Monday 31 August 2015

catch - up: summer

hello! i hope you all a had a lovely summer and spent some time sewing and enjoying the weather :) it is coming up to my favourite time of year, autumn! so before it arrives i thought i would share some snippets of what i have been up to this summer! 


{logo for yvonne} remember my little sort-of giveaway?  well yvonne at quilting jetgirl was the winner and here is the logo i made for her. she was absolutely excellent to work with (and i got a brilliant mark on my project *yay*) if you would like to read about the process yvonne wrote up a brilliant post here! after making the logo i decided my blog needed a little 'spruce up' so i re-did my header, i love that font!


{exploring} i loved getting out and about with my camera this summer and fell in love with all the flowers and gardens in the national trust parks about northern ireland, i took waayy too many pictures, that i will hopefully be using in a project soon :)




{decorating} i painted one of my bedroom walls with this patterned roller and it is AMAZING! once i figured out how to roll it the right way to make sure the animals where the right way round, it was a breeze and it's really pretty! (i got mine from doris and jeannie)



{fabric} there has been some fabric arriving to my house :) you know the fabrics that you see and you just 'have' to have them, well these are them. vintage market by tasha noel is soo adorable and has the sweetest little illustrations on them. and gooseberry! it comes out in october but i got a couple of early release charm packs, i didn't have a plan whenever i got them, but mum saw them and has requested a table-runner! 

{pretty trimmings} i have done lots and lots of trimming making half-square triangles (198 of them) in very muted colours, completely out of my comfort zone! 


{pinwheels} and all the half-square triangles turned into pinwheels, to make a quilt for a friend, instead of having it all just white i added in a couple of dotty backgrounds!


{patchwork curtains} last year we got an extension put onto the kitchen and new doors. my mum looked everywhere for new curtains, but didn't find any that just 'fit' queue me making curtains :) remember this bundle? well here is what it became, patchwork curtains


{flower-y backing} it was just like making a quilt top to make the curtains, and my mum picked out this floral-y fabric for the lining, a bit of measuring, some very long seams and they were done! i never thought i would be able to make curtains, but i am really please with them and mum loves them *yay*

{and finally} in just over a week i will be leaving home and going to university in derby to study illustration aahhhh! this has been one of my goals for a long time! i keep going between excited and scared haha but i am looking forward to it, it will be like an adventure! 

rachael x 

Tuesday 25 August 2015

{cultivate} blog tour


hello! it's my stop on the cultivate blog tour *yay* i absolutely love bonnie's fabrics! (as you can see here and here) and cultivate is no different, it's so beyond lovely.


how perfect is that brown fabric? i love all the warm colours in this collection, they just say autumn and cosy-ness to me! i also love the pops of colour, like that green, scrummy! you can see (and drool over) the whole collection here!


when i saw these fabrics the first thing that popped into my head was bear-paw blocks, but i wanted to do something a bit different with them, so coasters it was! practical and pretty, what could be better?




i paired my cultivate fabric with some essex linen and i think it really makes the colours pop! and of course to just finish them off i added some lace to the outside edges for some extra prettiness. i really enjoyed working with these fabrics, and i will definetly be incorporating them into my future projects :)


do you want to see more lovely projects made with cultivate? then hop over to Amanda's blog Material Girl quilts to see the brilliant hoop she made! and be sure to visit trudi's blog tomorrow for her project!

rachael x

linking up with fabric tuesday