Making Me Smile - 10/52

My award winning (I kid you not) handmade Mother's Day card!  Big smile!

My mysterious Mother's Day present - quizzical smile?
Hadn't a scooby's what it was - it was perfectly straight coming out of the wrapping, didn't have that curve in it.
Bookmark?  Giant phone charm - maybe for those brick mobiles we had back in the 90's?

A leather bracelet.  Good surprise and a happy smile!

Half a quilt

Been working away shaping the words into rows for the Bee Blessed quilt.  This has proved to be a lot of maths for a Friday night and a wee bit nerve wracking to be sure that I'm keeping a good balance between all of the colours.  Needs a wee header strip of navy just to properly complete this top half of the quilt, but I think I like it.  This is only half the quilt - this baby is going to be HUGE!

Hope you all have a nice weekend ahead!

Snood Reveal!

Here's the reveal piccie for my crochet snood which I managed to finish last weekend.

This grainy rubbishy pic is the best of a bad bunch of me modelling my new neck warming garment.

Here's a better pic without my ugly mug -

Toasty loveliness!  And so good to have what was supposed to have been a Christmas hols project finally finished!

Delicious blocks!

With a solid called butterscotch, Rachel's hipBee blocks for her month as Queen Bee could hardly be anything but delicious.  This solid is the most indulgent, rich golden colour - funnily enough, just like good butterscotch.  I haven't used it before but it is nice to see and play with fabrics you might not otherwise buy yourself.  Anyway, I digress, here's my block -

Rachel's block of choice is a Puss in the Corner variation with Liberty fabric accents.  She will have some made in the butterscotch solid and some in jade, like her own block.  This block looks fantastic when repeated (see here) and it will be interesting to see how the variation of the solids spices things up a bit.

Hope you have a fab quilt at the end of the process R!

Bee Blessed - March 2013

This month's Bee Blessed block is a Happy Zombie's Funky Wrench block.  I must admit that until Judith suggested this block I hadn't come across this take on the wrench/churn dash block, but I think it looks great and as a bonus, the cutting instructions will yield both the nut and the bolt block which are positive/negative versions of each other.

Nut block

Mmmmm - I like this orange/purple combination.

Bolt block

Bee Blessed plans to contribute a quilt once again this year to the Siblings Together project and these blocks will be used for that purpose.  Consequently, this month we are making them up in white solid and bright colours.  If you fancy a go, please check out the Happy Zombie instructions.  We are making the 12" block.

Just a wee note: To yield the half square triangles for this block,  the 4 7/8" blocks should be matched one white to one patterned square right sides together, draw a diagonal across the back of the white square and stitch a quarter of an inch on either side of the pencil line.  Then, cut along the pencil line, open out and voila, two HSTs you can just trim to 4.5".

Hope you might consider making us a nut and bolt pair!

Sew Many Plans - March 2013

Helloooo?  Could somebody bring back February please?  It feels a little like I blinked and missed a whole month, or most of it anyway.  Although my February plans didn't seem overly ambitious when I made them, I have fallen just a little short of completing them.

• In February Bee Blessed projects seemed to get most of my attention.  There's such a lot on the go for our donations list and of course, I started work with Judith on the words quilt too.  It's great to know all of this stitching is for such worthy causes.
• Some fun was had in the stitching and temporary kidnapping of Di's Ruby Geese.
• I finished the recycled shirts squares and strips quilt for my son.
• I stitched and stitched and stitched some more trying to attach the back hexagon border to my hexie quilt.  Jeepers that was a loooong process!
• I just about squeezed in the sampler blocks for my MIL's quilt - though I did make three which was a bonus.
• But unfortunately, the snood is still on my crochet hook rather than a completed, wearable garment as I had hoped.

March will hopefully not fly by so quickly and will be kind enough to lend me a little more sewing time (she says keeping fingers crossed).  So here's my plan:

hipBees - It's Rachel's month in hipBees and she has chosen a lovely block for us and is sending liberty  and lovely teal or butterscotch solids.  Looking forward to this block.

Bee Blessed - The words quilt needs more magic worked on it and I'll try to keep up with the monthly block too.

Special Birthday Sampler Quilt - I have been enjoying these sampler blocks and think maybe a granny square will be on my list this month along with one other - so many choices ....

Snood - hoping for a finish this month.  I really don't have much more to stitch, just need to find time to do it.

And, having my head buried in real life I failed to note that Mother's Day is just around the corner, so if I can I might need to come up with a make that will be enjoyed by mum.  We'll see how it goes.

Being honest, I'm not feeling hopeful about this month's plans as life just feels very hectic but I'm working on an aim-high-hit-halfway-and-it'll-still-be-something kind of policy.

Hope you have great plans for your new sewing month!

Making Me Smile - 9/52

This week I volunteered as the Mummy Helper on India Day at my son's class.  The main event was the cooking of a tasty curry which they were then allowed to enjoy in their class restaurant - The Peacock's Feather - complete with beautifully decorated tables and atmospheric lighting.  It was great to be there seeing how hard they all worked and how much pride they took in their efforts.

Here's my boy hard at work.  I wish I had a few more pics, but you know how you can't really take pics at schools these days. (Ssh, don't tell!)