A Little Happy Year BOM Sneaky Peek

It's true, I'm completely rubbish at keeping secrets............. (well only those of the quilty kind!)

You may have seen some of the snippets I've been sharing and wondering what I'm up to..........

Well I had planned on doing a huge Ta Da once the quilt top was complete...but as I've been receiving quite a few emails, I thought I would share the news....

We're going to be running our first Block of the Month Club (BOM), starting this Autumn.  This was something that we had wanted to do last year, but opening the shop last September slightly scuppered our plans, the time however is now right...... woo hoo!!

The quilt is called 'A little Happy Year' and it's designed by yours truly.  Each months block will celebrate all things seasonal in a patchyworky kind of way.  I'll be incorporating some of my favourite blocks and using different sewing techniques including machine piecing, english paper piecing and applique ..... basically everything that I love to do!  Don't panic if you're a newby patchworker, I'll be sharing lots of tutorials along the way so that you can join in!

Eagle eyes will already have spotted all the beautiful Tilda.  As you know Tilda was the first fabric that we stocked and was the launch pad for our little business, so it seemed fitting to use it in our first BOM.  Our intention is for the quilt to be very scrappy, using lots of Tilda fabrics from many different collections, mixed with a selection of low volume blender prints and Bella Solids.  The BOM parcels full of loveliness will, as far as possible, feature the same fabrics as I am using.  If that's not possible, then rest assured, they will be substituted for something equally as scrumptious!

Places will be limited and we will be starting sign ups on the website soon, once I've (a) finished the quilt and (b) worked out all the fabric requirements (I'm not looking forward to that bit!)  We'll be announcing when sign ups start both here on the Blog and also via Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, but so that you don't miss out, I would suggest that you hop on over to the website and complete the little 'register for more information' form which you can find HERE**.

**Edited 20th June ~ Wow thanks so much for all your interest.  The 'Register For More Information Form' appears to be a little erratic, I think it is having a little melt down........So Sorry!  If you get the 'Error' message, please do Pop me an Email and I'll add you to my list manually.  Thank you! 

Phew, I hope you're as excited as me.... to be honest I almost wimped out, so please do give me a little wave of encouragement!

A little happy Tutorial ~ Marvellous Mendocino Wave Quilt

Do not adjust your screens folks.......its the picture that's a bit blotchy not your monitors.... actually those blotches are rain drops and big rain drops let me tell you!  

Last week, I left mum (Penny) home alone so to speak and took off with Andy and the kids to our favourite holiday spot, the North Norfolk coast.  Unfortunately, we were not blessed with the best of weather, but thankfully we had access to a swimming pool and had taken loads of DVD's with us (Poppy has now been introduced to Star Wars!) so a brilliant time was had by all.  Obviously amid all the essential packing like food, wine and clothes.... a big bag of sewing came with me which included my Mendocino quilt ( Heather Ross's fabulous collection, recently re-released by Windham) which just needed the binding stitching down and a new bag for Pops.

Before we left, I had the lovely vision of taking lots of photo's of the quilt and bag on the beach..... it was going to be a gorgeous sunny day, with absolutely no wind and happy willing helpers (i.e the family) to hold it for me in various places and positions, so that I could get the perfect picture or two.

The reality was I'm afraid somewhat different.  After waiting to the final day, when clearly there was not going to be the 'perfect' sunny day, off to the beach we went.  Having bribed them with bacon butties for breakfast and the promise of sweets and chocolate (I'm such a good mum!) I cajoled them out of the car in to the rain and wind and took as many pictures as possible before either the quilt or bag were blown out to sea, never to be seen again!

So here are the 'edited' photo's (minus the many hands holding them down) .......

   

I fell in love with Mendocino as soon as I saw pictures of it many months ago and couldn't wait to snaffle some from the shop.  I was thrilled when Poppy, who would you believe it is not in to pretty florals, saw this collection and was as excited as me and pleaded with me to make a quilt.  Always happy to oblige I  played around with different ideas, but in the end kept things simple (and quick!) and went for strips cut at varying depths across the full width of the fabric.

For her quilt I picked 6 Long Quarters of the low volume fabrics from the collection, cut off the selvedges and then sub cut them as follows:

Swim Class Light Blue
(A) 1 at 5" x Full Width of Fabric (FWOF)
(B) 1 at 4" x FWOF

Large Octopus Light Blue
(C) 1 at 3" x FWOF
(D) 1 at 6" x FWOF

Swim Class Orange
(E) & (F) 2 at 4 1/2" x FWOF

Sea Horses Light Blue
(G) 1 at 2" x FWOF
(H) 1 at 3" x FWOF
(I) 1 at 4" x FWOF

Underwater Sisters Blue on Blush
(J) 1 at 3 1/2" x FWOF
(K) 1 at 5 1/2" x FWOF

Swim Class Yellow
(L) 1 at 5" x FWOF
(M) 1 at 4" x FWOF

I then sewed the strips together with a 1/4" seam allowance in the following order:

B
L
K
E
H
M
C
G
J
F
I
D
A

After squaring up, I made a quilt sandwich (you can see how I like to this here) and then I machine quilted using Aurifil 40wt in Aqua in wavy lines across the quilt which was thoroughly enjoyable and a departure from my usual straight lines.  Personally I think the wavy lines create a little illusion and you lose the straight lines created by the piecing.

The backing fabric reminded me of the scales on a fish.  You can squeeze the back out of 125cm (5 FQs) or allow 150cm (6 FQ's) if you don't mind having some left over for future projects.  The cheery orange binding picks up beautifully on the orange accents in the Mendocino.  I cut my binding at 2 1/2" and you'll need 5 strips.  So you'll need 1/2 metre of fabric (2 FQ's) and again you'll have some left over.

The finished quilt measures 105cm x 120cm and is great for weekend snuggles on the sofa watching a favourite movie!

I also made Poppy a new bag for the holiday for her to put all her activity stuff in.  (She like her mum does not travel lightly!) I again used the fabulous Mendocino prints, but in the richer shades.  I used a bag pattern from a new range of patterns that we'll shortly be stocking.... (watch this space)! 

The pattern includes instructions for a whole cloth version and for a square pieced version, it was however, very easy to adapt the pattern to the quilt as you go version that I made, as the front and back panels are simple rectangles with a semi circle recess cut out.

Inside the bag there are loads of pockets which can be made to fit what ever you want to put in them.  For example in Poppy's there's a pocket for her tablet, some pencils, her MP3 player, stickers...all the things that an 8 year old needs!  As I did for the outside the lining is gloriously scrappy!

I've 'borrowed' Poppy's quilt and bag for the time being and they're taking a little holiday in the shop if you would like to come and take a peek.

Here's a few other pics from our hols..... including the obligatory 'walking away' shot.  I love these as I can see how Jamie and Poppy have grown.  

The beach photo's were taken on our first day at West Runton.  The others were from our visit to Holkham Hall and walking at Blakeney point.  You can see as each day passed so did the number of layers we had on!

Oh and if you didn't believe me on just how windy it was.........

 

As you can imagine....... I was shouting...Jamie do not let go!!!!!!