to the ground. As the Ginger one does not possess special powers his landing was a little shaky, and involved his nose bearing the brunt of the fall. Bleedy bleedy. Not nice.

Tears and dust and a little blood don't look too good on grown ups, but they suit little boys. In fact, I think little boys look best with some muck on their faces.

The slide then lost it's appeal, so we went to find some geese at the lake. You can't feed them bread anymore. They didn't look overly happy about the lack of bread in their diet, but we bought some seeds and fed them those instead. Not quite as fun as trying to entice the goose to eat out of your hand, but watching them peck at the ground is fascinating. How do they get those tiny seeds up into their mouths? I'm baffled.

Back home to more playdough fun. Lots of dinosaurs, most of them have been hit by meteor showers though. Poor things.



Tomorrow we are making cornflour clay, so we can start Christmas ornaments. Yes, you heard right. Christmas ornaments. It's August, people, Christmas is almost upon us!!!!

This efficient me cannot last. It's not possible for me to have a third good day in a row.

I think it all started on Friday, when I popped out for lunch with the husband and some friends, and got stopped in the street on the way by what I thought was a person trying to sell me something...but turned out to be Grazia magazine. I've been feeling a little bit special ever since (insert incredibly cheesy grin here). But, seriously, how cute is the Ginger one? I'm biased, I know, but he's kissing my hand on the picture. Gotta love him. Miss G has told everyone since friday about the 'incident'. I scored cool mum points. Result. (insert second big cheesy grin here!)

sometimes days just go right

Days like today don't happen often. In fact, even mentioning it will probably jinx me for the rest of the week. I don't care, I'm having a day like Martha and I'm happy.

I woke up this morning, fed the ginger one, fed the cats, fed the husband (ok, he fed himself, but I did make him tea). I started cooking. At 7am I was boiling pasta to make a salad for Miss G to take to camp. Yep, 7am. I washed up as I went. I also made her sandwiches that were healthy and used nice bread, not the curly, dried up, dusted with a little mould bread that I would usually have on a Monday morning.

At 7.30 am Miss G was ushered into the shower, and she managed to get dressed without too much fuss (if she hadn't fussed at all then I'm afraid I would have to admit she wasn't actually there. She's almost 10, and it's her duty to have a little whine on the way to getting ready). I tied her hair up. I packed her bag, with the correct items for a day at camp - swimming costume that fitted, towel, goggles, packed lunch done, drink in a bottle that didn't leak, top screwed on correctly.

She was out of the house for 8.20am, and had even brushed her teeth.

My perfect morning then wobbled a little....

The ginger one started crying. He's too little for camp, one more year and he'll be there too, but a year is a long time for a 3 yr old. When he sees his sister and the other kids in the street going off for a fun packed day he doesn't like it much.

So Martha Mummy said 'let's get dressed, go to the supermarket and we'll make playdough '. The ginger one stopped crying, and got dressed without a fuss (except when Mummy chose the wrong underpants. Apparently the ones I chose didn't match).

And the day has continued as pleasantly.

We made playdough - 2 batches, enough for 4 colours. I think the last time I made it was when Miss G was small. It's been a few years. I'd forgotten how simple it was. I think we might try the cornstarch clay recipe - so we can make models to paint - next time a Martha day comes along.
After the playdough excitement had worn off, and to avoid the TV being a natural lure, we played with jigsaw puzzles. I have never liked jigsaws, I know they are wonderful as a learning tool, but they just seem to lack all imagination for me. You put 'em together, you rip 'em apart. There's no other way to put them together, you have to follow the rules. But today I played jigsaws, and I quite liked it.

This is all before 1pm, we're packing the fun in today.

I could see Ginger itching for Ben10 on TV, so I asked him if he wanted to try an experiment. That word alone is exciting. We got some corn flour, we added water, we had a lot of fun. The fun lasted over half an hour, I didn't really think the cornflour slime fun would last longer than 5 minutes, but he sat on the counter top in the kitchen and squished and squished and squished. Then poured water into the bowl to make the slime disappear, and got a cloth to clean up (without me even asking).

It's now 2pm, he's just sat down to watch a little TV before he takes a nap. I'm going to embroider some labels for the quilts I've been working on lately, and sew the binding on one of the quilts that have been waiting too long for binding.

And do you know what else? The sun is shining.

Today is a good day.

Sunday Stash

I succumbed to her charms. Heather Ross, Far Far Away. If you don't have any already, you should buy some - it's nothing like normal cotton fabric, it's so soft and light. I want underwear made with it - little cami tops and boxer shorts, I can imagine they'd become favourites. Shame I have no idea where to start with actually making myself any underwear (although sew hip this time has some knickers - maybe I could start with those?)

This was a full set - all 19 fabrics, but I had promised my friend Beth I'd split it with her, so she has her own little stash flying over to Cali right now (I hope).

I bought my set from here on etsy, and I'd totally recommend her. I just ordered a little minny muu, so maybe that will be here next week.

today I am mostly...

Sending out the first set of packages for the holiday block swap, starting a new giant animals quilt for my preggers friend, and trying to tidy up the house that is waaaaay too messy for my liking.

What is with all the pregnant people at the minute? It's so not fair - I think they're doing it deliberately to taunt me. Don't they realise my ovaries are itchy? (It has been - reluctantly - agreed that for now we are having no more babies, mainly because I want two more babies, not just one. If I would compromise and accept one more I think I'd get the green light. I'm still young, I reckon I can convince him eventually).

Our trip to the bowling place (what are they called? not rink, not store, not ground. I'm at a loss - my brain is fried) was fun. The ginger one won. He won, despite being younger than the other kids by at least three years. I think I should get him a shirt with his name on, a bag and his own special ball. He even got two strikes. Go ginger.

There's photographic proof, see.....





Unfortunately, I had no socks (which isn't strictly true - I had brought some socks, but one of the kids hadn't so I had to donate my socks to her) and therefore I wasn't able to play (I have foot germ issues - no way am I putting on sweaty bowling shoes worn by someone else without a layer of wooly protection). Shoot. You do realise I would have been the bowling queen, don't you? I'd have knocked down pins in lanes left and right. They'd all have been talking about me and my amazing curved bowling. Probably for the best I didn't get to play, then?

What are you doing today?

I made a bag!!!!

And very proud of myself I am too.

It's this one. It was lovely and simple, required no interfacing (yay), and I think I could have whipped it up in a couple of hours, had I not stretched the process over a few days (thanks to summer holidays and those pesky kids being about, demanding feeding and watering and things).

I'm off bowling. Hmm. That should be fun. Miss G found it really quite hilarious that I was going with her. For all she knows I could be a secret bowling whizz. Not likely.

surrounded by bees

Not the honey making kind, or the fat, velvety bumble bee type either, but the quilting bee kind. Of course. It never ends, does it?
Which is great, because I need to practise, I'm still very much a beginner, and without the absolute need to try new things I would probably just stick to what I know. For an easy life. I'm a bit like that.

The Wise One mentioned an excellent reference book for quilting bee inspiration. It really is great to have enough blocks to choose from (200) without there being too many. It's nicely laid out, with clear, simple diagrams. I know we can go searching on the internet for much of the same, but once I get googling I tend to get distracted and end up 3 hours later with nothing done.

All of these blocks are for the Quilt Around The World Bee, where we add one block to a quilt, like a round robin letter. It's a really fun group, with some wonderful quilters, from all levels of ability.

First up is a block for Sudi-Laura who wanted blocks made from scraps. I really like Sudi-Laura, so I used the extra special favourite scraps. The block was inspired by this quilt. I have a whole heap of charm squares ready to make a big quilt like this for myself, I really should start making at least one block a day to get things moving.



Next is a block made using the book I mentioned earlier. It's an economy patch, in bright colours, for Cindra.




I've saved the one I'm most proud of 'til the end. Curved piecing. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to rip this block into tiny shreds when I was sewing it. I've never tried a curve before, I might never do it again. I used a million pins, I pricked my fingers to death, but there are no puckers. It's nice and flat. I'm really pleased with myself for not copping out and doing something else, after all, the whole point of these bees is for me to learn stuff. On the downside, it's almost an inch too big - but best to be too big than too small, right? (Please tell me I'm right). This one's for Aimee



In other (probably more interesting to most people) news...I have tried to overcome my fear of the zipper foot, and sewn a couple of box pouches. The skull one has some wonky stitching around the zip, but I was having kittens whilst sewing it, and foolishly lifted my needle when I shouldn't have. It can't be too bad, the husband has nicked it to use in his man bag, to hold his 'necessaries'. Whatever they may be (but I'm presuming hand cream, lip balm and probably some other girly bits - he may be covered in tattoos, but really is quite girly). The tulip one is made from mini boden fabric, leftover from a table cloth I made for my best friend. It's got really bright pink lining, which makes me smile. Maybe more than lining should, but with the weather being so dismal I need to get some sunshine from somewhere, right? I'm off to meet the best friend today for lunch. I even put a dress on especially (but it's starting to annoy me), I think I'll give it her when I see her, to keep her jewellery making supplies in.



I also have far more exciting mail to show you, but it's raining, I'll have to take some pics when the sun shows it's face (if the sun shows it's face) and keep 'em for next time.

Sunday Stash

The Fields range, by Aussie designer Saffron Craig. I have the owls too. I ADORE Saffron's fabrics, they're beautifully printed, with really beautiful colours, and the cotton is wonderfully crisp.