Thankyou ???

There was a parcel in my letterbox when I got home. It was clearly not one of the fabric orders I'm expecting, maybe my FSQS quilt?

No....

This beautiful outfit for Eleanor, but from who?

The cryptic card only hopes I enjoy my special Ladybug Loops surprise. Well, I am! And I'm certainly surprised! And bewildered....

Winter's Garden

Now that this quilt is in Lily's surprised hands, I can reveal that it was a joint effort by AJ, Bec, Cylie, Helen, Joy, (Island) Kylie, Leah, Mands, Xena and myself, of the EB Quilters. Sorry; I'm too sore to link all the blogs individually, owing to having torn a back muscle a few days ago in one of many nasty coughing fits!

Each girl made one (or even two!) blocks in green and white, and I put them all together.

Blogger is again stubbornly refusing to upload this image in its correct orientation, but you can see that I had to quilt almost every square differently - quite an enjoyable challenge - on a small quilt at least!

How's this for a photo different setting? Double-sided tape is my new best quilt-photography assistant!

Pay it Forward

I recently won Cath's Pay It Forward and am anticipating something good arriving in my mailbox when I'm least expecting it in the next 12 months! So now it's time for my part of the deal:

"I will send a handmade gift to 3x make that SIX (since I find myelf winner of another!) random people who leave a comment on this blog post. I don’t know what that gift will be yet (chances are, it might be quilty though!) and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."

You have a week to comment before James helps me pick the winners; overseas comments welcome and included!

More FSQS peeks

Just sharing some summery colour on a winter's day!
PS - Margaret, I hope you're not peeking!!!

Show and Tell

This week I submitted Seaside to a new blog.

Hermione set up Quilters Show and Tell just recently with an aim of showing a new quilt each day for everyone to admire. It's a great idea, and we can all help by submitting our work. Just click on the link, and there's how-to information on the blog.

A Garden Theme

Today Eva's Garden arrived at its new home, after a lot of very late nights, and just in time for Eva's first birthday on Sunday. Unusually, this quilt photographs better with flash; the colours without are much different (although I prefer the bluer, muted version without flash, below!).

But the advantage of my new hanging location is that I can stand well back, and this minimises the way the edges of the quilt are out of focus.

I also love using our bridge; especially with some afternoon sun:

I did a meander on the background kaleidoscope blocks, outlined the purple inner and outer points on the New Yory Beauty blocks, and a double-swirl around the buitterflies in the main border. I will never try the latter again! Here's a small section which worked reasonably well:

Eva's mother requested a matching pillowcase to go with the quilt, so I made two. I kept the piecing to the side, because I don't think the seams would be soft enough on a face, especially the cheek of a litttle girl! And I used the remaining backing fabric for the rest - mostly because it's nice and soft. I detest sheets and pillowcases that are remotely scratchy, and have been known to get out of bed, strip the sheets and wash them again, because they're uncomfortable. Just another reason why I love winter - flanelette sheets are always soft! I appliqued a butterfly on each from the tiny scraps remaining from the quilt's main border. For some reason, blogger insists on rotating the photo 90deg clockwise:

Along with this, Winter's Garden went in the mail to a surprise recipient yesterday. Here's a fun peek. I'd folded it up after photographing the label, and it sprung open to reveal a good photo opportunity I couldn't resist, even though it almost made me late to the post office! More of this one once it arrives in ...........

And finally a glimpse of some fabrics for my FSQS to be called Plant in Full Sun:

I went through several ideas and umpteen redesigns before settling on what I'd do. Now I just have to hope I can pull it off to my satisfaction.

Did I say 3 quilts?

Yes! And here's a peek at part of the third:Continuing with the snowy theme, how gorgeous are these prints? The selvage runs across the top and bottom, and I couldn't resist adding a yard of each colourway to my stash.

These all came from Quilt-this where they have a beautiful selection, with fabrics not found everywhere. The top 2 below are Surrey Footpaths by Sue Beevers for RJR:

More progress

This single-bed commissioned quit is finally looking like a quilt! (it is square, just too big to get a straight-on shot).

I got the top together last night. I've since added borders (but it's now too big to easily photograph the whole thing) sandwiched and started quilting it.

I've arranged to have a couple of days off work next week, in the hopes of having both this, and my much-revised FSDQ done by their looming deadlines!

Next week should see three quilts in the mail.

Thankyou Leah!

My Table Runner from the EB Quilters' Swap arrived from Leah arrived this week. Imagine my confusion when the first fabric I saw when opening the package was the last one I saw when sending mine on its way to Natalie!I've been terribly slow in blogging it, because I wantred to photograph it in its new hom on our dining table, But the table is thoroughly buried, and I'm so busy trying to get a few projects done, I haven't time to clear it properly and then hunt for everything. So I sufficed by using the wooden floorboards in place of the table. And a hanging rod!Leah used some of the same range of fabric I used; Chocolate Lollipop; but the runner has a totally different feel. It's fresh and striking. And all those corner triangles? They're cleverly folded - and I forsee James and Eleanor having great fun slipping who-knows-what into them in the years to come! Plus, the back is almost as pretty as the front!

Table Runner received

Dipped in Chocolate arrived at Natalie's yesterday, so now I can show you the whole thing! Even if I do say so myself, it looks really good on her dining table; the narrow brown strips tie in nicely with her chairs and blinds.

It was quite a challenge getting the 1/4in squares in the 'sashing' to line up (most of them did in the end!). I really enjoyed using some of my Chocolate Lollipop fabric and fussy-cutting the medallions.

And a bit of fun playing with the camera!

Table Runner ready to send

This afternoon while Eleanor had her nap and James was out at the trains with Simon, I finished and photographed my table runner for the EB Quilters' swap. I can't show too much because we all read each others' blogs, but here are a couple of peeks:

And a little stash-enhancement while I was buying some backing and batting yesterday; the first two just because...

...and my main palette for the border I'm adding to AJ's Round Robin centre:

Happy Birthday my delightful princess

Happy Birthday Eleanor!

By your first birthday, you:

- Are still Mummy's little girl

- Have 6 teeth

- Weigh almost 9kg and have finally had your carseat turned

- Are walking

- Love to eat almost anything

- Wear size 00 clothes

- Can clap and wave at appropriate times

- Will say bye-bye all day

- Are James' little Princess

- Still have enormous, beautiful eyes

- Love your first BMW

- Know exactly what you want - and aren't afraid to let us know

- Have wonderful fun playing with mummy's material

- Pull your socks off at the first opportunity

- Don't like to be thrown in the air, but love to hang upside down

- Are an absolute delight

Above is Eleanor's 12-month photo on her quilt, and below is a link to an ordered Flickr set of all her monthly photos from 2-12 months:

Eleanor on her quilt; month-by-month

Today I did Eleanor's First Birthday photoshoot. Outside conditions weren't pleasant, so we set up inside and I hoped the flash and custom colour settings I played with would cooperate. I'm really pleased with the results, but will eventually have a go at photoshopping some of them.

First, Eleanor wearing the beautiful outfit Joy made for her:

And a series wearing her birthday skirt and top (the first is my absolute favourite!):