Dreamin Vintage

I think I posted a photo of the quick quilt I made using fabrics from the Dreamin Vintage collection a while back. If you missed it, here it is!

The collection is designed by Jeni Baker for Art Gallery Fabrics and I was really excited this week when I read one of her blog posts, to see my quilt featured in her round up of quilts she found that used to her fabric. You can read the blog post here 

http://www.incolororder.com/2014/08/your-dreamin-vintage-projects.html

I put together some instructions to make the quilt and you can find them in the September issue of Patchwork & Quilting

Joanna

Creative Mojo

I'm not sure if I've lost mine. 

I have lots of ideas. See inspiration everywhere I go. And yet I don't seem to be able to create anything with a wow factor at the moment. 

Most of my piecing recently has been done on the machine and usually involves pre-cuts or cutting squares and triangles. These tend to lead to more simple but effective designs. 

Most of my wow quilts have been hand pieced and quilted. So maybe that's it? I haven't quite got the confidence to make something more challenging by machine?

Or is it more that I don't know where I am as a quilter at the moment? I like modern quilts but I don't think I'm a full on modern quilter. I am still a traditional quilter at heart but with modern quilter leanings. Labels for the type of quilter that I am shouldn't matter, but somehow not knowing what type of quilt I want to make has left me in limbo. 

I think it's also because I have made a lot of simpler quilts recently to display fabric collections that I have got out of the habit of making more complicated quilts. Although of course even the simplest designs can be stunning. 

Or maybe I just don't have the time to be fully creative; to sit down and design and create; to let the creative juices start flowing?

I think I need to start a new project!

Kittens!

If you follow me on other social media you will probably be aware that we have three new kittens in our lives!

Sadly we had to put our last cat Jacob down at the end of May. He'd been suffering from heart failure since the beginning of the year, but we'd managed to keep him going with pills and he was doing really well. However he went downhill very quickly that late bank holiday weekend so we took the emotional decision to put him to sleep.

It was absolutely awful being in a cat-free house. I'd come back home and wonder if he was sitting on the doorstep waiting for us......

So we decided not to be cat free and with my son's birthday fast approaching I started looking at rescue centre websites for kittens as a birthday present. I felt TK was the right age for looking after and appreciating kittens. 

Because we were going away in June for the Sandown quilt show we couldn't take any in before then but that very week three delightful balls of fluff appeared on the Wood Green Animal Centre's website. We dashed to the centre after school, literally, to go and see them. We had planned to get two kittens so they had each other for company; but in all honesty, could you leave one of these cuties behind?!

We went to see them every other day which helped them get to know us and we finally brought them home with us at the beginning of July. 

They've grown a lot since then but are still the cutest things. So say hello to Rolo, Smartie and Fudge, the main reason why I haven't done much seeing recently......

Joanna