open wide pouch in cork

I do love a contrasting bottom :-) I bought a fair bit of cork fabric from the lovely Viv - Purple Stitches at the FOQ last year and at Harrogate as well. I have been meaning to use it in some open wide pouches as a contrasting bottom for a while now.
So this weekend I finally got round to it. I made one for a lovely chum which i cant show as it is a present! But I also made this one for another friend who has been struggling with lockdown, the cork worked beautifully and how pretty is this with one of my favourite Japanese fabrics!

My lovely chum Ruth has made many of these Injabulo pencil cases (but its a lovely little clutch!

I used up some cherished fish fabrics from Helen Steele! those panels are just the right size for this!

Im very happy with the result!

Painted village quilt

No 13 on my 2020 FAL list Q2 I had such a fun time at the Threadhouse retreat and one of my main reasons for signing up to it was because it had the Painted Village pattern by Karen Lewis. I knew immediately when i saw it that i wanted to do it for the 2020 Alice Caroline quilt sos. I have contributed to the quilt sos for 3 years now and its a lovely way to use up my liberty stash, but dont tell mini mini bud!!!! This year they cant go to Europe as normal so they have chosen the Hestia Organisation which supports victims of domestic abuse.

I love playing around with the liberty fabrics!!! These liberty doggies look way to interested in the tress!!!

and finally my lovely Scoobs did what he does best - holds quilts!!! this will go off soon when i have done the other two i have promised.

Quaffle

Goodness me! I just realised I had left this as draft and never got back to it! 

Well, in the early stages of lockdown I felt really bad, i felt I wasnt doing anything. chums were making masks, making scrubs and work was just so full on I had no time or brain capacity to take on any of this. so I felt bad.

Then my lovely chum Sheena asked me how i would feel about raffling off a quilt I had donated to the charity she fund raises or - Link Living. Well I am so full of admiration for the work of Link Living, helping the homeless. It breaks my heart that in this day and age we have so many (any!) people living rough on the streets. So I jumped at the chance! Here was a way i could help. So we set up the charity giving page and off we went!

Remember this quilt? yup I raffled off the farmers wife quilt.

And what a raffle (or Quaffle as it became known as!) it was!!!!

so many lovely people, I had thought I could possibly raise £200??? too ambitious?? not in the least! we raised £1,183 squids!!!!! how totally awesome is that!

I knew the person who won it, and old librarian friend, Carole Gray who i had lost touch with, she saw it on twitter, what a grand way to reconnect :-)

June Furtle

Well June was a month wasn’t it? Honestly it just bonkers at the moment, totally bonkers. Is life a bit more normal? I honestly don’t know what is normal at the moment. But what i do know is that crafting almost remains the same 😊 I say almost because I still cant go to sewing days but there are zooms which are not the same but its lovely to see the faces and hear the voices.

So what has been happening in the craft rooms chez Budsmam?

Well I got quite a few finishes done!! I will do a separate blog post for each of these but I got the sew portable travel bag for both my class machines done. I used fabric which i bought from Japan, some cute Kawai fabric from the Tomato store in the Nippori fabric district in Tokyo. So many happy memories

We picked the winner of the quaffle! And all the lovely people who donated helped me raise £1,148 pounds for the fantastic charity LinkLiving. How fabulous, it was so good to do something so positive in the face of all that is going on at the moment. 

Oh here is the other sew portable travel set! This is for my more modern portable machine. I used panda canvas fabric for this plus some sloth fabric for the pouch.

Oh now i did say that I didn’t get to workshops sewing days etc but i did attend one virtually! I went to the Threadhouse 2nd virtual retreat. My bestest chum Irene also went. The main thing i wanted to do was this pattern byKaren Lewis, the Painted Village quilt. I made this in Liberty fabrics as part of the Alice Caroline SOS quilt drive. This is the first of 3 quilts i want to make, great fun and a fabulous way to use up smaller pieces of liberty

Awwww my lovely Scoobs! Doing what he does best - holding quilts 😊 It was the final show and tell for the my small world sew along hosted by the lovely Nicola Piccola and the Secret Sewer! So we got a chance to show off my Doric small world quilt.

Finished top of the painted village quilt!

Oh i got out again!!! Shielding was relaxed so i get to go out and about which is fab! I am so lucky to live on the outskirts of the village so i have lovely country lanes to walk around.

I was Queen Bee for my Siblings together bee group in May. I got enough blocks to put together a quilt top, lovely blue and green Greek cross quilts. 

Tubs!!! These have been on my finish along list for ages. What a fabulous pattern! So quick and easy to make but very effective. These are the medium tubs, I used some Hello Kitty canvas i bought in the Tomato Store in the fabric district in Tokyo. So many happy memories there.

Medium tubs with Bettis Bairns for size 😊

Oh what’s this? Some secret sewing thats what this is! It is a teensy granny square. Finishes at 4 inches square, I don’t normally do teensy but this is for a specific thing 😊

Lets round up with some coffee and quilts posts, I do love doing these on a Sunday with Sheena Stone, @auburnstitches it brings back happy memories when i look out not only the quilts but the mugs as well.

Lovely to see you all! Same time next month?

Sew portable travel set

This was no 10 on my 2020 Q2 FAL list I was fortunate enough to buy a beautiful centennial Singer Featherweight sewing machine last year. I loved the pattern which was made especially for it by Jenni Baker. In fact I loved it so much i made 2!!! one for my other portable sewing machine. 

For the version for my vintage machine I made the cute extension leaf cover as well

For my modern portable machine I used up some precious panda fabrics!

Sloths for the win!

These were the previous bags they were in. In a funny way seeing them in new bags means they have no memories attached to them. Seeing them in the old bags made me sad for what I was missing, the killearn days the Gartmore weekends, so many memories attached to them. No they are ready to make new memories and they will, soon!

Sailing boat quilt

I wrote about this more in my May Furtle post but i like to give all finish along finishes their own posts! This will head off to Project linus soon,  lovely bali pop quilt.

This was no 4 on my 2020Q2 FAL list

I was gifted a sooper luffly Bali pop by a very lovely chum, I wanted to make sure i got every last drop out of it so chose to make 2 quilts from it. This one is from the quiltroom (Pam and Nicky Lintott) 2 for 1 jelly rolls book, what a great way to use up left over jelly roll strips and charm squares! I will be making this one again thats for sure! It will head on its way to one of the charities i regularly support, either Project Linus or a siblings quilt, I need to work out how to get quilts to either of them in the current circumstances!

Jelly Weave

Whoof the finishes are coming along thick and fast! this is the second one which came from a lovely bali pop present. Its called Jelly weave from CLuck Cluck sew. This one is special, I started this at the last Glasgow Modern Quilt guild sewing day. One day soon hopefully i will be able to sew with chums again in person.

This was no 3 on my 2020Q2 list

Ahhhhh i did mess up with the quilting .... had to rip out 6 rows of too wonky quilting ....

But it was worth it! i do love this and i think i might make another.