Where is the love????

First Christmas pressie (nearly) finished! Just waiting for my quilting class at Tikki London, this Saturday. Then I might actually get the three quilt tops that I have now completed, quilted up!

I set myself a budget of £30 for all the fabric and extras that I would need for three quilts. For the backing I managed to buy 2 double sized flat flannel sheets and a duvet cover at a car boot for £4 the lot.
The fabric for the quilt has come from some bundles that I bought from here, some vintage pillowcases and fabric pieces from the carboot and a couple of cottons from Fabricland. The fabric I have used for the border was my best ever bargain - I must of got around 6-7 meters of good quality 100% cotton fabric for only £1!!!!! Just have the wadding to buy now (ebay me thinks??)I used a pattern from this book called "Garden Trellis" This is the example from the book,
The instructions were easy to follow and the pattern was fairly straightforward and quick to put together.

However,
I found it very hard to seperate my random fabrics into lights & darks.
I was meant to make 8 blocks with every 4 strips but I often only cut 7 - not sure if it was my fabric or my cutting??
All my blocks turned out wonky - I dont know if it was my cutting, stitching, pressing or a combination of all them lol!!!! I was tempted to trim them, but then decided to work with them as the strips were cut on the diagonal they were quite stretchy.
When it came to putting the blocks together, I did not like how the quilt looked. So I put the blocks into pairs and that worked much better.
It took me ages to decide on the final layout- I had to avoid the same fabrics touching & spread out the dominant colours. I finally decided on a layout but couldn't find the camera, so left the blocks laid out on the front room floor for the night. In the morning I got up before the kids, and relaid the blocks out on my bed, thinking that they would be safe. However, whilst sorting breakfast out, I got that hmmm feeling when all is too quite, and found the little fella on the middle of my bed with patchwork blocks strewn all over the floor!!!!

So I have not found this quilt as much fun as the others and still not sure if I like it or not! but it is finished!!!!!!

My Little Man is 3!!!!

Where has the time gone???????

The Little Man was adament that he wanted a chocolate nee-nor cake, like Red on his favourite DVD Cars!
I normally do a basic Victoria sponge with buttercream and jam filling and a melted bar of cadburys on top but not this time!I used the WHOLE pot of red colouring paste! My hands were even dyed red, so was everything else that came into contact with the icing lol! But hey lots of happy (hyper) kids - mine included!

What on earth will he be wanting next year??? lol

Summer is over....

I spent most of the Summer in Hurley with the boys at Nanny's or Auntie's caravans so havent got much sewing done!

I started a pillowcase for The Little Man using some Disney cars fabric but I didn't manage to get it finished before he turned three last week :(I am also attempting to make some sort of storage bag for his BIG Mack and collection of cars as i am fed up of treading on them and tidying them away at the end of the day. I have some road map fabric that I bought a while back on ebay. I want the bag to open up into a playmat but I am making it up as I go along, hence it taking forever!

HOWEVER....I have finished the half-square quilt top for The Little Man - just have to add a border then quilt it.
I found some lovely bright yellow flannel sheets for the backing at a car boot, but will wait till I have done my "finishing" course at tikki london before I attempt quilting it.

I also still have The Little Fellas quilt still to finish that I blogged about earlier.
my inspiration for this quilt was from Red Pepper Quilts, if you scroll down it is the last quilt on the page.

To make my HST (half-square triangles) I used this tutorial

I used a variety of car themed fat quarters that I had been saving up. I measured and then divided the smallest fat quarter into 4 equal squares, then used this as my template. I only used half of each fat quarter in the end (around 8 FQ) so I have some fabric left to use in either a border or maybe some crayon rolls for gifts.

I LOVE the way it looks but the blue background was a twill from Fabricland that I chose for the colour but it stated "fabric content unknown". I don't like the texture of it at all! - a bit synthetic but hopefully once backed with flannel the quilt should still be lovely and cozy!