Sewing Summit 2013 & Lucky Stars BOM

YAY!!!! I am going to Sewing Summit in Utah in September. Tickets went on sale today so I was up at 4am New Zealand time (10am MST) to make sure I got a ticket as they sold out so quickly last year! We were already going to be going to San Francisco around that time so it seemed only right I should go to Sewing Summit as well.  So I have just booked all my tickets....Tony and I are flying to Salt Lake City for 5 days for Sewing Summit, then fly to Fresno and then drive to Yosemite for 5 days and then up to San Francisco for a week.  He has been googling things to do in SLC while I am at Sewing Summit, but he is quite capable of amusing himself for those days. I am so excited...it will be great to meet people I have met only online and put faces to names. 

My latest finish is the April Lucky Stars block.  I love the Micro Mod fabric and definitely want more of this. I am getting to the end of my Architextures fabric as well....definitely one of my fav ranges as well.

Tallahassee blocks

The latest bee blocks are for Kristin in the Modern Stash bee. She requested modern fabrics with a cream or ivory low volume background.  I had just recently ordered a bunch of fabrics from Becca at Sew Me A Song which were just perfect.

I love how these have turned out and will upsize the block to make a quilt using my Flea Market Fancy.

Easter at the beach

We have sold the permanent caravan at the Mt, so now we are looking at holidaying at other places around NZ.  Tony was supposed to be in Uruguay for work but he came back early so it was the whole family and Hannah's boyfriend Connor.  I booked a bach at Cooks Beach for Easter as I have never been there.  The place was just across the road from the beach and had everything we needed and more.  The weather was a bit cooler than it has been and we had the first cloudy days in ages, but we didn't mind at all.   Only had my iphone for photos, sorry.

The kids dug holes...

we walked down the beach...

we caught the ferry to Whitianga across the bay...

looked in the public library....

and popped into the general store that sold everything, even "designer" dresses apparently!!!

Yesterday we visited Hahei and Cathedral Cove.  To get to Cathedral Cove it is a 45 minute walk through farmland, bush and sandy bays. 

It was just stunning when we got there though and well worth the walk.

And then we topped off the day with a relax at Hot Water Beach which has a geothermal stream running through part of it. You take your own spade or hire one there and dig a hole, sit and relax...great for those aching muscles after the Cathedral Cove climb! We did under-estimate the amount of people there tho!

Us in our hole! That's me on the left in the black and white, Sarah, Connor, Sarah, random stranger and Nick in the front.

And to prove it was not entirely without quilting I did find an old but great condition edition of 120 Patterns for Traditional Patchwork Quilts.  It was $1 at a second hand market and although it uses templates, I can easily convert these to designs that I can paper piece of rotary cut.Some great blocks in there I have never seen before.

Ipad Mini case

I bought myself an iPad Mini last year and haven't had much luck finding a case for it. Never mind I thought...I will just make one.   I used Faith's tutorial which was easy peasy to follow. I had to calculate the fabric sizes though and had an oopsie with my rotary cutter after I had put the zip in, so it is a little snugger than I would have liked, but it's still easy to get in and out of the case.

For the inside I used a Denyse Schmidt fabric that I picked up from Spotlight last year. It goes perfectly with the blue and green of the case.  And it highlights that stray thread I forgot to snip perfectly!!

Bee block and RSS feeders

This is the latest bee block I am making for the hive members in the 3 x 6 bee on Flickr.  It is from 501 Rotary Cut Blocks (which is a fabulous source of blocks).  It is for Celine who requested all pinks.

So I, too, am joining the masses trying out the different RSS feeders at the moment. So far, I am liking Feedly and Bloglovin.  Still can't quite figure Feedly out, but Blogloving seems pretty easy to understand.  I did like my Google Reader tho :(

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Lucky Stars BOM - March

The third block in the Lucky Stars BOM is the Ninja Star.   I am using a colour palette I found on Design Seeds. I love this site...so much colour inspiration and it helps me step out of my comfort zone. 

I am trying to limit my colours to a couple of colours in each block and a text or similar type fabric with Kona Slate as the background in each of them.  I am totally crushing on text fabrics at the moment.

And the 3 blocks so far...

Finished Starburst quilt

I have finished my Starburst quilt. Spent all day Sunday quilting it....just an all over stipple as I was too lazy to do anything else and I wanted to get this baby finished. I used a Michael Miller Couture solid for the binding...I think it was called Violet. These solids are just so lovely and soft and the range has such vibrant colours. I love how it has turned out.

For the back I wanted colours that complemented the front so went for a pieced back. I used Joel Dewberry's Heirloom and some Kona solids.