BONUS prize for SUPER inviter

OK I,m not one to normally tout my wares so to speak  however ... I will do a door prize for the first person who has 10 people they refer sign up to the blog ....  a set of 7 quilted linen table mats ... 7??

YUP 7!!! 6 for yr guests and one for the pot in the middle or that extra person who turns up . I know it happens a lot in my house and it feels odd..... a different setting  so I made 7 in the shuffle style . They are very nice all unique, all lovey sft tan linen with a suprise. I also have some totally gorgeous Sulky variegated thread from Guterman   . I can't say how much I LOVE GUTERMAN THREAD  ... and now I have a trade account I can buy it for a whole lot less for my quilts and projects.

Good thread is always an investment and a painful one at times . But you get what you pay for . Yes the New King Tut is nice and YLI do some nice thread and ranges and Aurifil..... well.................... the jury is out on Aurifil in my house. Maybe it;s the flimsy small cones/bobbin so it looks pitifully small amounts for horrendous money or maybe it's that the 4 reels I have bought have caused me nothing but grief.  I am sure there are Aurifil fanatics out there who swear blind by it and all I can  say is good for you. I have my own opinion and I prefer Guterman .

I also became the proud user of the serger my motehr gave me a few weeks ago. After changing the thread to some NEW cones ( thread has a life span and sadly it deteriorates with time so keep yr thread fresh )  I had a wonderful time serging everything I could until I bogged up and snapped a thread and snapped the threading wire  DOH !!

The air turned blue ........................

Screams rent the air...............................

Thunder crashed ..................................

Lightening flashed.....................................

And I stomped off for a cup of tea only to discover it was after 8pm and caffeine after then is a complete no no . so I stomped off for a bath . So today on my list of thingsI  must do I must find a new wire threader , send off my passport renewal, pay bills and go to see my friend for a hopefully quiet afternoon of sewing.  hahahaha who am I kidding.

Enjoy your Monday my lovlies and rememeber the first person to refer 10 new sign up peeps get these lovely items ..  Get yr person to mention yr name in their post/comment  so we can check .

Out of the 10 new people who sign up  I will also send them a mini cushion cover as a welcome. So yes loads and loads and loads of stuff to giveaway ... but you have to sign up to bei n and you have to respond when we send out the post on winners ... sadly last time 2 people missedo ut for failing to respond.

Anyway i shall away and BE HAPPY>

Love
Raven

GIVEAWAY NUTTINESS

MORE GIVEAWAY NUTTINESS
 

I will also throw into the pot 

 

a earphones pouch,

 

one of my lovely zipper pouches with a dangly jobby on the zip  

 

so thats on top of

 

set of matching handquilted zig zag( chevron) cushion covers

 

fat eighths

 

bunting

 

and all the other malarky!

 

Mention the giveaway on Facebook or twitter and get extra entries ( 1 per FB/twitter link please post link here )

Invite friends to join and get extra entries ( 1 per friend)

 

I also got it a bit wrong the other week and bought a duplicate yard of some fun spots and dots so I will throw in a set of DOT MANIA  3 FQ of dotty in pretty shades.

 

Loads to win ... but you have to be in to win .

 

31st October is draw date !  Get set , ready , GO!

GET READY for ANOTHER GIVEAWAY !!

Hello and yes I am going to have anotehr giveaway ...

 

Sadly I never had a repsonse from the winner and so I have decided ot have anotehr go at getting you people to comment ( positive)  and have a go at quilting yourself .

More details of the draw at bottom of post .

This giveaway will be drawn on Halloween 31st October. So plenty of time to spread the word. You get an extra draw for those you invite ( and tell me about )

 

 

So my naughty elephants were splashing in the water and they went to their new home last week with rapturous repsonse.

My lovely friend on sew waht and sew swappit sent me this .... more as I suspect a warning to prevent me fromgetting too lippy  .... lol my daughter took it very quickly and hung it on her door.... the strangest thing is it doesn't suprise me that she probably also has flying monkeys and could easily set them on us all.

 



As you know ( or youmay not ) I have a dread of applique. Al lthat turned needle , cut through the back purist twaddle does not float my boat or is that too many mixed metaphors ??

 

However raw edge aplique is less stress. Who am I kidding.

But I msut break my fear of this . I msut learn to work to pattern for applique and I msut achieve my goals .

therefore the discovery of a free pattern from "DON:T LOOK NOW"  gave me an opportunity to have a go at soemthing more formal .

 

IN the flower garden . my version differs slightly ( cos I don;lt always read instructions. ) but also because I wanted to do more free motion embroidery to test myself.

so here we have the flowers appliqued. I use steam a seam from ASDING.com

(http://www.asding.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=659)

 



 

I find it much much better than anything else and worth the money.  

so I sketch in my embroidery lines using a water soluble prymm pen ( blue) and then embroider over and then it was down to full no free motion quilting . A tight squeeze in places but I made sure I kept it tight and small and I did some practice before working on my project . I had never done the "roses" before so i drew some out then got my head into gear .. and it looks k. Once completed this might go into the draw but it might go as a gift soemwhere as yet undecided



 

 

Sunday and a trip to the fabric guild in Leicester to stock up on batting ( soooooooo much cheaper )

and I got this little stack for £2,50!!!! about half a metre lovely .

 

So I got the good old finger remover I mean rotary cutter out and made a pair of chevron covers .

 

One is currently being hand quilted in pearl cotton I have yet to decide whether to machine quilt the other. 

Looks lovely but dear me makes my fingers sore.
 

Right the draw ..... 31st October

4 prizes ...... so you could win

 fat eighths in either orange or blue 

2 cushion covers

A zippy pouch

Some glorious bunting that is in construction.

a couple of random "door prizes" are also up for grabs . Get yr names and comments in .

As I said the last few weeks have been hard ...thank you for reading and remember .....
Everything is better with a bit of sewing

Peace and apple pie

Love RAVEN xxxx

My apologies for the elongated absense

Right my lovelies... my awpologies for the extremely long absense.... sadly a funeral and a poorly car has meant my time has been spent elsewhere .

I have made some smaller bits and pieces but sadly I have hit a wall when it comes to quilt design and what I want to make. This is never a good phase for me and it tends to happen every few months... Then suddenly I find or draw up something I want to do and away we go again.

Sadly I think my dead phase has come on the back of a pile of emotional events and my real feeling of frustration with myself over a block I entered in a comp. Sadly I knew in my heart of hearts I had rushed the block and the finish was not as good as it could be . I looked back and was horrified that I would submit such a shoddy piece of work . It really wasn't good enough and it got the result it deserved.

Ity did however make me question my skills and what I need to do to make my work better.
So ..................................well that was a  whole pile of misery ... I,m back on track and making and prepping . so here we go to enclose some pictures

OK circuklar zippy pouches ideal for ear phones so the cables don;t knot as much . This tutorial initially came from  a link on sew mama sew  wheree they suggested cutting out yr fabric fist then quilting it . I have found choosing yr fabric and quilting the whole lot then doig the cutting out saves a lot of hassle and prevents fabric motion and "shrinkage" due to quilting.

 

These are really handy dandy little bits and some people put split rings on but I like jsut a simple ribbon or fabric loop.



A zippy with a bright green zippy. I love these really vivid zips that make such a statement. 

A lovely purple small print fabric that came as part of a moda owls range from the fabric guild in Leicester .I am taking a trip next Sunday to get supplies but fabric is NOT on the lsit this time



The frog zippy bag has gone off to Arizona !! lets see if the recipient reads this !! 

Now part of my September challenge was to only use what is in my scrap box to make stuff so this is a pieced quilted bag for a teacher at my daughter's school. It will no doubt carry al lher supplies and bits that 7-10yr olds need ! 

Now as a member of sew swappit on facebook we get a regular swap challenge and this time it was the autumnal runner . I could have gone for pumpkins, halloween, autumn leaves, something similar ..... and I sat there and sat there and sat there thinkig of what I could do . Not wanting to be too predicatble     looking for the right design . And so I spent some time looking at the location of my swappee and what was evident in the flora and fauna of the area. I saw a couple of fantastic pictures of the sunsets in the area and those combined with my husbands love of astronomy it came to pass that I would do the Autumn sky and constellations that would be evident over that area in the autumn months.

 

All fabrics fro this are solids only . Each was chosen as close to the colours in the photgraphs I saw and then simply joined in striaght seams pressed and then laid out on a medium weight interfacing tro support the next step .

 

So there I am with the Sept /Oct geo layout and the corresponding constellations  over this persons house !! The things we do .

 

I Then chose the major constells and laid them out with a soluble fabric marker and then went in search of monofilament ( vile stuff) and the super tiny seed beads .

Each star was a seed bead sewn in with monofilament  .... there has been a small amount of artisitc licence .

Finally it was bound in a grey batik thatI have sitting waiting forthe right job... it cost me a fortune so it has been sitting waiting for quite a while .

 



 

Now these little chaps are for a gift for a friend I know via the mothers bench at karate .

She adores elephants and especially Elmer the elephant so this will be made into a cushion with the rainbow raindrops of the elephants ! Lets see how it comes out .

Keep on trucking and keep sewing .
Love Raven