Show and Tell

What a fabulous fun quilty weekend I have just had! So much to share and show - decided to split it into two posts - else it would rival a novel for length (and possibly require a disclaimer against any pins and needles suffered while sitting so long reading!).

So let's stick with a bit of show and tell first! I gave a sneak peek of the needle books I made for the girls the other day. Well now they have their gifts I can happily share some photos of how they look!

This one below was Jane's. I used Good Fortune fabric for this one. The little picture on the front is meant to be a spool. It's supposed to be a needle book after all, so I thought a spool would be appropriate. The top and bottom of the spool (the fans) are actually from the selvedges from the Good Fortune fabric. Super cute selvedges.

Jane loves selvedges. I mean LOVES selvedges. I never paid attention to them before I met Jane. Now I look out for the cute ones and save them for her. Moda ones are especially cute with little pictures on them, not just dots! She makes such gorgeous things with them. I'm hanging out for her to finish off her spool quilt she's making with selvedges and pezzy prints. Gorgeous does not begin to describe it!

So I used selevedges for the pocket in the needlebook. I sewed them together like normal seams but after talking to Jane, learnt a better way is to overlap the selvedges and sew them that way. Means you don't cut off half the picture/dots with your seam and you have a better chance of them staying where you tell them to.

I decided these little needle books were the perfect thing to practice my FMQ on. Something small and as gifts for understanding quilty friends if it didn't turn out so great ;) I did loops and flowers on Jane's to fit in with the Good Fortune flowery theme. Bit of fun!

Fiona (from Finding Fifth - fantastic alliteration there) loves vintage teacups. So what else could I put on the front of her needle book? She scored this little paper pieced block (and I mean little - 2"x3"). For my fellow paper piecing fanatics (haha I originally wrote fantastics! That tells you how I feel about paper piecing!), the pattern is a freebie that can be found here at Piece by Number.

Fabric is Pear Tree which I love. I fussycut abit to get the bird lined up and tried my best to get the brown/blue stripes to look like they were very intentionally placed on the teacup! No one likes an unintentional stripe afterall. Nearly as bad as a wonky HST, wouldn't you say Fiona? ;)

More Pear Tree fabric inside. See the loops above the pocket? They were my new best friends during the making of this needle book. I totally traced them to get that fantastic loop design happening in my FMQ.

I nearly forgot to add - I used this tutorial as a guide for the needle book as I wasn't certain what size to make them. I think they came out on the larger side, but might possibly be able to fit in a small pair of scissors and some thread in the pocket which would be handy as a mini sewing kit. 

So that was my side of the little swap - actually that is my first complete swap! And so fun to do with two lovely quilty ladies!

Want to know what I got in return? I know they say it's better to give than to receive, but clearly "they" did not know my quilty friends and what I would receive from them! I am thrilled with these little goodies (big thank you Fiona and Jane - love love love what I got!!).

From Fiona - an awesome selvage pouch!check out these gorgeous colours! Ooh so pretty! I am loving that zipper pull too. Awesome use of a selvage. (Side note: I have just noticed that I have changed spelling on selvage and selvedge through this blog post. Oh the dilemma of not knowing how to spell the word! I'll consider it interchangeable).

This pouch is such a great size and she even put a pocket inside! Oh and the zipper on the top of the pouch is beautifully covered on the ends. Yet Fiona claims to be a pouch novice. Huh. (That was a pause to ponder because this does not strike me as novice sewing).

I'm going to use this for my sewing supplies. Much better than the massacred Aviary 2 pouch I made myself that has puckers and bunches in all the wrong places. No, no picture of that one. It does not fill me with pride.

And from Jane - who I was certain was going to go with a Pinterest creation but actually used a real life sewing magazine, amazing right? - this fantastic pincushion/pins+notions holder.

Check out that awesome vintage birdie ribbon around the edge! How gorgeous is that! I have to say, my son is rather disappointed it has a K on it as he now cannot claim it for himself. Sorry kid, some things are Mummy's and not up for sharing.

So that's the show and tell portion! I will have to post more next time about the actual class. So much fun. So much chatter (possibly mainly on Fiona's and my behalf, I don't think we stopped talking the entire weekend!) and met some lovely new people (hello Melissa and Belinda! Waiting to read your blogs girls!! ;) ). Oh yes and some fun sewing too! Plans in the works for another weekend somewhere down the track ;) Too much fun not to do again!

And... I'd best end here as I think I have reached my quota of exclamation marks for one blog post.