Swooning over my 1st Swoon Block

So on my to do list for this year is to complete a Swoon Quilt, yes I got on the bandwagon and I am going to enjoy the ride, even if I was a little bit late!
What can I say, I am loving this block, its massive!

For those people that like details, the patterned fabrics used in the above block are: Lemon Grove in grey c8606 Starburst and  Lemon Grove  leaves  C8609, Designed by Alice Kennedy for Timeless Treasures,

I was going to use grey for my background but they were all out of grey at the LQS so I went with Konna White instead, Wow there is 4+ yards of just white fabric for the blocks! and sashing!!!
It took me a while to cut the white out! and I am cutting the patterned fabrics for the blocks as I go. 
Here is a reminder of the fabric I will be using

I made a start last weekend cutting out and was eager to start sewing.  So I did a little bit of sewing and then found out my sewing machine did not want to play!!! So with the help of dh we got it sewing fine (it took us a good couple of hours), and then again it started to have a paddy! So on Wednesday I took it to the sewing machine hospital!
Now what I didn’t tell you is my machine is 20 years old! It has only had about 5 hours total sewing time!  I got this machine for my fist Christmas present from my husband on our first Christmas together.  At the time I had made a throw away comment about wanting a sewing machine so he went out and bought the best machine he could find at the time! which was so sweet of him, but my experience in sewing did not match the level of the machine and it just scared the e b jeebies out of me and so I never really sewed on it until we came to the US.  It’s a Pfaff 1475 CD and according to the man at the sewing shop, todays equivalent would set me back a mere $6000, so its here to stay.  The one thing I love about Pfaff machines are their dual feed, it makes sewing so much easier.
So imagine this its been moved from one country to another, we lived in Germany when he first bought it for me and then moved home to the UK so I had to use an adaptor for the wattage, then when we moved to the US and  I had to buy a big transformer, that weighs a ton so that we can make the power stronger.  So this is the downside of having this machine.  However this machine is fantastic and was the machine back in 1992! you could link it up to your computer and do all sorts of amazing wonderful things, not that I ever did as it was just to complicated for me, which is a real shame as even now it is capable of so much more, I just don’t know how to use it to its full capacity and as it is so old there are no forums for this machine, but I love it all the same and  now it has been fixed it does the job and sews perfectly.

My Fabric Haul

 

So here is my fabric haul from my trip to Minneapolis.  I bought 37 half yards of fabric!! Which makes that 74 fat quarters!  and I calculated that each fat quarter was $1.50 so now you know why I bought so much.This lot should keep me going for a long time!

And for those that like details here you are,  from left to right:

1. Spots Yellow from the Dolly Dear Collection for Timeless Treasures
2. Michael Miller House Designer - Mod Prints - Feeling Groovy in Citron
3. Ty Pennington Impressions Wave in Gray for Westminster/Free Spirit
4. Dumb Dot by Michael Miller cx2490
5. ????
6. Kitchy Kitchen Fabric by Maude Asbury "Wedge Geo Yellow" for Blend Fabrics
7. Primitive by Jane Dixon for Andover Fabrics
8. Blossom in Charcoal from Ty Pennington's Impressions for  Westminster/Free Spirit
9. Kimono in Spice from Ty Pennington's Impressions for Westminster/Free Spirit

 

1. Fleur-C8132 Orange Peacock Collection by Timeless Treasures
2. MC06-Gray Calypso Swing Rhythmic Toss for Free Spirit
3. Fruit a La Carte Red and Black Rain Drops by Hoodie for Timeless Treasures Fabrics
4. Tiny Diamonds Petal Pushers Dear Stella Designs
5. Fruit a La Carte  Bubble Dot  in Charcoal by Hoodie for Timeless Treasures Fabrics
6. Fruit a La Carte  Bubble Dot by Hoodie for Timeless Treasures Fabrics
7. Love Birds Cranberry Circles C7097 by My Mind's Eye for Riley Blake Designs
8. JM30 Pink Hollywood California Dreaming' by Jenean Morrison for Free Spirit Fabrics
9. Orange Crush by Alice Kennedy for Timeless Treasures

The next two photos are the fabrics I bought to make my swoon quilt, I have already started cutting some of these half yards into fat quarters (2nd photo).

From left to right

1. DC5084 Michael Miller Fabric Peacock Lane Falling Flowers
2. Metro Living: Robert Kaufman
3. Flower Mart III Lattice  Bernatex
4. Riley Blake Designs "Tuxedo Collection" by Doodlebug Design inc. C2693 Gray - Floral.
5. Calypso Dot Fabric  designed by Maude Asbury for Blend Fabrics
6. Riley Blake Designs - Sheri Berry Designs - Woodland Tails - Dots in Blue
7. Lemon Grove  in blue leaves by Alice Kennedy for Timeless Treasures

 

Clockwise

1. Green Dear Stella Designs
2. Riley Blake Designs "Fly a Kite" by October Afternoon C2787 Green Dot
3. The Blue Skies Ringlets by Sharon Holland by Paintbrush Studio
4. ??????????????????????????????????????
5. Wilmington Prints The Daily Special 84336-444 by Stephanie Marrott
6. ??????????????????????????????????????????
7. Windham Basic Bright's & Pastels 29395
8. Lemon Grove in grey c8606 Starburst by Alice Kennedy for Timeless Treasures
9. The Pixie Pops for Timeless Treasures C8707
10. Riley Blake Designs - Sheri Berry Designs - Woodland Tails - Dots in Green
11. ?????????????????????????????????????????????

Whoops I just realized there are a couple more fabrics I forgot to take photos of!

Fabric Shopping Spree

No excuses for not blogging I’ve just been a little busy!

But anyhow……………..

Last week I went on a road trip with a couple of my friends to Minneapolis, we had a blast.

We went to SR Harris a fabric a fabric outlet. Our mission was to buy as much fabric as we thought we could get away with when we got home.  I went a little crazy and bought so much gorgeous fabric.

I bought enough to make 3 quilts and more.

Now this place we went to is crazy, its just full of aisles and aisle of different bolts of fabric, from decorator fabrics, apparel, quilting cottons trims and beyond, you name it they have it, I didn’t even get to look at all the haberdashery  (trims, buttons, zippers etc., you get the idea) they have and everything else as we ran out of time, we were there for over 6 hours!  This place has 30,000 square feet of fabric!

 

Just a small sample of some of the trims!

 

This is how all the fabric is stacked, so you get a good work out choosing your fabric!

Basically you take a trolley (cart)  with you, choose your fabric from the shelves, which is  stacked 3 shelves high and then you take it to the cutting table and cut it yourself, what fun we had!

In this photo you can see the large cutting tables, they supply scissors and a metal ruler, but I took my cutting mat and rotary cutter with me!

Most of the fabrics I bought are all designer fabrics and all of them are good quality quilting cottons, I managed to find some Riley Bake, Robert Kaufman,  and a few other gorgeous designer fabrics.  The minimum cut is 1/8 yard and I wanted fat quarters so just cut a half yard for each fabric I wanted and will get around to making fat quarters out of them eventually.  Oh and did I tell you they were $11.99 a yard but were 50% off!! so basically I got a fat quarter for $1.50, talk about being in fabric heaven!

I went with blue, aqua, green and grey for my swoon quilt

Then I went with grey yellow and a pale orange for another quilt

Then I just bought fabric I liked that could go together for another possible quilt.

I am hoping to go again very soon!

I will post soon about the fabrics I bought and share photos of my fabric haul!!!

Fireworks

Did you know that Camille of Thimble blossoms  has added some new patterns to her repertoire?

I don’t know what it is but I  really like her style and the colour palette she uses in her quilts.  I bought the Swoon quilt pattern from my local store the other week., which you can also buy as  a  PDF download.

If you don’t know who or what I am talking about, then you must go and check out her blog Simplify.  Your certainly in for a treat as she has just released 5 new patterns.

And yes I caved in and bought another one this morning!  This time I went for fireworks and instead of buying the paper pattern I bought the PDF downloadable pattern.  I much, much prefer this as I am one of those people who is a little bit unorganized so if I do lose my pattern in my fabric mountain, then I always have a backup of it on my computer.

So I now have another 2 new quilts to add to my list of quilts I want to make in 2013!

Hexi Hive Bee Blocks

 

I have finally finished my blocks for the 3x6 sampler quilt bee that I am taking part in over on Flickr. 

Now this block for some reason did not want to play but I got it finished eventually!

This is what it looked like before I corrected my mistake!

 

I unpicked all the hexagons off the block and removed the borders.

I then made a new block, this time with the correct background colour!

Great, finished!

NO

measured it and found it was the wrong sixe by 1/4”

So unpicked both borders again!

Worried that I didn’t have any of the grey fabric left, by the skin of my teeth I had just enough,

Anyway here they all are

Here they all are together.

I am loving this block, time consuming Yes, but fun.

I can’t decide which one I like best, but I am quite partial to the block that I used Vintage Modern fabric by Bonnie & Camille for Moda ,  these were the leftovers from making my Vintage Holiday Quilt.  But I do love all the colour combinations and I can see myself using these one day.

Happy New Year–Bee Block Gone Wrong

First of all I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year to all of you that stop by my little blog. I really do appreciate reading all your comments and thanks for stopping by.

I really don’t have much to share as over the Christmas period I didn’t do any sewing at all WHAT!!!! is going on I ask myself!

However, I am in the process of sewing at the moment and had to take a break! Last night I decided to get on with my Hexi Bee Blocks and happily made one of them and then I was just on Flickr checking out the colours for the next block only to realize that I had done one completely on the wrong background colour, so this involved a lot of time with my seam ripper, only just now I just added the borders and for some reason  two sides are the wrong length, what is going on, it looks like I am going to have one of those days.  So I have had my break and a little grumble and I am now going to go and correct my mistake! I will post back with the corrections.