A life in lists

Free magazine subscription, anyone?

My dad has a giveaway going on over on his blog to win a digital subscription to a magazine of your choice from Zinio. American Patchwork and Quilting is just one of the dozens and dozens I found on a quick peruse of the site. Worth an entry, right? Head on over now (there's only 8 hours left before it closes!) and enter using the weirdly simple gizmo thing he has found to make entering a piece of cake.

Seven days: Seven things

NB: I would like you all to pretend that I posted this yesterday (I didn't because I was too busy laughing my head off watching Chris Addison live in Exeter. Brilliant).

1. I suddenly realised what my etsy shop was missing, so I put together some low volume charm packs. They have been a huge hit. Yay!
2. I've bought a bike! I am so excited - I've been using Adam's for a while now, and it's ugly (sorry Adam) and too big, so I am super excited about bringing home my vintage Raleigh Cameo. It's having a service and a bit of primping, but expect a very long and boring blog post about it in a couple of weeks. We only have one car, which Adam uses daily for work, so having a bike will finally free me from the constraints of the Exeter bus timetable!
3. I kept seeing this QuiltCon quilt pop up on Instagram. It's by the insanely talented Victoria Findlay Wolfe, and you can see it (and more of her excitement at winning best in show) here. I just found it incredibly inspirational, and playing around with some ideas that popped into my head as I was admiring it has sent me off down a whole new modern/traditional quilts thought train which I am seriously excited to explore.
4. My smallest child is obsessed with our syrup-tin-money boxes (I love syrup, hate throwing out the tins. We have a lot of money boxes). Even when getting involved in some 'cooking' (he has his own mixed spice tub, and flour and water was involved) he can usually be found wth a trail of coins
5. Love the fabric selection Hadley put together for her month in the Brit Bee. Gorgeous, and a real simple-but-effective block. I am beginning to feel the pressure to get my quilt from last year sewn together before it's my month again (in May)
6. That Hadley gets everywhere - I've been finishing off the latest block for the Eeep EPP bee, accompanied by a little needlebook she made
7. I've been at my parents' house for the past few days in an effort to get a solid chunk of work done without interruption. My mother has an amazing eye for interiors, so her house basically looks like a magazine interior. I will attempt to rush round and take some more snaps before I leave. She has a few gorgeous vintage quilts as well. Missing my boys and looking forward to getting back home to Exeter again tomorrow though.

Seriously wishing I had time for a third bee commitment right now

Because, well, it's a hexagon bee!

Stacey over at The Tilted Quilt is setting up a third group for the Get Your Hex on Bee she is heading up. If you have slightly more free time than me (read: any free time whatsoever) and you rather like a good hexagon, race on over right now and sign yourself up!

A really big watch

I was given this watch by my parents for my 18th birthday, and I absolutely love it.

I feel it's finally found its spiritual home in my studio, alongside all other other pops of colour. My studio is where my Personal Image clients come. If you want to see more of it, you can pop over here to my other home for a nosy.

Seven days: Seven things

1. I hadn't realised how bored I was of winter weather (which, this winter, has consisted of rain, rain, three flakes of snow and more rain) until I saw sunshine and snowdrops this week. Bring on spring.
2. I had a photo shoot with a local magazine the other day. I am attempting to make it clear that it is possible to be a personal image consultant without being a 50-something chiffon clad lipstick lady. I think the leather leggings help.
3. Holding hands is cool. I am, however, not an attractive hand-holding prospect for first born due to my propensity for cashmere wristwarmers. Apparently 'they feel funny'. Luckily his daddy doesn't wear wrist warmers.
4. That is an enormous bobble. Fortunately, my second born (for that is he) has none of the hand-holding-pernickitiness (good word) of his older brother.
5. Rooibos tea is great for me. I can drink anywhere upwards of 8 cups a day of tea, and regular rooibos and herbal tea means that I don't have an insane caffeine intake. I try to only have about three cups a day of 'real' tea.
6. We went to Killerton House  yesterday, where they have re-vamped their vintage clothing display upstairs to include a selection of modern designer garments. The avant-garde clothes work really well in the lovely old spaces of this 18th Century country house (which happens to be virtually on our doorstep, which is nice), and the whole space has been really nicely curated. Thumbs up.
7. Rita invited fellow-instagrammers to show off their Liberty stashes this morning. It took a few frames to show all of my personal stash (shop stock has to be left firmly on its shelves to prevent me purloining it), and it became apparent that while pink, purple and blue are very well represented in my personal stash, grey, green, yellow and  red are somewhat lacking. Time to stock up.

A real life quilt (top)

Last year I made a baby quilt top with Liberty print half square triangles, mainly to see whether one charm pack is sufficient to make a baby quilt. It is, incidentally.

Since I had precisely no use for a baby quilt top, I figured I might as well turn it into a lap quilt or something (would you believe that since then the imminent arrival of, not one, not two, but three small people have been announced by dear friends. And two of those small people are growing in the same woman). Of course, once I started growing this thing, there was no stopping it. I started aiming for a lap, then a single, then once I'd got there it seemed a shame to stop, so I went for a smallish double (if I remember correctly, this is about 80"x88"). Luckily, by the time I got to that stage I'd utterly lost the will to live with working out where the ever-more-spaced-out HSTs needed to be laid to keep the pattern lines, so it grew no more.

I am insanely pleased with this quilt top. I really hope I love it as much when it's quilted as I do now. It's made from four random charm packs from my shop paired originally with some off white organic sheeting from my stash and then when that ran out, Kona Snow, which was the best match I could find. I have to look really closely now to see where the organic cotton stops and the Kona begins, so I'm not complaining. I think the design really allows every single Liberty print to really sing, and there's a lovely mix of old and new favourites for me.

I'm going to piece a backing for this from whatever takes my fancy in my stash. I'm on a major fabric diet (new house = teeny weeny workroom. I may have mentioned this), but I know I have decent lengths of a blue Lotta Jansdotter print, some grey striped linen (the lining of this pouch) and probably some other bits and bobs that will work well together and clear some fabric storage space.

This quilt has been a great warm up for the Ultimate Liberty Print Quilt I have planned. I don't know if I've ever mentioned, but I've put by somewhere between a fat quarter and 1/3 of a yard of every single Liberty print I've ever stocked in the shop. I have a big Liberty print archive now, and I think I'm getting to the point where I'd like to do something with it. I have absolutely no idea what, naturally. I am torn between something incredibly simple yet effective, a la Ashley, or something hugely ambitious, either EPP or perhaps something more inspired by this incredible quilt. Maybe I'll worry about that one when this one is backed, quilted and bound. My To Do list doesn't need to get any bigger right now.

About 75 miles outside my comfort zone

You know, I'm really not sure what it was about this block for Sarah that got me in such a tizzy. I've sewn curves before (lots), I've cut up blocks and inserted strips before (not a lot, but, you know, it is just sewing a straight line) and I've sewn with Oakshotts before (which have a reputation for fraying, but actually I didn't have much of a problem, at least not until I'd unpicked about four times).

But I've basically been putting off this block since mid-December, when I finally cleared my bee backlog and had time to work on it (it was actually due in November, putting me well up there in the Bad Bee Member category). But I just couldn't get my head round putting this one together. I finally pulled on my big girl pants a couple of days ago and just started work

And, once I started, things didn't improve. Hmmm. I had serious point matching issues in my circle, despite unpicking a couple of times. And then when I tried to cover up my point mis-matches with on of the bisecting strips, I missed!

Sarah said we could make either one or two blocks, and, frankly, after the amount of heartache this caused for a fairly average block, I figured she'd rather just have the extra fabric back than wait until I got up the guts to try again in about 2015.

Oh well, maybe it will find a home in a corner of Sarah's quilt. Or the back...

I saw three zips come sailing in...

Useless triva of the day: I Saw Three Ships is one of my favourite Christmas carols. 

This triple zip pouch (made in a gorgeous new season Liberty print and lined with grey striped linen that's been kicking round my stash for years. I have about two yards of it, for some reason) is headed off to someone who I owe a gift to big time (complete with one or two goodies stuck inside), so I'll show it more fully then, but I just wanted to post to play along with the triple zip along before it finished, and this won't have arrived before then. I was planning on using a combination of three prints, but in the end I liked the simplicity of one floral, with another yellow print for the zipper tabs.

Pop along to the Flickr group so see (a few hundred) more amazing triple zip pouches! It's fab pattern, and waaaay easier than it looks (although I did finish it a la Hadley, as the print is directional).

In other news, I didn't use fuseible fleece, just normal batting, and it worked fine as far as I'm concerned.

What do you mean we're almost two weeks in?

I can still write a February list if I want to!

Actually, I wrote it at the beginning of the month (with my new pen, no less), but I forgot to blog about it. And, indeed, to look back at January's list. Is it wrong that I need a list to manage my lists?

I didn't do badly on January's list, all things considered (three out of five ain't bad), and the few things that didn't get done have shifted cheerfully onto February's. Out of January's list I managed to:

1. Cast on a sweater for Teddy. Not the intended Owlet as I had nothing in my stash that would make gauge, so I've just cast on a plain crew necked sweater. I'll blog and Ravel the details when I get a moment.
2. Mend a jumper (badly, but it's done).
3. Finish the Liberty print HST quilt top I started an embarrassing amount of time ago. Hurrah! Now I need to make the backing...

So February's list contains some sewing and some non-sewing things, since it seems best to keep all my aims in one place...

1. Catch up with my Brit Bee blocks. This was on my January list and I almost achieved it, then, ermm, ran out of month. But I am only owing January's blocks (and February's, obviously) as I type.
2. Catch up with my Eeeep EPP blocks. Another January list hangover Luckily this bee took December and January off, so I'm only a weeny bit behind (in that I still haven't finished November's block, but it is over half done, so I'm not feeling too awful).
3. Finish that jumper that I managed to cast on (and knit about half of) in January.
4. Cast on a pair of socks for me (my couple of handknit pairs are almost entirely worn away at the heels, and frankly I'd rather knit new socks than darn heels). Plus Laura Jane and Amanda keep being irritatingly creative in the sock department (that sounds weird) and instagramming the results and it's making me jealous.
5. Make a backing for the Liberty print HST quilt (with what?! I suspect it will be some random amalgamation, as I am on a bit of a fabric diet).
6. Make a pair of curtains for my workroom (I am so bored of looking at the ugly ones that the landlord hung - I sit 8" from them for half of most days while I'm working, and they are driving me bananas).
                                            And now, the non-sewing ones 
7. Tidy/sort/declutter my little workroom. Much amusement among my instagram friends (I'm @lifeinlists on instagram, and post far too much) when I posted a picture of my personal Liberty print stash making a bid for freedom across the floor after spilling out of its over-stuffed storage space today.
8. Pretend Spring is here - go outside, find some bulbs that are growing, and enjoy the odd moment of sunshine. Since I started working, I've found that I can go 36-48 hours without leaving the house, and it is getting me down a bit. I am making a conscious effort to do something about it this month, even though Devon seems determined to dampen my spirits with endless rain.
9. Refine my iced biscuits (who am I kidding? Refine? Make recognisable would be a start). Did I show you my iced biscuits? I must remember to. I have decreed 2013 The Year in Which I Learn to Make Fabulous Iced Biscuits. I'm stealing book ideas from Susan and hoping to improve a lot before 2013 is out. So far no children or husbands have complained about this mission, since it results in endless baking.
10. Read a book. Any book. I seem to have no time at all for reading at the moment (this is totally self inflicted). Maybe a biscuit book will have to cut it for now, but I'd like to read something other than the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar (for the three millionth time. And every time it's a surprise when he turns into a butterfly. Oh, to be 23 months old and so easily impressed).
11. Be nice. It's faintly possible I've been a little bit stressed of late (I can picture Adam's raised eyebrows from here). I am attempting to improve. Honest guv'.

New season Liberty print!!!!

I'll admit it, the last couple of seasons of Liberty print haven't been the best ever. There's been a small handful of prints in each one that were briliant, but as a collection, there's been something... I don't know, lacking. That's partly why I didn't end up blogging about it/sewing too much with it over the past six months or so, I think (that and I was the most batshit crazy busy I've ever been in my life).

But oh my gosh! Liberty love is back for me big time. The Spring/Summer 2013 collection is, to a print, glorious. From delicate and intricate little florals to grand scale painted flowers to graffiti prints and rows of cool bugs and other beasties, this season's prints are saturated, detailed, edgy and quirky, everything that Liberty does well and that we love it for. Hurrah!

I've been doing a bit of sewing with some of the prints myself (couldn't resist) so you'll be seeing a bit more Liberty loveliness round here in the coming weeks, among a few other projects that have finally made it off the drawing board and into reality.

I've got the prints above up in the shop right now, and I'll be getting more in over the coming month or so. Enjoy!