stocking up...

 It's all very well at this time of year focussing on gift buying and making that we all need to do, but are you remembering to look after Number 1 and making sure you have plenty of supplies to keep you occupied over the festive break??

First up, very exciting news, you can pop along to the imminently opening bricks and mortar The Village Haberdashery this weekend. How exciting is that?! From these sneak peak photos it looks delicious! I used to live at number 15...my hubs is quite relieved we are now over 200 miles away!

If you can't get down there Annie's online shop is still open for ordering all her usual scrummy stock including the fabulous new line Splendour. I quite fancy a bit of that.

Also out and about with new things to entice you for Christmas crafting is Aurifil threads at M is for Make. I am dying to try these wonder threads out that everyone is raving on about. Also newly in at HQ M is for Make is the new line from Birch Fabrics, Camp Modern. I just love the colourways of this collection and the designs. It shouts winter wonderland to me and if you haven't used these organic fabrics before, believe me you will love them. They are so crisp and a pleasure to sew with.

 Fancy a little dress making this holidays? Alice at Backstitch has a wonderful array of patterns newly in, including the fabulous Washi Dress which is at the top of my list. I'm also very keen to make the Briar Sweater and T Shirt. I think it will be one of those "have to have for every day of the week" tops. Alice has also just got in a couple of the new By Hand London patterns. The Elizalex dress looks perfect if you need to quickly rustle up a special little something. 

The latest collection in at Seamstar is Aneela Hoey's cuter than cute Sew Stitchy. Absolutely perfect for sewing up a few last minute forgotten gifts. Don't forget to check out  Courtney's Christmas Shop for other wonderful Christmassy fabrics and trimmings to dress your gifts.

giveaway winner...drum roll please...

Giveaway for Courtney of Seamstar's generous solids bundle giveaway is...

Helen from The Fabric Laboratory!

Well done Helen! Your chosen bundles will be on their way to you and if you missed out but would like to order some, please go here.

Thank you all for entering and another giveaway on it's way later this week.

x

giveaway time!...

Seamstar has a fantastic selection of Better Value Plain Cottons and Courtney is offering a very generous giveaway of them.

Seriously generous and seriously tempting...

Better Value Plains are 100% cotton and available at Seamstar in over 50 colours as well as various 4 and 6 colour palette bundles. They are better value too as they are are 150cm wide.

The generous giveaway that Courtney is offering is your choice of any 3 bundles of 4, some of which you can see above and the rest you can see along with all the colours available here.

And here's how you can win...

1 entry for telling me which bundles you would choose...

another entry for following my blog before or now...

another entry for signing up to Seamstar's Newsletter...

a final entry for tweeting about it.

So 4 chances to win...what are you waiting for??!

Giveaway open until this time next week - end of play Sun 4 Nov 2012.

p.s. apologies but open to UK residents only this time

What's new...from my UK sponsors...

As well as each of my sponsors providing you with the fantastic new ranges of Bella by Lotta Jansdotter and Bloomsbury Gardens by Liberty Lifestyle amongst others, they all have their own individual taste and picks of what is new out there.Lucky us to have so many wonderful fabric lines hand picked for us.

Here is a review of some of my favourites available from each of them.

First up Kate from M is for Make brings us Patty Young's terrific Running Stitch fabrics. They are so zesty and zingy and will liven up any project. I'm planning on using some as the coordinating fabrics in my pencil rolls, but in the meantime have cut a little scrap for some cards. I think I will be using these in cards a lot in the future.

I don't know how long this fabric will be available in Kate's store, so you had best head over here now to stock up.

It is no secret that I am a big fan of Umbrella Prints fabrics. I fell in love with their hand screen printed designs and now just as head over heels with their organic quilting collections. 

The latest collection Elephants Love Water (such a clever title!) by the talented Amy and Carly is now available at The Village Haberdashery. Annie should be praised to the heavens for being so discerning as to step out of the box and choose something a little different. It isn't the cheapest choose, being £7/fat quarter, but being cut from a 150cm width bolt it ends up not being as pricey as you think.

Live a little...and some of these to your stash and you'll be thanking me big time. Go right here to grab a little...or a lot...

Next up Petites Odile the new chic and sophisticated collection from French General chosen by Alice at Backstitch. The pretty design is beautifully made in muted colours which would be a class act in any project as well as being perfect for dressmaking. I particularly love Claudine in Oyster. 

Head here if you fancy stocking up on something a little classy to your stash.

Last but by no means least something a little quirky. I'm not a huge fan of novelty prints but these Ric Rac Rabbits are so fun! Courtney from Seamstar always finds something fun and this is no exception. I used Bunny Friends in Burnt Orange on Teal (more turquoise) in my pencil rolls and so pleased with the result. It teams perfectly with Summersville Brushstrokes in Orange too.

If quirky fun is your thing go here to grab some. There are several great designs in various colours. You'll be spoilt for choice!

If like me you are lucky enough to be in sunnier climes enjoying a bit of R & R, what better than to be enjoying a little happier hour ordering some of these lovelies in the happy knowledge that a few pretty parcels will be waiting for your return.

Oh for the love of our modern world!

 Do you find your tastes in colour combos goes round and around?

Quite a while ago now I had a big attraction for reds and blues but then it seemed to disappear again for yellows and greys to take it's place.

But it appears to be back.

Without consciously meaning to I have recently been combining reds and blues again in various projects.

When I picked fabrics for my Siblings Together quilt, donated by my lovely sponsor M is for Make I was very much drawn to reds and blues and am in the process of completing this quilt (bottom left) and am very much enjoying surrounding myself in this combination. 

Maybe it started again with this. Then I was making some new pencil rolls and ordered this fabric from another sponsor (bottom right), and found it worked beautifully with some Summersville I had sitting on my desk (as you do).

And if that wasn't enough submersion into one of my first colour combo loves, I received a package of Water for Elephant fabrics from the talented Umbrella Prints designers (middle above) and before I knew it I was obsessing with reds and blues again and picked out the top fabrics for a range I want to produce for upcoming fairs and the like.

Who knows if my rekindled obsession will last into preparing for these fairs or not, but in the meantime I am rather enjoying glimpses of red and blue.

Do you have combos you keep coming back to again and again?

I am absolutely delighted to share my news with you that my blog is now sponsored by the following fantastic UK online fabric stores.

I am extremely honoured and proud that these wonderful shops view my blog as worthy enough to sponsor and so if you don't know them already please do click on the links on the right and peruse their wonderful collections.

Each one is very different from the next with what they offer and I will be telling you about all of them over the next few day.

Let me introduce the first one to you today and those of you that are regular readers of my blog will find it a very familiar name. 

M is for Make is run by the lovely Kate who handpicks the most wonderful collection of fabrics from all over the world. Kate is based in Brighton and M is for Make is the result  of a lifelong love of pretty fabrics and sewing.

Kate supplements her lovely collection of fabrics with the best collection of beautiful Japanese sewing books and fantastic sewing patterns. I have several of the Japanese sewing books and even though I don't understand a word of them, the photographs alone are enough to entice me into thinking one day I may be able to make something from them.

You may remember Kate generously offering me a selection of fabrics - any selection I wanted - to make a quilt for Siblings Together. A couple of the fabrics I had chosen hadn't yet been released and coincidentally coinciding with the launch of my sponsors they arrived this week. I have a feeling that the Denyse Schmidt on the top is not going to hang around for long.

The partnership with my sponsors is going to bring lots of exciting news, giveaways and other opportunities for you, so please stick around as I announce each in turn.

GIVEAWAY WINNER!!

First of all thank you for entering and a big thank you to Courtney, from Seamstar, for donating the prize...

And now onto the winner...

drum roll please...

Number 26: Dawn from pop-i-cock!

Unfortunately my computer crashed so I have no visual evidence of Dawn being the chosen number from Random.Org, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Hope you are all have a great rest of the weekend - me, I'm being shlepped round town doing some Christmas shopping...

A giveaway...and a new toy...

...actually the new toy is the reason for the giveaway.

A couple of weeks ago I invested in a Big Shot machine. I'd been after finding a way to cut fabric shapes out for ages, for the particular purpose of cutting flowers for my Flower Brooch Kits. My Flower Brooch Kits are far and away my most popular kits and up until now I have been buying cut flowers (not of the fresh fragrant variety) from a lovely lady in US.

But I have been wanting to make my own for obvious reasons and up until now any cutting machines weren't suitable for fabric.

Enter the new Big Shot machine...

The Big Shot has revolutionised my kits by the fact that I am in control of my stock of flowers, cutting as I need and not having to worry about temporarily making the kits out of stock while I wait for more flowers to arrive from across the pond.

And it's so darn quick and easy to use!

If i haven't lost you yet, here's the fun bit...the giveaway...

I obviously needed something to cut and coincidentally just at that point Courtney from Seamstar came along and almost the very same day sent me a swatch card of all the delicious new felts she was carrying. They are 30% wool and really beautifully soft and vibrant.

I put together an order for the ones I thought would work well for my kits and a day later I was cutting and combining to my heart's content.

Courtney was so taken with the selection that she decided it would be perfect to make a specific bundle with this selection of fabrics. And here's the giveaway part...Courtney has very generously offered one of you, my lovely readers the opportunity to win a set of this bundle, here on my blog. All you have to do is leave a comment here on my blog and you will be in the draw to win a fat 1/8 of each of these 6 luscious felts. I'll be leaving the draw open until next Friday 2 Dec so if you fancy some felt, just leave me a comment and a contact email and you will be in with a shot.*

Also...

...as i was cutting out all my flowers I was left with all these. Now I am known for my inability to discard anything and am convinced there is something that can be done with these 'stencils'. But, for once, I am going to resist the temptation to hoard them. Unless someone thinks they can do something wonderful with them they are going in the bin. If you can't bear the thought of that and know exactly what you would do with them let me know and they are all yours! The first person to say they want them can have them! Again, just make sure you have an email that I can get hold of you via.

It's downright horrible here today and trust me, I have unfortunately experienced it at first hand. Today was the day we picked to take Sam and 7 friends to Alton Towers as a post exam/late birthday party treat.

I actually hate Theme Parks at the best of times. I'm not good with crowds, queues or heights and if you throw cold rain into the equation, you can imagine quite how my mood was today.

And by this time tomorrow I'll be tearing my hair out as they are all staying for a sleepover!

So this seemed a perfect day to distract myself and look at some loveliness.

This week I have bought the following fabric stashes, most of them to use with my screen printing and also I have several quilt orders and my thoughts are heading to designs with lots of plains - something new for me.

This first rather big pile comes from the range of Klona plains that Alice from Backstitch is stocking. The range of colours is incredible and at £5.50/metre, it's fantastic value too. A lot of these are going to be used for screen printing, so I'm rather excited about experimenting with them.

Remember the samples of these I received? Whilst I was on an ordering binge, I added these to the list. They are beautiful. The colours are obviously perfect and they are a lovely linen/cotton blend. Head here if you fancy trying some out for yourself.

I always need spots. I haven't bought these Oliver & S City Weekend dots before, but they will be perfect for Gerry and Steve. I wasn't totally sure when I ordered them that the spottage wasn't a tad small, but I gambled on them being nice and they are. They are perfect. Whilst I was at The Eternal Maker I bought the top one, Basic Grey Graph Dots. You know every now and then you are drawn to a simple fabric and when it comes it exceeds all expectations? That's the case with this one. Having satisfactorily made these for a friend, this Basic Grey is lined up to be made into a pair for our bed. Then I definitely need to order more for one of the quilts on order too. I've a feeling this is going to fast become a firm favourite.

After all this, I've almost forgotten about the bad part of the day.

Hopefully by tomorrow all sleepover madness will be forgotten too.

I think I must be becoming extremely transparent. I must be becoming very predictable with my likes.

Courtney of Seamstar sent me the following samples of some new linens she has just started stocking...

Do they have my name written all over them or what??

And just to illustrate the point further (just in case you aren't quite convinced) here they are with my pencil case and purse, both of which I carry about with me at all times.

I'm going to have to start being more creative with my colour palette. Who knows, I may surprise you one day with my choices...