I want to lay me down in a bed of roses

I realise I am becoming a bit of an old rose lady! Especially as Andrea bought me some rose fabrics at the Great Northern Quiltshow at Harrogate.




Thanks so much Andrea. They will be absorbed into my rose quilt (just as your kind gifts for the boys have somehow been absorbed into the house LOL) ((And the lovely Sarah of ifonlyihadchocolate sent me some... chocolate(!) which has also been absorbed - so no photo! But it was yummy! Thanks Sarah!)

So what's the big plan with all these rose fabrics that my lovely friends send me??

Well, years ago my mother made a hexagon quilt from scraps and I just love it. I used to sit and try and find all the roses. So I decided to make my own, but with mainly rose fabrics. There are some leaves, some neutrals etc here and there to add a bit of variety, but it's mainly roses for me!

And now the current plan is to include my paper-pieced rose by Ula Lenz....




I laid the hexagon panel I've finished with the paper-pieced rose on my bed and then just sort of filled around it will loose hexagons...



Here's a close-up.



I think this is approximately the layout I'll go for, obviously I have a long way to completion as I want to make it about King-size!! But I see it as a sort of long term project that I'll pick up every now and again when I need to do some handwork :-)


On a family note, there are other people with other plans in this house too! My 'big' boy will be 4 at the end of the month.



He gets the John Deere catalogue out every now and again to remind us of his birthday hopes.

Carol Doak 3500 Member Block

At last, a chance to paper-piece the Carol Doak 3500 Member block


In 'real-life'the lime is very bright against the black. I used my South African Amafu fabrics again and I really do like them a lot so I'm sure there'll be other blocks with them shortly.


This Bank Holiday Monday our local village held it's annual Cuckoo Festival. As a 'Mum' I had a shift on the school's cakestall...


And my sewing skills were stretched to making a wooden cuckoo an apron out of an old dishtowel (in about 3 minutes LOL)



I am slowly moving into the new room. Not quite sure where to put it all!!!!!


But the view is nice :-)

Where to start? What to finish!

It's been such a long time since my last post!! I rarely get to use the internet and so reading blogs is almost impossible. Writing my own blog a rarity, but as we somehow managed to get an intermittent connection here I thought I'd seize the opportunity to show you all a few pics of WIP's or at least my MIP (monster in progress!) My mother started this quilt at least 22 years ago, probably more. It's English paper-pieced and should ultimately measure 3.3metres square!

Last year I dug it out of a cupboard and said 'let's finish it', Mother groaned a lot, but it is now ready to be squared up. As Mom doesn't want to do anymore sewing on it, I sew and she tacks/bastes the fabric to the papers. Several needed to be cut as 3 of the 8 parts were incomplete. Some of the fabrics were short so we bamboozled and pieced scraps and the 8 parts are now done. I have done some drawings and calculations (don't ask, they may be wrong) and I have a squaring up theory. I plan to use a gradation of greens to kind of pull it all together. I'm also going to use rather large setting squares to get my straight lines and to save making almost a whole new quilt with all the bits we'd otherwise need.
We found the cutest quilt shop. Jack (DS1) loves it too as it's sort of detached from the owner's house and as the owner has a young daughter there is a swing and jungle gym in the garden. I have been informed that this is a 'nice shop Mummy'. Fabric shopping at leisure with DS1 in the garden was the business at the Quilting Bug which is a relief as I may have to visit again soon. I think I a bit short on one of the greens.

I had hoped to show more pictures, but after an hour of trying, I admit defeat and this one will have to do. We had a week or so in Cape Town with 3 visits to the Aquarium in that short time. The kids love it! So if you're reading this and had hoped for kiddi pics hopefully next time :O) And if your reading this and are only interested in quilting, count your lucky stars LOL. Speaking of stars, anyone know what an 8 pointed star calls itself?

Another little tease...

Now what is this?
It's all I could manage this evening and it's for a charity quilt a friend is putting together, BUT that's all I'm telling you tonight LOL.
I have to say that after piecing my rose...

I felt almost paper-pieced out,

but I think I may be getting into it again.

On another note my absolutely darling SIL is in Canada and I had asked her if she was near a quilting shop to pop in for me. If she saw any browns or star fabric she was to feel free to buy me some. She texted today to say she'd been in one, but not seen anything LOL. Just as well, because I really don't 'need' anything do I? :O)

Budding beauty

The only sewing I got done today was a little bit more foundation piecing on my Ula Lenz rose. Almost all the greenery is now complete and it's just all the fiddly bits left that are needed to construct the final full rose (It should look like Birgit’s). I know I should have done the fiddly bits first, but I wanted to make sure I'd have enough of the background fabric and I think that's a good enough excuse LOL! Once I get going, I really do enjoy foundation-piecing and after re-designing a block for my 'Bag O' challenge last night, I have even more respect for foundation-piecing designers. I don't have the brain to think in reverse. With 2 small kids, I hardly have a brain at all LOL

Everything is coming up roses

Here's half my rose by Ula Lenz. After it's been washed with Vanish, ironed, rewashed and each time with Colour Catcher sheets in the water because the dang thing ran when I ironed it the first time round. Not sure how that happened as the culprit (the dark green) and been pre-washed and ironed! Never mind, the green stains are out now, the rest of the green fabric has been re-washed and when I can find some more time I hope to finish it. It really is a beautiful pattern (see Birgit’s)

Can you tell my favourite things are hearts and roses?

This dang Blog!

I've done less sewing since I started this blog than I used to do! Admittedly, I have had a sick clingy baby who I'm pleased to say is much better...

In fact he's even been eating a little something...


The only 'sewing-related' thing I did this weekend was to attempt to clear out my sewing room. This is a BIG job as I share the space with the washing machine, tumble dryer and freezer! I was tempted to take a 'before' and 'after' pic, but 'after' may be a while and 'before' is a bit depressing at the moment. But here is the camera (being investigated) when the time comes for a pic...


Oh, and a few days ago I did sew a bit of my PP rose together only to discover that one of the greens ran when I steam ironed it!!! So annoying as it had been prewashed. However I have been washing the whole piece using colour catcher sheets and some of Birgit's tips. Fingers crossed. Will post a pic of my progress soon. Want to get that finished and back in the UFO box so I can show another one.

UFO of the week/WIP of the day

Apologies, I got the link to Birgit's blog wrong, but I have subsequently corrected it. Birgit's second blog entry shows a rose designed by Ula Lenz available in Birgit’s shop. It's beautiful BUT it's my UFO of the week. It was my WIP while I was in South Africa, but I forgot to take the 'put-it-together' page so I got a bit disillusioned and this is all I came back with after my 3 and a half month stay! However seeing Birgit's rose again, I had to dig it out just to see how much I had left to do.

Although by working on it again, it technically becomes a Work in Progress (WIP). Even if finished, it will go back to being a UFO as I still have to decide what I'm going to do with it.... I have loads of ideas, don't I always? LOL.
Here's what I managed tonight...another leaf or two and some putting together of some of the bits. (excuse the messy worktop...although it's a good resemblance to the state of my mind at the moment)

Not sure I'll finish it this week, but it was nice to get the sewing machine fired up again.