Going to seed.

That is what is happening to my patch of rocket and pretty much the rest of the garden as I don't seem to have had any time to spend there this summer. (The appalling weather didn't help!)
It is also representative of the state of my house and my work space/shed at the moment!

It's all good though. Over the last couple of weekends I have been busy teaching and talking and having a lovely time with Region 3- Hampshire, Wiltshire Isle of Wight and The Channel Isles, and Region 12- South and Mid Wales -my home crowd :) of The Quilter's Guild of The British Isles. Thank you all for making me so welcome.

In between that, I nipped up to London to The Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. It is a few years since I have been, and I wanted to see it again, but it was also an excuse to go and spend some time with my best-est friend (without the rest of the family in tow) who conveniently lives just down the road from the venue.

No pictures to show you because, quite rightly, there was no photography allowed of the things I liked best, which included a Nancy Crow curated exhibit that the quilting side of me loved, along with so many fantastic embroidery pieces.

I am now looking forward to some quiet time to spend stitching and creating, once I have tackled the domestic chores:(
I will leave you with some photos of one of my kits that the lovely Ganey Jones brought along to show me on Saturday.

I love seeing how other people put the kits together, especially when they put their own spin on it. Ganey entered this into the craft section of this year's Eisteddfod, along with a poem by her daughter about pebbles.

I just love the embellishment.

Giveaway! Giveaway!!!

I tried to think of a catchy title for this blog post but failed but as promised here is a giveaway of Seaside Home.

The book is full of great projects from quilts to stuffies and bags, all with a seaside theme. This morning I rustled up this from the book using my hand painted fabrics (of course). "Three Wish Fish" was submitted by darling savage, and is a fun, quick to do project.

If you would like to win a copy of this book leave a comment telling me the name of your favourite beach and I will enter you for the draw for a hard copy.

If you would be so kind as to promote this giveaway on your blog or facebook page, I will enter you for the draw for an e-copy of this book which will be sent to you direct from C&T publishing, who just require an email address. Just post a link in a separate comment for this.
In the unlikely event that someone wins both draws I will email that person asking whether they would like to take one prize and put the other back in the hat (so to speak!) or nominate a friend or family member to receive the ebook or hard copy.
Sound okay?

Here is a peek of my project and you can see more by visiting Amazon for a "look inside", or the C&T flickr page

I will post internationally and I will keep this giveaway open until April 23rd as I am off on my hols!!
Have a great Easter everyone.

Seaside Home

Seaside Home, a photo by C&T Publishing on Flickr.

Carrying on from yesterday's Seaside theme (it wasn't planned) I have just discovered that this book is now available.
It seems like an age since I was contacted by C&T publishing to submit my Pebble Stack design for inclusion.
Well, it is now available, and today there is a giveaway going on over on the Stash Books blog ...where you can see a piciture of my design...with my name......on a C&T publishing blog...I am so thrilled!
Stay tuned because I will be having a giveaway here soon!

fabric friday with a difference

Still working away on my Festival of Quilts piece, (nearly there!) and thought I would show you a pebble stack with a difference.

And in other news... I have been featured on Diannajessie's blog in her Folksy Friday post today, Folksy being our U.K. equivalent of Etsy for you non U.K. readers.

Happy Friday everyone.

The Beginning. Welcome to my new blog!

This is how it starts. Today I am painting up some more fabric for my Pebble Stack Kit shown below.

First some sky. 

Unfortunately the sky outside my window is a dull grey colour, not the nice blue you see on the table, which means these pieces will take all day to dry.

 

This has been my most popular kit to date, so I need to re stock. I love painting up the fabric for the pebbles. There are so many possibilities.  In the future I plan to share with you the techniques I use for creating hand painted fabrics. I hope you will visit again.