Lucky me

I'm so lucky to have lovely people in my life who understand me. Christmas was a bit of a wash out for reasons I won't bore you with but opening up these lovelies on Christmas morning really made my day!

Crafty chums are the bestest and I'm truly blessed to have this bunch of people in my life!

Because I'm using the blogger app, I can't get pictures into the body of this post so instead I'll do a list of all the fab goodies with pics at the bottom.

Disclaimer: there may or may not have been a chocolate related element to some or all of these gifts but if there was, it's long gone. Om non nom!

1. Gorgeous tula pink project bag from my Muchart Massive chummy Lynz

2. The most beautiful personalised note book from one of the besties Tanya. I shall try my best to use it, but I may just have to keep it nice and pet it for a while 

3. A canvas print made by my very talented cousin from a picture she painted whilst we were away for the weekend last year!

4. A drawstring pouch from another Muchart chummy Sheila which had the nicest smelling soap in it and maybe something else that I ate (sorry, not sorry)

5. The most gorgeous collar style necklace from the other bestie Lesley. It looks like lace work and is so intricate and beautiful!

6. Last but no means least, a zippy pouch and some notebooks from Nikki which also came with a teeny tiny hand felted  acorn but I think the Mr has tidied it away with the Xmas Decs so no pic til next year!

Thanks guys, you rock!

Christmas come early

Hello........

Taps screen and blows cobwebs off the blog. Is anyone out there?

So tonight I was quietly minding my own business, catching up on my blog reading when I read a post about the latest edition of fat quarterly e-zine. Well I completely missed all communication announcing its release so dashed over to download my copy immediately.

This Christmas edition is a special one for me as I have a project in it *squee* Christmas really has come early to the Poppins household! 

I'm still a bit giddy from seeing my name in print for the first time and seeing something I made out there for all to enjoy. 

There are some amazing projects to make in this edition and I'm particularly loving the styling/layout this time round. Now, what to make first?..........

An apology

Of sorts.....

Life is busy right now. Working 2 jobs (2 roles at the same place at least) juggling night shift with 5am starts, coping with the upheaval of 2 bathroom reno's plus a hectic social schedule means my sewing has slipped.

For that I apologise.

I have *several* outstanding commitments, not least:

Bee blocks, several (hangs head in shame)
Baby quilts (gifts)
An update to a bag for a friend
Blogging - including the stitch gathering & swap stuff
Guild prep - eek
Comissions
Chasing my Team Poppins peops who have not done a mosaic yet
Stalking my IG mini swap partner and generally catching up on Flossy's group

And let's not mention the "C" word shall we?!!!

Hoping that this post will prompt/shame me into action!

Watch this space.

Days out

With sewing people are the bestest!

If you need me I'll be at the stitch gathering today.

Around the world blog hop

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by Lou if I wanted to take part in this blog hop. Naturally I said yes as I thought it would be a good opportunity to dust off the old blog, cos let's face it, it's been a while!

What am I working on?

Right now I've just finished 2 big quilts that have been wip's for over a year each. So instead of taking a well earned break, I've started the baby quilt by Katy (I'm a ginger monkey) featured in issue 2 of quilt now magazine. The blocks are all done and the first row sewn together. It'll get finished on Wednesday ready for gifting on Thursday. (last minute much?)

I'm also being kept busy being a swap momma on the IG Mini Swap as well as trying to stalk my partner as a swapee!

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I'm not sure it does to be honest. Obviously we all have colours, designs and designers we all prefer and that is reflected in my work. I'm not one for jumping on a bandwagon just because everyone else is but if I like something then count me in!

Why do I create what I do?

Because it makes me happy. Simple as that. Since starting this crazy quilting journey just over 2 years ago I've become part of an amazing online community, made some fantastic friends and been exposed to some fantastic opportunities.

How does my creating process work?

Along the lines of, this is awesome, this is tricky, this is shit, I'm shit, actually this might be okay, this is awesome!

Seriously though, I find my best ideas come as I'm trying to get to sleep and I just have to hope I remember them in the morning.

So that's it from me. I'm passing the baton on to Sheila aka budsmam who blogs about her quilting adventures over on www.mindfulquilter.blogspot.co.uk and will post her answers next Monday.

June

Must have got my sew-jo back! Not a bad wee month for makes.

You can call me queen bee....

And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule ....

You can thank me later for that little earworm

So team LBQB, July is my month as queen bee and after much to-ing and fro-ing I've finally settled on the single wedding ring quilt block! It's featured in Love Patchwork & Quilting issue 6 if you have a copy but if you don't, fear not I'll put all the deets below.

First though, let's talk colours.....

I've picked a design seeds pallet but don't worry about sticking too rigidly to it. I'm basically after bright pinks, purples (any) or aqua blues for the feature colour and low volume for the background. I don't mind if you use solids or prints and if you want to go scrappy and use a few different fabrics then go for it! The only thing I'd ask is that if you are going scrappy, can you stick to one colour value for the colour bit of the block ie scrappy purples or scrappy pinks but not a mixture (please).

I've put a couple of examples of low volume below too (only because the blogger app doesn't let you put pics in the body of your post for some reason!)

Cutting requirements:

Colour
1 x 4.5 inch square
4 x 2.5 x 4.5 inch rectangles
4 x 3 3/8  inch squares (three and three eighths of an inch)

Background
8 x 2 7/8 inch squares (two and seven eighths of an inch)
4 x 2.5 x 4.5 rectangles

Construction (use a quarter inch seam)

1. Cut all background squares in half along the diagonal to form 16 triangles

2. Take the 3 3/8 inch coloured squares and sew a triangle to 2 of the opposing sides.

3. Press open (i did seams into middle) and trim off dog ears (the wee sticky out bits).

4. Repeat for the 2 remaining sides of the square & trim. Finished square in a square should be 4.5 inches

5. Pair colour & background rectangles and sew together along long edge

6. Lay out pieces in a 9 patch formation and sew together to form a row. 

7. Sew rows together to make a 12.5 inch block. (my wonky test block is shown below, not sure it'll make the cut!) 

Hope you have fun making this next month. Can't wait to see all of your finished blocks!!