Go Go Gadget Gorgeous Georgetown Carnival …

Yay!  I’ve made my first Lynne@Lily'sQuilts fab new EPP block - the Georgetown Carnival  … I’d been playing with Katy I’mAGingerMonkey’s Spring Carnival so I already had tons of papers cut … To see if I liked it, I decided not to adapt any of my existing blocks but to start from scratch … (the only proviso being gingham had to be included)



So, I raided my stash for deliciously luscious solids including Kona Aqua (the first time I’ve ever used it! can you believe it?!) and my last scrap of a Kaffe shot cotton in green/pink. 

The background fabric is a wonderful heavy silky grey linen from MLM (MyLinenMan)





I’ve been using my Go! Baby 2.5” strip die to cut my squares … it’s a genius way of accurately cutting stacks at a time. I can cram about 8 layers into this baby.

… ssshhh don’t tell anyone at Accuquilt, but I cut my hexagon papers with it too! I think the trick to tools like the Go! Baby is to get them to work for you, rather than have them sit gathering dust. 




I use the Go cutting mat as a ruler to precut my strips. 
I really don’t mind losing the little side strips of fabric you get as wastage.  I use em for tying tomato plants or parcels.


If I’ve got something accurate to work with at the start of the process I’m less likely to waste time trimming and faffing later …

TOP TIP Roll a bit of scrap wadding into a ball and rub to get all the threads out of the blade part of the cutter and the grooves in the cutting mat. Works a treat.

token cat snuggling fabric pic

As I’m going to be appliqueing the blocks onto linen, I thought it might be fun to try adding some hexies to the original ferris wheel … might cut them into halves.

I think the sharp triangles of negative space are cool, but not sure if I like it that much … I need to see it with fabric …

I’m away for a few days this week, so it’s nice to have an on-the-go project to pack!  And such bright cheery colours too … yumtastic!  Thanks for the inspiration Lynne …

I’ll be posting a couple of new Master Your GIMP tutes at the end of next week – including how to create a blog header from scratch… In the meantime, it’s off with the puter and on with the bikini thimble  … may your week be sunny ...

springing to life

There is nothing quite like early evening in spring … that low hazy sun and clear skied chill too light for jim jams (yay!) extension of day. 


Last year I bought this beautiful fragile paperwhite (yes, really just the one - I have 8 foot of garden) and lo! it has come back to visit again this year … how I love bulbs.  I used to really not get the point of spring, but as I get older I appreciate the concept of new life more and more.



What a beautiful sunny weekend it was … all the better for opening wonderful packages and going to investigate Brighton Craftganza and my favourite Saturday {linen man} market … I even managed to fit in a layer of sashing on my swoon-along quilt.

• Fantastic buttons you decorate by stitching w/embroidery thread, from here
• An amazing bundle of A Stitch in Color from the fantabulous Julie at The Intrepid Thread - more on that later …
• Home baked soda bread.
• A stack of dots and spots ready to be cut into charm squares.
• mahoosive swoonalong  quilt top - one more border of turquoise to go …
• I spy a fox at the market.

How's your week going?
springy? or saggy?

I'm going back to the skyscraper stack of marking ... see you soon ...

Brighton Spring 2012 Craftganza Tomorrow!!!!

Oops ... I nearly forgot to tell any of you my lovely local or near local readers, that this weekend sees a lovely event at Fabrica in Brighton ... Craftganza!!!

Zoe has a fantastic blog - there's a muchly useful post today with serious advice re. business plans, intellectual property and copyright for designer makers ...

and in other posts, lovely previews of stuff you can buy tomorrow ....

... like this cherry scented brain soap from oh so smelly.  duh yes please.

I can't wait ... I had hoped to be behind a stall for this one, but work just made that impossible !! I'm really looking forward to seeing what's on offer ....

If the weather's nice, you really should come ... the linen man will be in upper gardner street market too ...

Triangle Tilt Quilt Ta-Da!

Huzzah!  It's finished - just over a week late, but I hope my partner on the For The Love of Solids swap on flickr won't have minded waiting so long.  Life got in the way.  Bits of horrid life and frantic work but all is calmer now.

I'm so pleased with how this came out.   I wasn't originally intending to do such intense running stitching, but I quite like how the original calmness of the triangles pre-quilting ...



... becomes quite agitated with the flow of the stitches …



I also really like the back.  I like to make the back of my swap quilts interesting in some way … and having some form of standalone pattern without any piecing seems to suit the way I sew …

You can see that this is not immensely talented hand quilting - it is just running stitch, hence the short stubby stitches on the back.  The backing is a beautiful deep turquoise linen, which I used to self bind round the front* …
*no sniggering Hadley …



and all from a bit of a doodle when I was sick in bed with the mutant virus ...



I just want to say sorry to my partner for being so late with this.  It's all wrapped up now, along with a few surprises, all ready to go in tomorrow's post …

… hope you like it!

The new shopping …

I wanted to share this fantastic time lapse/tilt shift video made by a 13yr old boy in Brighton - It is a piece of beauty and soul. He's had to disable comments on his vimeo page!  Go yoof! 


Go full screen! and enjoy the 45,000 still shots that created this amazing 'day in Brighton'.

This is Brighton from Caleb Yule on Vimeo.

Sometimes I feel like I'm falling out of love with Brighton and then I actually go and wander around or see something like this and realise how very much I still love it ...

My 365 meme today was 'favourite' so I thought I'd feature the fleamarket I love. which is tucked away in a Upper Gardner Street in Brighton.






I also decided to flesh out the post here at Pings, as it's got gratuitous pictures of thread and fabric in it, and only a few brave people are looking at my 365 project ... not a whinge .. just sayin ... 









I love this place … It is absolutely choccabloc with dusty, touchable stuff.
It smells wonderful!




I buy my bags of 'vintage' {= old} cottons there … On a Saturday, Upper Gardner Street also has a fantastic bric-a-brac, local produce, bits and bobs market …




This is where my wonderful linen man sometimes hangs out … not today though …




His pitch 'neighbour' … is it his brother? I don't know, really not sure, I always mistake one for the other they are so alike but that might just be my fabric association neurons gone wild! … has wonderful vintage French linens, trimmings, ribbons, bolt ends of savile row pinstripes, bakelite stag and boar buttons … oh bsmbh …

… such fun to look (but not buy - photos are the new shopping this year … )




Look at that yummy bishop's-purple grosgrain ribbon … he had wide blanket binding satin in the same colour too … *sigh

What is your favourite thing to do on a Saturday? 

… keep it clean now …

… or not …

Ruby Star Spring Quilt - Finish!

A final reveal of my first ever real quilt for me. This baby is hand quilted, randomly tied with 1mm satin ribbon and self bound with the orange linen backing.

Quilt Top: Ruby Star Spring by Melody Miller for Kokka, Kona & Klona cotton solids; Orange, lilac, beige & acid limey lemon linen in varying weights. I dyed the acid limey lemon linen myself as I was desperate for a colour I just couldn't find elsewhere. Result!

The Ruby Star Spring is an absolute joy to work with, it is soft and forgiving and a lighter weight cotton linen blend compared to Melody's last line, Ruby Star Rising. I love both, and there's a teeny bit of Rising in this quilt to pay homage to my favourite line of 2010! This, of course, is my favourite line of 2011!

Batting/Wadding: bamboo (it's scrummy!)

Backing: orange linen.

I'll tell you something ... All that linen means one heavy quilt! It needed 10 clothes pegs, and I snapped four in the process when they pinged off ... so I've decided that as duvets have tog ratings, my quilts will have peg ratings!



Ruby Star Spring Quilt - Finish!, a photo by Sarah @ pingsandneedles on Flickr.

Most importantly of all, it's on my bed!

I absolutely adore it and it makes me smile when I give it a final smooth down before lights out! I have to confess that I finished this on Sunday night, but we needed some time together before I introduced you all ...

n'night