It's been far too long!

Leave my blog alone for a short while (well OK a couple of months) come back and it's all a change!Rather than doing work, work playing around and re designing the blog is just far too tempting, plus I never know I'm doing so it's always interesting when the preview appears!

Lots to catch up on including a visit here:

 Being tempted by too much of this:

 and a little bit more of this!

Playing around with this:

Getting inspiration from this:

Until next time ....

Quilting Bee update

Blimey I can't quite believe how quick time passes in a quilting bee!
Bee Europa is the first Bee that I have joined and although a little hesitant at first partly due to two reasons:
1. Not knowing a lot about quilting!
2. Wondering whether I will have the time to take part ...
I am really pleased that I accepted the invitation.
July was my month to send out fabric and all the lovely blocks are making their way home to me and they are so lovely. This was my practice block I made before putting together an instruction sheet and sending out the fabric. I just now need to work out how I am going to join these all together.

Janet Clare workshop

Another great thing that I discovered about the Festival of Quilts were all the amazing work shops and lectures on offer. Unfortunately I missed out on the lecture "Inspirations with Amy Butler" but I managed to get myself a place on a workshop called "Drawing with your sewing machine" with the lovely and talented Janet Clare.
This was sooo much fun! I was a little hesitant a first because we were using Pfaff machines and sorry to Pfaff but I'm a Bernina girl at heart, but after a little practice it was a lovely machine to use and then I realised how basic (but still lovely!) my little machine is!

Janet demonstrated all her amazing skills and techniques and showed us her lovely little houses cushion and then off I went. Everyone was lovely and friendly and the talent and skill in the room was so inspiring.
At the end of the 3 hour twilight workshop I was really pleased with my interpretation of the little houses cushion and was chuffed that I had a finished item to take home!

 

Anyway until next time - which may be a few days, start of school term here tomorrow which means back to work for me! Goodbye summer hols!

A girl's got to shop!

I need to start saving now for my visit to the Festival of Quilts next year as there were so many goodies that were calling my name but sadly had to be left behind!
However I did come home with these goodies:
Lovely new fabrics. These were all too cute to pass up!

The Coats Cotton / Cotton Patch stand was amazing with far too many goodies on display. I was a lucky girl to come home with a copy of Amy Butler's new book, met her as well and even get my book signed! It was also a little freaky as she was staying in the same hotel as me as well - seeing Amy Butler at breakfast is a little surreal!

I did luckily enough get my photo taken with her however that won't be going on here, after looking at it realise how badly I need my hair cut!
I wanted to go home with one of these:

Photo from http://www.accuquilt.com

An AccuQuilt Go! Fabric cutter. These are fab and the lovely lady must have seen me drooling over it as I had a little go and was even further hooked! So many possibilities with this little baby.
Also saw lots of lovely shiny new sewing machines - so until next year I better start filling that moneybox!!

FOQ

Amazing quilts ~ beautiful fabrics ~ fab inspiration ~ great workshops ~ and soooooo much shopping!!

That sums up a lovely couple of days away recently visiting the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.
I had never been to this festival before as last year I was a newbie to quilting and the main Textiles show I always try to visit is the Knit and Stitch, but I was hooked and will definitely be visiting again!
There was so much to see, try and also buy! I was also lucky enough to get a place on a great workshop with the lovely and talented Janet Clare and meet another amazing talented woman (more about that this week), but for today here are just some of the many photos that I took.

Happy computer!

A post at last!

It's been very quiet on the Pink Stitches front lately, partly because it's my summer hols and I've been here, there and everywhere and mainly because I've had a poor computer since the start of the summer.
So with a bit of TLC and what I wish for on a daily basis - a bit more memory, it's up and running and flying at super fast speed. What this means is that writing a post or attempting to do anything on the computer will not take forever and I mean forever that whilst trying to do something I could literally clean the house, make the tea you get the idea.
My postie has also been a busy boy this summer delivering lots of lovely parcels containing all my Bee Europa blocks that have been lovingly stitched and returned with amazing results! These are the first batch to arrive, look at all the loveliness.

Just need to add to my To Do list - learn how to stitch these all together and actually make them into a quilt! Should be (it will be) fun!
Until next time ~

Quilting Bee

Up to date at last! I fell a little bit behind with my quilting bee but now thank goodness all up to date and ready for the next lot of fabric to come flying through my post box!

Here's my latest block:

Watch out there's a blogger about!

Yes it's true I'm kinda back!It's been mighty hectic around here what with it being the end of the school term and hence my summer work break, my Textiles printing exhibition having been and gone, several projects on the go involving spray paint, shopping for fabric, getting my fabric ready for my quilting bee (July is my month), having family staying and .... well I could go on and on!!
Thanks for any comments that have been left recently and sorry I've been crap at responding to them and welcome to new followers!

I hope to be back with some routine fairly soon but will be having a break for the summer hols!
Anyways to leave you with an image of my desk sorting out my parcels for my quilting bee. This took forever!!

Until next time ~

Stash building (or trying to!)

My fabric stash is growing slowly and steadily!

It is still very small and I'm still very envious of fabric stashes that fill complete cupboards or even take up a whole wall!

Some of the reasons why it is not as huge as I would like it to be:

1. I find it really hard to source good quality fabrics in my local area. Although John Lewis are doing better these days.

2. At times fabric seems to be expensive in the UK.

3. At times more important bills need paying - a huge dental one around the corner!!

4. I particularly like lots of the American designers and Moda which can often be scarce in some shops.

5. I normally see a nice handbag that I don't need but I want!!

But I do need to start thinking about the fabric for my fellow Bee Europa bee's as July is my block month, so picked up these as possibles.

Verna by Kate Spain for Moda.

Hushabye by Tula Pink for Moda

Tilda cotton in Sand

See the stash is growing!

A bit of light reading!

I've been making more visits to my local library lately as I've been really pleased to see that they have lots of new and modern titles in stock!!

Lots of quilting books as July is my month with my quilting Bee - Bee Europa so I'm trying to work out what blocks I would like made!

Sew Sunny homestyle - loving this book! Lots of lovely ideas.

Embroidered books - I did a fab workshop with the author Isobell Hall in February this year (yep still need to blog about it!!) and some of my notes did not quite make sense so I was really pleased to see this (note to self to make sure when taking notes at workshops that I can understand them when I get home!!).

This lot will keep me busy for a while! 

Flowers and Sunshine

It's so nice to have sunshine when I'm on holiday for a few days!! This was my view to the sky whilst sitting outside for a while. It then got too hot!

Flowers are also blooming in the house! Usually I'm not tempted with all the freebies that magazines have to offer but the June issue of Easy Living had this little cutie Cath Kidston bag, how could I resist! It's also reasonable quality for a freebie bag. The handles didn't fall off after carrying 8 pints of milk yesterday!

The mojo's back!

Just what the Doctor ordered - a few days holiday and the sewing machine has been put to it's test!

With a busy day job my poor partners of Bee Europa must have thought I'd forgotten all about them but today I finally managed to complete all the outstanding blocks!

I'm really pleased with how they turned out and although I've been behind that I was invited to join this Bee. It has been great working on a range of different block patterns that are all new to me and also some lovely fabrics that I never seem to be able to buy in the UK, so it is very difficult sending them back!!

Anyway enjoy the photos!

JUNE

Hello to the 1st of June and hello to abandoned readers!

I have no real excuse - time has flown by with a never ending To do list on the agenda.

This phrase however has been somewhat relevant:

I finally got around to framing my poster. Can tick that off my To do list!! Yay!

A few days holiday this week and today the sewing machine was even dusted off!