The competition entry top is nearly finished…. all the dog sections are stitched together now. There’s a few bits left to sew that I added on afterwards when I found I left ridiculous gaps. That’s what you get when you’re trying to be thrifty and at the same time guess how something should look just by eyeballing it. Not clever. So I have a few bits I’m going to hand sew, then I’m going to sew the big applique on and then- hold your breath- I’m going to try and wash it on a gentle wash to get all that glue out, which will no doubt make it all fall apart.
In preparation for this (I struggle with monofilament to stop it coming unstitched- is that just me or everyone?) I have ironed some featherlight interfacing over the problem areas on the back. I should maybe handwash it but I’m not convinced it will get rid of the fabric glue- yes I didn’t use glue stick because I couldn’t find mine and I was being impatient!
So anyway, this took over an hour just to square the sides up and get the thing flat. It then took 15 minutes to stick it to the wall without it falling down. THEN when I came down this morning it had fallen off again so balls to it, it’s been folded with all the nasty pins sticking out of it, ready for when I confront it again. Fear not, it will be thread sketched as I quilt it to give it more detail where needed. Not sure about all of the patchwork at the bottom right now though, there’s almost not enough negative space. Any thoughts on this would be most welcome.
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In other news, have you noticed my blog looks a lot different? It’s nowhere near finished, Matt is helping me sort out a much neater horizontal nav bar and I will be having links to my Etsy shops once I’ve actually put things in them, but what do you think so far? I think I will do a little fabric giveaway to celebrate “the new me” once it’s all done. And some more free tutorials. Cos I want bazillions more followers as a result of all my hard work messing with custom CSS templates without really knowing what I’m doing 
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Dentist after work this evening and I feel like a zombie right now, plus work is painfully quiet and there’s only so many games you can play on your phone to pass eight hours. In quilt wrestling last night I neglected ran out of time to clean out the hedgehog so I will have to do that when he wakes up tonight too. Not good things. However I am going to Nandos tonight which sort of semi makes up for it.
I’ve finished piecing the top of the baby quilt for my unknown gender cousin due in 3-4 weeks time! At the minute I totally don’t want to do a paper pieced block again for quite some time (so that’s Twenty Hedgehogs further on the backburner).
I tried to photograph this without the wood at the top but the breeze kept flipping it over. Our small garden is either covered with wood to burn, seedlings or dog wee so I didn’t really have many options where to photograph it. My next thing is to sit outside on a dining room chair and embroider on the birdy details but It’s so hot out there right now that I got dizzy just taking a picture! So I’m having a little sofa break reading digital back issues of Quilting Arts 
Oh, you’ll be glad to hear there has been some more work done on my show quilt, however it’s just invisibly sewing the glued seams so there’s nothing to show yet. I’ve done a lot of the background too but I don’t want to show you it until it’s all sewn together pre gentle hand wash!
Just FYI, I am starting to sell some of my designs over on Spoonflower. I was going to keep them to myself but I felt I could use a little bit of commission money, so it may take a while but I plan to grow my selection. There are more in the pipeline I just need to get them printed for myself before I can OK them for you guys, so please bookmark my page and come back often…. Oh and suggestions for designs are always welcome if you’re looking for something specific!
LINK: http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/pennydog
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Also just putting this out there if you would care to have a look through the entries and vote for your favourite. You don’t have to vote for me- but obviously if you do I’ll be chuffed 
Voting ends in about a week’s time.
Lastly, on the topic of Crafteroo, get in touch if you want a free quarter page advert in the next issue of the magazine, out quarterly and the next issue is due 1st July. The only catch is for the 3 months we will promote your blog/website/shop/whatever, we would like you to put a button to our site on your blog or website. I’m in the process of making the button now and there’s not an awful long time to go- just a month! We have 23 gaps to fill so don’t be shy
Yeah, yeah I know- two posts in one day, BUT I have just got pics of the stand I was working on for this year’s Chelsea Flwoer Show (opens tomorrow) and you can see some of the billions hundreds of flowers we sewed up…
K thx bai.
So I did quite a lot of sewing last weekend but they were all half finished spasms of creative urges so this weekend I finished them. I do need to sort out a smaller frame for the dragonfly this week though. I’m making them for the Hathern Jubilee Carnival, which is two weeks today. I have lots of my jewellery to sell still but I wanted a bit more of my newer stuff to take with me. I’m planning on making a string patchwork cushion and some more of those little tape measures, maybe a handbag or two if I get round to it.
I’ve also made progress on the pezzy bird quilt. Just three more blocks to sew- and I want to make these three up into a strip soon too. I have a lot of chocolates to make this week so we will see what happens. Once I have finished the top (of 9 birds now- the number keeps decreasing as it grows!) I will need to embroider on the eyes, wings and feet.
Because I’m suffering from an acute case of skintdom, with a new packaging order and road tax looming, I’ve decided to casually offer drawing services for anyone who may require a banner or a logo for their blog or craft business.
I can make them as jpgs, PDF, EPS, PS brushes, or any other file format you would prefer, in colour or black and white for the special price of £10. Just e-mail me for more details- kerry_l_wilkinsonAT!hotmail.com
Here’s two I’ve done already for Crafteroo forum members…
They start out hand-drawn from your ideas and then are vectorised in Illustrator so they will have a handmade or sketched aesthetic to them like the above ones do, whimsical if you will! I don’t do 3D modelling or suchlike, just thought I’d better let you know 
Also I can work with any specific colour references you like and most fonts- all the better if you can point me to a place online to download the one you want for free! I can also make these choices for you if you don’t have a firm idea of what you want and I can tweak the first version to be just right for you.
I have made- with the help of three others at work- around 180 flowers and buds made from gardening gloves to fill the full front of our stand at Chelsea Flower Show- which is 12 metres. They are red, white and blue for the jubilee and make three large arches at the front of the stand and a little one on the backwall behind the counter. They’re being loaded onto the van, so I only have a cameraphone sneak peek for you. I’m hoping for some in-situ shots to be sent over to me next week….
I feel more in the mood to do some of my own sewing now and did make a few things last weekend. I’ll show you some bits and bobs in my next post…
Sorry, I couldn’t resist- the actual main applique is fully stuck together now for my FOQ entry
Dogs
I decided at the end of last week to enter this year’s Festival of Quilts in the Pictorial category. I’ve never entered a quilt competition before (you could say I’ve never made a quilt without flaws too) and I’ve also never made a pictorial quilt which makes this decision slightly crackers, but nevertheless it gave me an excuse to start on an art quilt that I’ve wanted to do for a few weeks (see this post for when the urge started!). It will be amazing to see my work on display with all the other fantastic pieces!
Here’s what I’ve done so far… I made an image map from the photo on the wall and then made freezer paper templates over the top before pressing, cutting and sticking… (starting on Fletcher first):
HOWEVER I am going to be a bit short on tonal brown fabrics for Penny – though I have lots of fabrics that a re largely brown, they have too many other colours in with them- and being a bit strapped for cash I’m going to have to not buy new. The fabrics I have used so far are already in my stash or scrap box. So, this is where the second round of Lucy’s Fugly Fabric Party comes in (OK so it technically doesn’t start for another 4 days but I like being early to the party, and it will still continue over that time, so there )
So I propose a brown fugly fabric amnesty!
Have you got some browns that I can have? I don’t need a lot- up to a fat quarter size of a couple of different styles in a few shades is all- in fact charm squares are probably going to be just fine for some parts. Ugly is fine as long as they’re brown, so break out your icky batiks, solids, fossil ferns, marbles, etc and send me them! In return I can offer you an equal amount of colourful and pretty fabric scraps, charm squares (including spare Pezzy Print) and FQs, or a couple of pounds if you prefer, just drop me an e-mail (kerry_l_wilkinson(AT!)hotmail.com) and we’ll go from there.
If you want to see how I’m progressing with the doggy quilt, I will be uploading pictures to Flickr (little box over there –> ) rather than updating here all the time and boring people who aren’t actually interested…
Thanks for your help!
P.S. Would making a pictorial quilt in this way be of interest to you as a sewalong later in the year?
Just for you dear reader! I have lots of my resin jewellery just sat in a drawer so I thought I would root out some handmade bargains for you- just e-mail me if you fancy any of this little lot: kerry_l_wilkinson(At) hotmail.com
Prices include UK postage and all items are boxed and on chains where applicable.
Textured yellow and silver bangle – medium/large – £8
Little Crucifix Pendant – £5
Blue embedded fabric pendant on ribbon – £6
Jumbo purple rose ring (adjustable) – £4
French Kids vintage graphic pendant – £6
New York graphic pendant – £7
Large red heart brooch -£4
Coffee Drops Cufflinks – £7
Ladybird ring (approx size L) – £4
Scrabble tile pendants – £3.50 each
Thanks for looking!
