Back to School

We are right in the middle of school holidays up here in Scotland and the shops are full of school uniforms - I always used to think that was a bit depressing.

But you have to keep ahead of the curve and I find myself slipping quickly into class mindset with my first workshop of the season approaching fast - it's a week Sunday, 27th and will be Christmas in July. We are making a Tree Skirt and although I already have a perfectly serviceable sample I decided I would make a couple of new ones.............one for daughter & one for son & his OH.

For daughter I chose these fabrics, by Nancy Halvorsen, I think it might be an older line as one print was tricky to find.

The first two fabrics are combined for one side, perhaps for the grown-ups, and the backing is more kiddie friendly with snowmen tumbling everywhere.

I just have some big, silver jingle bells to sew on each point and this one is done.

I hope to have the pattern available for this in early August.

When I was making a start on this Tree Skirt I realised I didn't have the necessary matching ribbon to progress, and I wanted to sew, anything, so after cutting out all the pieces for the Skirt, I wanted to use up the scraps to make something . Recently there was a bit of a blog hop that I stumbled upon that resulted in me buying this pattern. It was terribly cheap and the instructions are beautifully written. I did intend it as a treat for myself with carefully chosen fabrics,  but I used up the Christmas scraps and I might turn it into a table topper, it works out at 24" square and was great fun to make.

This morning, I made a start on one of my FAL Q3 projects, a biggie, a quilt! It was a project I dreamed up back in January -ish, and I wanted to see what I could use from my stash - I had two identical Charm Packs and made them into 4 patches having designed what I think might be quite a modern quilt. It will have a lot of negative space so I bought a solid cream fabric. I have spent time figuring out how to cut in the most economical way, I had bought an extra metre along the way. To my delight this morning I found that the 3m piece was actually 4m so I am not as tight in my calculations as I thought I might be. And so, out came the rotary cutter and I made a start. I got a good bit cut before I had to leave the sewing room for a few hours in the sun. And if you think I am mad talking Christmas already, here is what we found......perfect for Frozen fans.

And so, back to thoughts of school, I have been reminding my students of their start dates and hope they are all looking forward as much as I am to starting our new project. I am sure many of them have still to make final fabric purchases so it might be a good time to point them in the direction of rather a lovely UK site, Plush Addict. As I am in a Christmassy frame of mind, aren't these great, from Moda's Yuletide Boulevard range.

 

They also have 

 I like their website for browsing, it's really well laid out and they don't just sell quilting cottons, they have something to suit all kinds of sewists. (nicer word than sewers which makes me think of unsavoury things). UK postage is free for purchases over £40 and you can find them at  

http://www.plushaddict.co.uk/all-fabric/quilting-weight-cottons.html