We have a Winner!

Welcome back to the draw! Since Tabatha mentioned the metaphorical hat and we had one in our closet, I thought it'd be nice touch to use a literal hat instead of a random number generator. Lots of pics for transparency's and nostalgia's sake and the fiancé watched to ensure that the draw went above board.

The hat.

26 names...

...turned into 26 tickets...

...and put in the hat.

And the winner is...drum roll...

...who said...

Congratulations Cecilia! I've already emailed you. Let me know which cover you'd like to call your own and I'll make sure to send it to you asap. I think we're all curious to know which one you will choose!

The brown one?

Or the multicoloured one?

Also, let us know once you've made your own Dresden and how they look together!

Thank you all for your enthusiasm. I'm stunned so many of you professed interest in my little project and took time to encourage me along the way. I hope you're enjoying a splendid weekend!

Lots of Loot and a Giveaway

I've not been too well physically this week but the postman and Fiona of Finding Fifth have sure known to cheer me up! Plus, we've finally found *our* wedding bands!

First, on Tuesday I freed some patterns - snapped up at a sale - from Customs.

Only to come home to a delivery from the Fat Quarter Shop.

From left to right: Nursery Basics in Earth; Kona Cottons in Wine & Pepper for my Polaroid blocks; Kona Cottons in Blush Pink, Dusty Blue & Medium Pink for a Kirby pillow like this one; Cotton Couture in Nite and the Cotton Couture Colour card.

I've wanted to have a look at the Cotton Coutures for a while to check them out and ordered blue for the inside of my wedding purse. It looks gorgeous and feels so nice. The weave is a bit finer than the Kona Cottons - no reason to give up the Konas which still offer a multiple in colour options, but certainly a go to for the slightly more special project, I'm sure.

I'm glad to have finally invested in colour cards, did I mention that I got the Kona colour card a few weeks back? No more guessing at the screen - I feel so professional now. Ha! Also, I'm falling more and more in love with solids on their own and not just as complementory to prints.

And then, on Wednesday I wake up to an email by Fiona telling me that I won a layer cake of Sew Stitchy in her blogiversary giveaway. How exciting!

Well, with all that loot and luck on my side, I think it's time to pay it forward. As hinted at before, I'll be giving away one of my Echo sunflower pillowcases (sans insert to make posting easier). Either the brown or the multicoloured one, winner's choice! Measurements are 40cm² or approx. 16''.

For a chance to win simply leave me a comment and make sure that I can contact you by having an email address on your profile or leaving one in your comment. If I can't contact you there'll be a re-draw. Other than that, no hoops. I'd sure love if this went to a regular reader, but I won't make following me an obligation. Of course, you're free to share the giveaway with your friends.

The giveaway is open internationally and ends Saturday July 7 at 8:00pm CET (Central European Time). I'll announce the winner on Sunday July 8.

Good luck and happy sewing!

Pillow Parade

Finally, here they are.

The weather's back to bleary and grey so it's nice to have something more cheerful inside. Unfortunately, I'm suffering from a serious lack of pillow inserts which needs to be remedied soon. For the moment I had to make do taking pictures of one pillowcase at a time. The measurements are 40 cm x 40 cm (or slightly less than 16'').

The insert really isn't plush enough, luckily it has a zipper so I think I'll just add some filling. One more snap of one of the (un-ironed) backs with the bound edges.

Yep, that brown fabric is the same as the background fabric of the flowers. Told you the lighting is truly terrible today.

How do you like them? The fiancé's favourite is still the yellow sunflower whereas I couldn't pick a favourite amongst the flowers. I like them all but am head over heels for the HSTs.

Happy sewing and don't forget, one of these will be given away soon!

Linking up to Manic Monday at SewHappyGeek.

Pillow Progress

My pillow fronts are all quilted and trimmed now and ready to be turned into proper pillows.

Here are a few pics of them, still untrimmed and before erasing the water soluble pen lines I drew on for orientation, detailing the quilting. First off, my triangles.

 

Second, my sunflowers. I told you that I wanted to add interest to the brown sunflower so I echoed the applique line at 0.5/1.5/3 and 4.5 cm (roughly 2/5, 3/5, 1 1/5, and 1 4/5 inch) and also added a second line to the circle at 0.5 cm / 2/5 inch. I fell in love with the texture created by the dense quilting and had to do the same with the yellow sunflower.

 

 

Because I didn't want yellow thread showing on brown fabric and vice versa, I chose a different approach for my multicoloured sunflower and echoed each petal's outline.

 

I'm more than happy with each of these. They've been a long time coming but I'm awfully glad not to have rushed decisions. Back with a ton of pictures tomorrow when these babies are finished, off for some lunch and sunshine now.

Just to emphasise my love and for the sake of circularity, let's have another look at the lot of them.

Happy weekend sewing!

Triangle Time

I simply had to sew today and it felt so good! Remember these?

I basted them a while ago but couldn't decide just how to quilt them. Well, I finally went with my idea of highlighting the triangle shape of the darker shades and I'm so glad I did. Below is a shot of the back with the millions of knots I'll have to bury. Okay, not millions, but 56 of them nevertheless. TV time, methinks.

I started with lines that are 1cm/less than 1/4 inch away from the seams but added another line to the yellow triangles, either within (diagonal from top left to bottom right) or outside of the first line (bottom left and top right triangle). I really love the look and the tactile effect on the right side. As soon as these beauties are finished you'll get a better look of them. Promised.

After that I decided that my brown sunflower pillow..

..just wasn't quite finished yet. It was in dire need of more interest. No picture of what I did just yet, such a tease, but I'm tremendously happy to have returned to it with a simple idea and how it's turned out. I'm very much looking forward to show you all of them this weekend - yes, that's right, I'm set to finish them. Finally.

Happy sewing!

Quick Update

Not really much to report on the sewing front but considering the amount of positive feedback these have got so far, I thought I'd keep you updated nonetheless. I've finally appliqued the Dresdens to the pillow fronts.

Appliqueing the middle one was a bit of a pain because the dark print and the solid are so close in colour and I was working by artificial light late in the evening. Forced me to go very slowly.

Anyhow, do you have a favourite? The fiancé has uttered preferences which are reflected by the order of the photographs. Looks like we'll keep the sunflower. The other two, I'm considering to maybe sell one and give the other up to adoption to one of you. Final decisions won't be made before all five pillows are completed, though.

And to you, I turn, being stuck on the HSTs pillows.

I'm fretting how to quilt them. Echoing the diagonal seams with straight lines for some reason doesn't appeal to me but stitching in the ditch appears slightly too boring. Further, I'm not ready to try FMQ with them. Some project less dear to me will have to serve as a first.

Do you reckon it'd look good if I opted for triangles? What I've got in mind specifically is to echo the triangle shape of the dark brown and dark yellow triangles about 1 cm inside of the seams. Maybe once, maybe with two rows less than 1 cm apart. Can you see that work? I don't want to quilt the border because it's already rather busy with the irregular grid print.

Looking forward to your take on things!
Will be linking up to W.i.P. Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

W.i.P. - Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

My pillows are slowly coming together. Yesterday evening I found a little time to cut fabric and batting and today I spent about two hours working assembly line style. I hemmed, retrospectively bound, the pieces for the envelope style pillow backs, put labels on, sewed Dresden plate circles, and finally I put together the fabric-batting-fabric sandwiches for the pillow fronts using temporary adhesive spray. I love that stuff. I began centring the Dresdens, then secured the fabric squares. Unfortunately I ran out of spray when I took care of the "invisible" fabric inside. So I had to finish basting two sandwiches with pins. Don't worry, though, I'll survive.

 

 

 

 

It was satisfying to see how quickly multiples of the same came together and will have saved me a lot of time once the pillows are all done. Next time I can applique/quilt the fronts and maybe even assemble the pillows. Until then I need to decide whether to stitch in the ditch on my HSTs, echo the seams, or try something more fancy? Either way, I'm definitely learning to make the most out of my limited time.

These past weeks I've also made some progress on my EEP. I love these little flowers.

My sewing utensils are already packed away and I must return to my reading. Sigh. Hoping you all had a lovely weekend. UK folks, enjoy your bank holiday!

Linking up to W.i.P. Wednesday later.

Ever-Growing Project List

So, of course I somehow squeezed in time to try out HSTs and I'm so happy with them! They're even nearly perfect. Just look at those points.

I made two panels which will definitely become pillows, thinking of quilted tops and a simple envelope back in brown - remnants from the table runner - but spiced up with a bound edge. Aren't they pretty side by side?

They're also great next to my shamefully abandoned Dresden plates. I'm dead set on turning the three of them into pillows of the same size using the same brown solid, so I need to check whether the store I got it from still has it. That'd leave me with five pillows that work together nicely, although five are way too many for my sofa...

Either way, those HSTs have got me hooked and I've already cut these squares to try quarter square triangles.

And there's still the Polaroid blocks to turn into pillows, too. And my EEP hexies. Not being allowed to sew/restricted sewing time certainly cannot stop me from lining up small projects for besides and bigger ones for afterwards! Like this which I *must must must* make for my sister's birthday.

Taken from _name_taken's stream on Flickr

Kirby's Dreamland was her all-time favourite Game Boy game. Not sure how I'll take sewing together small squares from mostly the same fabric and pink at that, but there's on big advantage - I have time until late November for it!

My sister has received five pillowcases in the past two years, but I hope she won't tire of them anytime soon. I'd say that each has been better than the one before due to improved and newly acquired skills, starting with envelope style pillows made out of a single piece of fabric and upping my game with zippers, patchwork and quilting. The last one was actually made from our favourite bed linens as children. Our mother wanted to throw them away as they'd worn thin, but I rescued and re-purposed them and some batting and quilting later my sister had a new favourite cuddly pillow.

Oh well, I've whiled away enough time. Hopefully you've had a wonderful weekend with lots of sewing time and/or other favourite activities.