CHARM ABOUT YOU

*GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED*

to save you some time, scroll down to the bottom if you're only interested in the giveaway 😶...

Everyone else, get comfy, grab a brew and I'll show you what I've been making recently!

First up was another lever arch file cover with some no drama llama EPP appliqué! I spent some time designing a pattern for the pieces that worked well with the fabric, the Llama Llama fat quarter bundle, for a demo on Sewing Quarter. I also decided to fussy cut the pieces making up the focal llama. Yes I could have used one big hexagon but I like to challenge myself a bit and it was for a small make, not sure I would do this if it was for a quilt because it's obviously more time consuming.

The great thing about using small pieces of epp like this is that you can use them for decoration and the apppliqué is really easy because the edges are already folded under. You can simple top stitch it in place or use any decorative stitch you like, I went for a small zig zag. The file covers are so fun to make and are great gifts. I also like anything that lets me combine my love of stationery and sewing!

I also made my Tree of Life quilt block into a cushion, using the Purple Mist fat quarter bundle. The finished 14" block is set on point with side setting triangles. I tend to always cut these larger and then trim them back. It might waste a tiny bit of fabric but it's easier to be more accurate that way and you don't have to worry about the bias edges too much.

Our local library reopened recently, after some renovations, and I am delighted to be getting back into reading. Books have always been a great way for me to escape, immersing myself in a story and also as a way to learn more or think about things differently. I admit to being a fan of business and self help books, I go through phases of reading them (not all of them, I'm kind of picky) and I have to be in the right mood. This is one of the books I borrowed, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere by Gillian Anderson and Jennifer Nadel, so far I'm enjoying it (and yes it is that Gillian Anderson). It has a gentle, conversational approach with anecdotes and exercises. 

I also borrowed a fiction book, Clock Dance by Anne Tyler. A few years ago I read a couple of her books and enjoyed them so I'm looking forward to this one. If you have a favourite title of hers please let me know, I like recommendations!

The staff at Patchfinders had a get together this week and we learnt to make fabric lanterns. Our teacher Lil was great - she will be teaching a class at the shop in the new year - and we had such a fun time. A huge thank you to Claire for organising such a wonderful evening!

I chose two of my favourite prints, Social Climber from Floral Retrospective by Anna Maria Horner and the Viewfinders by Melody Miller. There is no point keeping fabric treasures tucked away and I love that I'm going to be able to see these beautiful prints in my living room. Judith very kindly let me use some of her pom pom trim to embellish my floral lantern. I think it's so kitsch and granny looking but still modern - so my taste!

And lit up with battery fairy lights inside, they are so pretty! Very hard to capture but you get a sense of it here. The one on the right isn't quite finished, I still need to tuck the seam on the inside.

I began using beeswax when I started doing English Paper Piecing, I was given a small piece to run thread through. It helps prevent knots, allows for smooth sewing and strengthens the thread. After I started using Aurifil for EPP, I found I didn't need the beeswax and subsequently lost that small piece somewhere. At a local market I discovered Foz-Bees, a Manchester bee keeper who has the most amazing products and delicious honey. The beeswax blocks called out to me and I thought it would be fun to try it with other threads, I have heard it works well for those sometimes pesky metallics! I'm wondering if I can use it on embroidery thread (if any one has please let me know your experience!) and fine thread like the Aurifil 80wt that I use for appliqué. I'm always keen to try new and old techniques, especially when it's with natural resources - even better when you can shop small.

I picked up some extra and am giving away this 100% natural beeswax block and bee.

The clouding you see on it is because I've been keeping it in the fridge! Due to the fact that it's fairly delicate, could possibly melt if it was near a heater, postage costs are crazy, and I'm not certain of international restrictions on this sort of thing: I am only offering the giveaway to UK readers. 

*GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED* Congratulations to the winner, Kay!

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY 

Just leave a comment below - if you're stuck for something to write, tell me your favourite way to eat honey! Mine would be in porridge or to just eat a teaspoon of it!

If you don't want to sign in to a profile please leave your email in the comment, e.g. ilovebees (at) honeycomb dot com so that I can contact you.

UK entries only, the winner will be chosen on Monday 10th December. Good luck!

For those times when you want a quick little make, a handmade gift, or need a needle case! Here's my tutorial for the Little Quilt needle case, so named because that's what it is like (with a bit of felt!). The finished needle case measures 3" x 4". If you need to store more needles and have a handy way of organising them, may I suggest the Stitchy Pie needle case pattern available in my shop.

You can go to town or keep it really simple and you can whip these up so quickly, you will want to make more! I made one version for me and another to give a friend in a swap.

To download / print the PDF instructions for the Little Quilt needle case, CLICK HERE

YOU WILL NEED

Outer fabric: 6½" x 4" 

Inner fabric: 6¼" x 4"

Fusible fleece or wadding: 6½" x 4"

Felt: 4½" x 3" 

Binding: approx. 25", cut 2" strip

Hera marker or fabric pen/pencil

A popper / snap - either a press in or sew in snap

TUTORIAL

1. Fuse fusible fleece to the back of the outer fabric. If you are using wadding you may want to use a lining fabric and make a 'quilt sandwich'.

2. Quilt as desired. You can quilt by machine or hand, or add some embroidery stitches as I did below (ignore the line of stitching down the middle, we will come to that!).

3. Place the quilted outer fabric right side down, put the inner fabric on top right side up and the position the felt in the centre. Mark a vertical line down the centre using a hera marker or fabric pen/pencil. Stitch on the line.

4.  Attach the binding to the front using a ¼" seam allowance, I have a basic tutorial for binding here.

5. Fold the binding over to the inside and hand stitch the binding down (or machine stitch if you prefer).

6. Position and attach the snap in the centre of either side, next to the binding. Put with the 'male' stud on the front side and the 'female' socket on the back. It helps to push the cap part (with the point) through the front and then close the needle case and press, so you have a mark to position the socket and they will align when you close the case.

Load it up with needles and/or pins and you're finished! 

This is a great project to experiment with different threads, I used Aurifil 12wt and 28wt for both the hand stitching and the 'spine'. I think metallic threads would be fun too!

This needle case is for my beading and tassel making needles, it's nice to keep them separate from my regular sewing needles. 

The fabrics I used are from Faraway Places by Elizabeth Olwen for Cloud9 Fabrics, for UK stockists visit Hantex.

Happy stitching!

It is wonderful to find a product that is useful, very well made and solves a problem. TheQuiltMate is a completely different type of ironing pad - something I think quilters could get really excited about. I have teamed up with TheQuiltMate to be able to offer you a discount code, a giveaway and to share my honest thoughts on their product. I will tell you straight away that it's really great!

I'm posting this on a day when everyone goes % sales and shopping mad. I've actually not bought anything today (except ice cream!) because I'm pretty sure this lovely lot will keep me busy, along with the rest of my fabric stash.

First are these pretty prints from Rose Garden Patchwork, a brilliant UK site to shop for Japanese prints and notions.

clockwise from top left: Pretty Cards in Lilac by Yuwa; Paper and Marguerite by Suzuko Koseki and Fashionable Cat - Sobakasu Kids, I was also kindly sent a bit of Fruit Love by Atsuko Matsuyoma with my order.

Next up is one metre of Essex Yarn Dyed Metallic in Sorbet from Sew Hot, which I ordered for a specific project... and now I don't remember what!! It is super pretty through, shot through with blue, pink and yellow metallic strands.

left to right: Medium Dots in Ginger, Maroon and Grey by Tilda

Back to more sewing stuff, today was a good post day! The latest Signs of the Sewdiac subscription box arrived, probably my favourite design so far - so pretty and hand sewing is my favourite thing! The notebook is gorgeous, with dot grid paper, another beautiful pin, sticker, card and a pen. Some starry bias binding too, which I know will be useful! 

I love it's face. The nice shade of pink and the gold accents. Also the sweet birds on the pot, totally reminds me of Bambi. Which is what I was calling it but then is it more Faline (the doe in Bambi)? It doesn't have to be a girl because it's pink does it. I like both names, I'm still undecided!!

It's all go preparing for a busy weekend. We've got the middles birthday, a print fair and a family get together. If you happen to be in Manchester this weekend, come and say hello - look for Prints of Cats.

I hope you have a great weekend what ever you are up to!

It's been sew sew sew at my house! These projects each have a lot of seams and used up a lot of thread. Completely worth it though because they turned out really nicely. 

My first project used the new Bird Pond collection in Blue and Teal by Tilda. I made two sizes of pineapple blocks for a 20" cushion front (which I did make into a cushion but I don't have a picture of the finish!). I chose to fussy cut the gorgeous Anemone print for the centre of the largest block and for the corner squares.

Surrounded by smaller blocks like this, it looks like ripples on a pond. The blocks were made using the Creative Grids Pineapple Trim Tool, both the larger (for the 10" centre block) and mini version (for the eight 5" blocks). It makes it so easy to create really accurate, straight seams for what is otherwise a fiddly block. Someone messaged the show to ask if you could foundation paper piece these blocks, of course you can and a quick google search showed up plenty of free patterns you can use. Personally I prefer using the tools, it really is so simple once you get in the swing of it - just be sure to follow the instructions! I have made errors myself though those blocks still turned out nicely, they just weren't pineapples! I also think this is a brilliant way to use up scraps and like that you can create so many different layouts playing with fabric placement. You can see my 'mistake' blocks and another version of the block I made during the demo, video at the end of this post.

My other project is a quilt top made using the fabulous Paris Star pattern by Lynne Goldsworthy. This is such a stunning design and Lynne's instructions are excellent as always. I really like those half stars and the way they disappear into the border. It's a fairly big quilt finishing at 70" but the piecing isn't complicated. 

Here is lovely Vicki (and her beautiful princess hair) with a ta da moment after director Tim did a great job of hanging the quilt top in the studio. Not as easy when it's a flimsy that's larger than the angled wall!

If you'd like to see the demos click below - the Pineapple cushion starts at 1:05:00 and the Paris Star starts at 3:04:00 - you could watch the whole show and see Becky Alexander Frost demo bag making!

My husband sneakily took this as I was taking pictures of the finished quilt, I think it's a pretty cool photo! 

Last week I made this trip around the world quilt for a Sewing Quarter demo. Now these aren't all colours I would normally go for but I really like this combination of pastel colours with the deep purple and bright blues. It's a mix of solids, Linea and prints from the Bijoux range by Makower.

Cutting strips from 'tubes' for the blocks leaves you with some extra, so I used some of them in the binding too. I made sure to press all the seams open so the binding wouldn't be too bulky and I interspersed it with strips of the print fabric to avoid having seams in the corners. I made a long strip for binding and then laid it out around the quilt to make sure! Good job too because I had to add in another fabric strip between the pieced sections to make it work.

One of the things I love about visiting a quilt shop is getting to see fabric collections you've seen online, in real life. I was teaching at Patchfinders the other day and, after ogling City Nights by Lewis and Irene on my laptop, some had to come home with me! It has lovely touches of metallic, just enough sparkle without being too much. I fell for, from left to right: Architectural Blender in copper on light and City Buildings in copper and copper on multi. The copper glistens so beautifully and the colours are totally my style.

While I was at the shop, a local quilting group was meeting in one of the rooms and they were selling Super Snips mini scissors to raise money for the charity Siblings Together. Of course I bought a pair and of course I chose pink. How dinky and cute are they?! Handy that it has an attached cover too. The whole thing measures less than 2".

Big, bright, bold blocks make up this Fireworks quilt I designed. It was fun mixing up the warm toned fabrics and the 14" blocks repeat to create an explosion of light against a dark navy background. The quilt is 56" square, I seem to have a thing for square quilts... they do work well for lap quilts.