Getting a bit behind!

The last few days of wonderful post have reminded me that I should be blogging!
Look at this!!!!!

It's beautiful and came as a surprise with some books I bought from Kate (Thank you so much Kate)

And this!!!

DS1 was pleased to pose with this beautiful rose (and a star too!) fabric

And buttons (How did you know I need buttons!)

From Anne (Thank you very much Anne) BTW those are DS2's trousers, but were handy when we needed a quick change, I kept telling Jack that he looked like JoJo (from JoJo's circus) - he thought it was pretty funny LOL

Since I last blogged I've had beautiful patterns from Patti and Cathi. And I also received my "Home Shopping" from Toni. Thank you to these lovely bloggers - sorry no photos of my loot as it's all been packed ready for my trip home...

Now back to the grindstone LOL - I am making some goodies for a Christmas market - more of that later... Oh and Nicolette tagged me for a great Meme, but I have yet to get to it (soon, I hope!)

Cheater's Binding - a mini tutorial

I have always done my binding like this, I honestly didn't know there was any other way. Obviously I do now, but I guess that's what happens when you are largely self-taught LOL.

Ok, here goes... CHEATER's BINDING (A binding for quick quilts , NOT for Heirlooms etc!)

Cut your binding strips... I cut them about 2.5 inches, but you can do them 3inches wide if you want it really easy (But a bit more wasteful)

Fold the width in half and press it flat

Then fold the half up towards the centre...so that the fold measures approx. 3/4 of an inch. (if you are using 3 inch strips, just fold them in half and then the halves in half again)

Do this on both sides

And then fold them together

Pin this fold closed. It is essential that the fold meets exactly. Pin it (closed) together as the pinning is the most important part later on!!

Here you can see the binding measures 3/4of an inch.

Now, pin the binding to the edge of the quilt.

Make sure that your pin goes through to the same part of the binding on the front as on the back. This IS the most important part. Your pins mimmick your stitches so pin well making sure that the binding is exact on both sides!!

When you come to the corners, fold at right angles

and fold down to get your mitred corners

Pin down

I pin a lot :O) (it's important and saves you time later!)

Check the back to make sure that your pins are in the same position on the back as front.

Continue around the whole quilt until you come back to the start

Fold the edges of the end over

and pin. Now you are ready to sew...

I use a decorative stitch to sew around the edges. (I would not recommend a straight stitch in case your pinning is not perfect) You can use a zig-zag too.

And you are done. I don't sew anything other than the edge. Because it's a sturdy method, I don't even handstitch the corners or the join done as it should not come apart. I hope this wasn't too basic or obvious to anyone. I use it a lot as you can bind a quilt quick-quick and with practice it actually looks very presentable - not for Heirloom quilts, but for those quick ones :O)

Happy Customers

In a rush (!) to get a kid's quilt done for a friend's son who was visiting yesterday, I resorted to my 'cheater's binding' again. I will show how to do it in another post (if you're interested). With only a few days to get it done, I thought I'd just quickly do 'my' binding again. In fact it's so quick I managed to put the binding on 3 kid's quilts in 2 days with another kid's quilt ready to be pinned...

Here's the 'gift' quilt... (sorry a bit blurry - I blame the quilt-rack LOL)


Here's the 'happy customer'


We had gorgeous weather today so we went outside and made use of our 'entertainment centre'...



Both boys had to have an afternoon nap after that! Here's DS1 under another quilt I finished this week

This will be a spare travelling quilt with the purpose of story-telling from the 'I-spy' pictures.

Tagged again

I must say, I have been very pleased that I have met so many nice bloggers of late.... And I'm pretty chuffed too that I was (randomly) tagged for this cool sweet treat by Corry .

We don't really 'do' Halloween in our house although I did buy a pumpkin today with the intention of making a lantern and using the pumpkin for pumpkin fritters... yum!


So I randomly tag....
Samantha - Diary of a mad fabriholic
Andrea Welsh Quilter
Patti - Quilting is my passion

Pass it on if you wish, ignore it if you don't... (funny, I don't normally do things like this LOL)

Tagged by Laila

I have been tagged by Laila for a Meme:

4 jobs I have had:

-shoeshop sales assistant (first job)
-selling wooden back massagers and then clothing on Greenmarket Square in Cape Town
-advertising sales manager for a beautiful antique carpet and textile magazine
-mother and wife a.k.a.'chief cook and bottle-washer'

4 films I could watch over and over:

-Shawshank Redemption
-Walk the Line
-Moulin Rouge
-lots of others, but I can't think right now...

4 TV shows I watch:

-Grey's Anatomy
-Project Runway
-Boston Legal
-Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, but actually I don't watch a lot of TV unless I can sew at the same time

4 places I have lived:

-Cape Town, South Africa
-Holzgerlingen, Germany
-London, UK
-Yorkshire, UK

4 favorite foods:

-Ginger (in dark chocolate)
-Figs (glazed or in syrup)
-Microwave Popcorn (lightly salted)
-Dark Chocolate with orange cream centres (oh dear, that's two chocolate things...)

4 favorite colors:

-Red
-Purple/Plum
-Blue
-Green

4 places I'd love to be right now:

-on a beach just staring at the sea
-wine-tasting on a beautiful wine farm in Cape Town with family and friends
-Germany, visiting friends
-in bed under a favourite quilt getting some decent uninterrupted sleep!

4 names I love but could/would not use for my children:

-Fred
-Katya
-Rose
-Tristan

4 people I'd love to tag with this Meme (sorry LOL):

-Jane W
-Anne B
-Lynda
-Helen K

Feel free to do it if you wish, or ignore it if you don't :O)

The real reason for the postal strike?

Friday, our postbox was FULL! I got a great block for our one-on-one African Blockswap from Kate. Thank you Kate.

I also got my 'Manic Monday' win from The Quilting Pirate a.k.a. Toni. It's beautiful! I loooove the purple star fabric and all the different kitty prints are so amazing. I was really pleased to win this - Thank you so much Toni. Definitely check out Toni's Blog on a Monday (and Kate's too) as there are some lovely things up for offer from these very generous bloggers!

And Toni kindly sent me my first Civil war fabrics... Thank you so much Toni for these too!

Also from Toni in another parcel are my purchases from The Quilting Pirate's Home Shopping Network. Go and take a look as Toni has some lovely things for sale...


On a Yorkshire life note. We have grass. So now we have an activity centre too.
The kids love it and we had some great visitors today who came and tried it out!

'Anything goes' African style

I was telling a fellow blogger that when it comes to African fabric 'anything goes'. Well that's true, but all of my African blocks that I have swapped with Kate so far have been rather 'conservative' so time to practice what I preach...

Take two fabric squares (I have to make 2 blocks - one for Kate and one for me). I wanted to use a focus centre...

Add borders and just sew, but remember to have fun (I did)!!

until you get to the size you need (our blocks are 12.5"). Trim them to size...

and voila...!



This is a similar method to Patti's 'crumb chaos' blocks except that I haven't used really teeny crumbs. But if you haven't seen it already Patti has a wonderful tutorial to make quick blocks the 'Crumb Chaos' way!
(See Patti’s 'Crumb Chaos' tutorial here)


Still on an African theme...
A while back a friend of mine sold me some of her African fabrics and included a bag of scraps. In the bag were a few half started blocks. With her permission I decided to put them all together adding all the borders that were missing. I made a load more from the bits making a quilt top out of all the blocks - it was a bit like putting a puzzle together LOL.
Here it is... a bit wonky and I need to straighten it up a bit, but I guess that's what happens when you have no straight lines to follow (and no design wall) LOL

Post, Party, Guilt

Here in the UK we have had postal strikes. Today we got mail, 2 bits of junk and a bank statement! That was all after several days of no mail. The postie says that any expected post will be piled up in the sorting centres waiting to get to us. This lack of post (mail) has left me with a lack of wanting to post (blog).

But, for all my family and friends who read this blog, I will show some photos from Saturday's "Farm Party". It was a great day, the setting was beautiful...

and everyone seemed to have a good time.

The goats were fed by the kids (each child got a free bag of food as part of the party package)

Tractor-boy inspects the Lama


Two birthday boys...


Two cakes...


We all went for a ride on the 'Wizzick', the farm's mode of transport...




While we were out, I spotted a gate that would be perfect to photograph a quilt on...


Speaking of which, here comes the guilt! I need to put the binding on my Scrapbuster top. I've had it back from Chris for weeks. I just couldn't decide on the binding. I have now decided after consulting with my creative director (DH) that I am going scrappy on the binding too.

I really want to make another one of these one day (with rose prints naturally!)

The reason I feel particularily guilty that it (along with 4 kid's quilts) is not bound is because yesterday I picked up my "Butterfly Blossom" quilt from Chris. I haven't even looked at it.

It's still wrapped up in the plastic cover - I'll treat myself to a good look as soon as I've put the binding on my Scrapbuster!!

And the winners are....

I had to bribe tractor-boy with a bag of 'wiggly worms' to do the drawing, but as he can't read yet he was the most objective LOL. Once we got started he really got into it and enjoyed picking the little pieces of paper to choose the winners.
I was just sorry I only had 4 things to give away for my 100th post. I would have loved to be able to send something to everyone who commented (maybe next time!) Here are the results:

The winner of the bag is...

Tum ti tum ti tum (that was sort of a drum roll....)
Cathi! (If I'd known you were going to win Cathi, I would have mailed it with your fabric LOL)

The three chilli keyring winners are:

Die vliegende koe


Lynda


and Juliann (Juliann, I know you didn't want to be in the drawing, but I put everyone in so you're a winner and that's that LOL.)


Thank you all for your comments. Would the winners please email me your snail mail address if I don't have it already and I'll try and mail these off early next week (postal strike willing!)

Here are my last Focus fabric blocks. No more for me now for a bit as I have 5 quilts to bind! And another one at the Longarmer that I need to pick up next week. Oh, that I knew how to do proper binding, I may get desperate and do my "cheater's" version - again!! At least it's a quick method if not so pretty.
Anyhow, here is A Dandy...

And here is Antique Tile (all blocks from Quilterscache again)


Tomorrow we are having a 'Farm party' for the boys as it's Toby's 1st birthday tomorrow. My baby will be one, wish he'd grow up a bit slower!!!
Here he is at a few weeks old (October 2006)

And here they both are on a quilt made by my friend Ria in Granny's garden in Cape Town (around about March 2007)