Friday 20 December 2013

Christmas at M is for make


Just one last post before Christmas to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a happy, peaceful holiday. And a reminder of opening hours...

The shop will be open for orders throughout the festive season, but there will be reduced deliveries. The last postal date before Christmas is 21st December and all orders placed before 12pm will be posted then. All orders after that will be posted from 30th December.

Monday 16 December 2013

Up, Up and Away


'Up, Up and Away' collection by Heather Moore for Cloud 9 Fabrics now in stock.


Thursday 12 December 2013

Christmas

source
I am looking forward to Christmas; to having some time off, eating, Christmas films (preferably with talking animals), sitting infront of my mum's fire, going for long walks by the sea, being free of school for 2 whole weeks, presents, mulled wine. I am anticipating it all like a cast-away searching for fresh water. And the new year too; turning over a new chapter in 2014, shaking off 2013, a long, hard year.

Source: Mr Printables

One things I love about Christmas is getting stuck into some craft, the days are short, the weather often dreadful and someone is usually too ill to go out. Last Christmas, we coloured in this epic Christmas tree, I am wondering if the kids are prepared to do it again this year (I am). Mr Printables, (what other career could he chose with a name like that) has many delicious printables for us, look at this super cute polar bear wrapping.


I also love:


Also, my new obsession is felt balls, I bought a bag from Blooming Felt, and strung them together to make a garland (or cat magnet) for the Christmas tree. I love them so much, and have had to restrain myself from buying many more.


Another post to follow on Christmas opening hours, please share any great Christmas craft links, Christmas breakfast ideas, favourite Christmas films involving talking animals (for the record ours is The Search for Santa Paws - a classic).


Wednesday 11 December 2013

Made: the Triangle Quilt


My last quilt of 2013: the Triangle Quilt. Made for an old friend in need of a quilt (well, something of a presumption, but who wouldn't need a quilt?).



I boldly chose colours that I thought she would like, and it was fun to venture out of my usual palette of colours. Clementine has been a really popular colour during 2013, so it was pretty easy to pick out that side and I couldn't resist putting in a fair bit of Tule.

Chip with an eye on quality control
The triangles are big: the sides measure 21cm, so it went together really quickly after the initial fiddling around to make the pattern random enough, not having the same colours next to each other and having the bolder pieces spaced apart. 


I used Kona navy for the backing, it just fitted, just. Then having whipped through the top, I managed to make an awful mess of the quilting as usual. A combination of ploughing in without enough thought, wanting to get it over, and hoping it would turn out ok, didn't work. It took me about 3 goes to get the quilting right, even though it was just straight lines in the end.


And despite thinking this quilt would be started and finished in half term, I have only just managed to finish binding it this week.


You can find the fabrics I used for this quilt here, although a few are sold out now, let me know if you want to make this quilt yourself, and need some extra fabric choices.


Now all I have to do is wrap it up and send it off (oh after I have removed the white fluff from the back, poor choice to put a navy quilt back on a fluffy white rug).

Hope you are finding time to finish off your makes before Christmas!

Friday 6 December 2013

New fabrics


In the calm that follows the epic Black Friday sale I have finally found time to upload some lovely new prints, including these beauties by Charley Harper. I am huge fan of Charley Harper, if you want to read a little bit more about him, head over here.

I picked a few prints that I thought would make great additions to your stash, a lovely bag, pillow or quilt back.

Also with perfect timing as they are marvelously festive, these metallic zig-zags and dots are just gorgeous and glimmery.




And finally another great colour in the Essex linen collection: steel - grey with a hint of pale denim.