four flutterbys flying

i didn't have my foot this past week, which meant no sewing. i am taking judiths amazing retro butterflies class and luckily there was just a little bit of trimming to do, so the past week was spent trimming a gazillion drunkards paths, yay! i got my foot back just in time for class and all that trimming meant i could sew some blocks together.

i now have four pretty, fluttery butterflies finished! and wow were they a struggle to get to this stage, me and my seam ripper are super best friends now! only because i didn't read the instructions and merrily sewed away with a 1/4" seam instead of a 3/8" seam, even after i found out i had to use a 3/8" seam i didn't move my needle over enough and had to get the seam ripper out again!

even with all the seam ripping and perhaps just a few naughty words, i love how the blocks turned out! i am using all my bonnie and camille fabric from most of their past collections, it's been fun mixing them all together! i don't really have a plan for this quilt, i keep going between colour blocking and scrappy, so i guess it's going to be a mixture of both!

oh and we had a visitor today, meet storm he is just a big gentle giant and oh so fluffy! and as you can see everybody that comes to the house leaves with thread on them!

rachael x


p.s thanks for all the entries on my giveaway post and for telling me your favourite movies, i now have a very long list of movies to watch and i can't wait!

small projects

i'm working on a few 'big' projects at the minute, which means no finishes, so yesterday when the postman loudly rang the bell outside and woke me up from my lovely sleep to deliver my bundle of dreamin' vintage by jeni baker, i knew exactly what i wanted to make! a nice, small project.

is this not just the most best-est fabric you've ever seen? i think this may be my favourite fabric line, and you will be seeing it in a lot of projects! there is not one print which i don't love! 

anyhoo onto the project. i have this shelf in the toyroom sewing room just above my cutting table and basically everything gets put up there, scraps of fabric, receipts, pins, letters, envelopes, really anything that is sitting around, it goes on the shelf. 

see! isn't it just so messy and icky looking? i obviously had to fix that and make it all pretty and quilty, enter my bundle of fabric and some linen and ta-dah!

pretty boxes to hold all the messy 'things' that were on the shelf, they're still messy inside but on the outside its pretty and tidy, yay! they measure just under 8inches and are really roomy to hold all my crap stuff.

i choose 4 different designs so as not to make them all the same, but still be co-ordinating. first up just big squares and some stippling, a combo that can never go wrong in my opinion

a star block, which i think i may have to make a quilt from. i think the background fabric is a really good basic to have and goes with so many fabrics.

this one is my favourite! and would not have been made without the maths whizz that is judith after many, many hours trying to figure out to make a 8inch log cabin, i put a request out on IG for help, and judith came to the rescue, thank-you!!!

and lastly small patchwork and 1/4inch quilting on each side of the seam, another combo that you just cannot go wrong with.

i think that one of the best parts of being able to sew/quilt is to be able to create something useful that fulfils a purpose, while also being pretty at the same time. small projects are so great because they're quick and you get the satisfaction of a finish, win win!

would anybody like a tutorial to make your own pretty, fabric boxes?

rachael x

linking up with crazy mom quilts

how now brown cow and a 'funny' story

the last couple of weeks has been all about college work and yet i still managed to leave it all to the night before it needed handed in, you can't say I'm a procrastinator.

now do you fancy a giggle? here is a story about balance and co-ordination - my mum decided that she wanted a mp3 player but i convinced her to get an iPod. so yesterday i went to argos to get an iPod, it was all going great, i picked the one i wanted, payed for it and collected it, all simple enough until i was leaving the shop. you know how they have that box of catalogues in the middle of the floor? well i wasn't paying attention to my walking and managed to very gracefully fall straight into the box of catalogues! ooh it was soo embarrassing, needless to say i quickly got up and walked fast out of the shop and that is the let time i shall ever go there again!

time for sewing stuff now if you can stop giggling! it seems i have a thing for making cushions at the minute, but when inspiration strikes, go with it.

*this post contains brown fabric*

i love, love, love brown fabric right now, i just cannot get enough of it! which is the inspiration for my cushion

cows and brown fabric - match made in heaven. this is harriet the highland coo. it all started with this sketch one day in college and i knew harriet had to become fabric-y

i really like her hair, even though i kind of just want to flick it out of her eyes. and her strawberry nose, can you tell i really like my new cushion?

when i finished the appliqué it felt like the cushion was missing something, and i couldn't figure out what. then one day i was tidying i found my most favourite pink flowery fabric and i just knew it had to be the binding. i have a love/hate relationship with binding, i love how it looks, but hate sewing it on, anybody else feel the same about binding?

rachael x

pretty fabric and a quilt-a-long

the past week has been spent with many sleepless nights doing college work (and taking selfies at 4a.m)  *note to self: do not try and leave 4months of work for school to the week before it has to be handed in* but now i am all caught up on sleep (a lovely 15hour sleep last night, bliss) and ready to spend the whole weekend in my sewing room! 

over on instagram holly started an impromptu quilt-a-long for the absolutely lovely 'dwell' quilt from the book simply retro! i've wanted to make this quilt for ages, and now is as good as time as any! i will be making it with country girls by tasha noel (a little treat i treated myself to for finishing my college project) if you fancy joining in use #dwellalong on instagram to see all the pretty quilts! now off to start cutting my fabric and think about changing out of my pj's haha

have a good weekend!

rachael x

the sunday night feeling

last week was one of those weeks, the type where you just want to switch your clock off and hide and that is exactly what i did. the whole week had the 'sunday night feeling' and was all just 'blah!' i took the week off school college, because to be honest i just couldn't face it! sooo i sewed, i couldn't settle on one thing so i just sewed 'ideas' and listened to this

i went through my scrap bag and just started pulling out random fabrics, cut them into 2.5inch squares, sewed them up to become mini patchwork, which then became...

sweet dreams sleeping teddy, i don't know if i love him but i think he looks cute all snuggled up in his little patchwork quilt! after making him i thought he needed a 'matching' cushion so introducing...

mr. teddy in blue and white striped pyjamas along with his teddy bear! can you tell that 'sleep' was on my mind? i think they are really cute as a pair and they are available in my etsy shop

after the cushions i wanted something a bit different, something that involved maths and really hard thinking, enter the fabric box

now i know there are lots and lots and lotttss of tutorials and patterns out there for fabric boxes but i wanted to come up with my own pattern/way of doing it, i will say it involved many prototypes and even more tears, but i am so so happy with the result and so happy that i did it by myself :)

also last week a lovely customer asked if i could make her some cushions and one of my quilts, i love cushions! so of course i couldn't say no, want to see?

it is absolutely delightful to work with voile, it is just soo soft, i finished the cushions of with some perle cotton hand quilting, i think we might need a pair for our house!

oh i also indulged in a little bit of fabric purchasing in the #greatukfabricdestash on instagram (boy! was that fun!) and i got a cotton blossom jelly roll by bonnie and camille, i am beyond excited!!

heres to a good week!

rachael x

my sewing room

just after christmas i was sitting wondering what to do and then it came to me re-decorate the toy-room (the sewing room) good idea, huh?

so i started stripping the wallpaper (tee-hee) and moving all my fabric and sew-y stuff to get ready for painting - heads up! get ready for a picture heavy post, but sure everyone loves pictures!!

this is what i found when all the wallpaper came off, it's 24/2/1928 and it says "papered by jack morgan painter and decorator 'something i can't read' connswater belfast"

an in progress shot, this is how i rang in the new year, i really know how to party hard!! i love the aqua colour

here is the only before picture i have, the room went from being blue to a slightly different colour of blue, are you ready to see the transformation? i'll give you a guided tour around it.

this is the scene you first see when you walk into the room, yes you are greeted by a big roll of waddling, the perfect greeting.

next the ironing board (which desperately needs a new cover) and  my pretty picture wall, it'll be fun to iron now and be able to look at the pictures, which i'm sure i'll add to.

the little quilt-y corner, yes i finally sewed the binding on my little improv mini, this is also the think-y corner, see that roll of paper on the wall? thats's for all my great ideas (haha)

i got rid of the green sofa, i loved it but it was just an excuse for me to messily throw my wip's, unfolded fabric, basically everything, it became like the sofa of doom. a quick trip to ikea quickly fixed that and voila! little cubby holes and boxes to cleverly disguise all the messy fabric and wip's

now i have somewhere to display my baskets of wool, which i will use...someday

the fabric closet also got a little clear-out and tidy, now who knows if it will stay like this i'm guessing no, but i'm gonna try and keep it like this.

my most favourite-est shelf.

i knew that in my 'new' room that i wanted somewhere to be able to take pictures, so this is my picture wall for all my photos for etsy and the blog. that chair will eventually be covered to make it pretty and not like something from the olden day, you know, like the 70's

the swing table! this would be probably be the best part of the decorating, another trip to ikea and i now have a big table, i have to say it is quite a luxury, before my sewing machine sat on my cutting mat, so i had to lift it off to cut and then lift it back up to sew, i know such an inconvenience haha i also added some more cubby holes, em because i lot of crap stuff.

a close-up of my pictures, each month at the fine and dandy market i would treat myself to a picture from one of the many talented exhibitors! you should really go and see for yourselves.

the whole room, with an absolutely delightful view of not one, but two sheds! but that's a good thing because then no-one can come and look through the window at me dancing em i mean sewing... now the only thing is to go and sew in it! except i have no inclination to sew anything, go figure haha

i hope i haven't bored you too much with all my pictures, well done if you made it to the end, it was a reallllly long post :)

rachael x

pinch, punch emm second of the month

it' recap time! 2013 is over! and can i just say thank god it is! it was not a good year, but i think that's because it was an ODD number year! it was a mix of good and bad, quitting my job = bad, starting blogging and the floral suitcase = good and i just wanna say the blogg-y/quilt-y world is so wonderful :) so last year was swings and round-a-bouts.

recap time means collages! i can hear you all whooping! i know everybody says this but it really has been fun to look at my quilt-y makes from the past year, i sew-ed a lot more than i thought i had, like 11 quilts - that made me smile :)

2013 was the year i started craft fairs, boy was that fun! (that's not sarcasm, honest) as i've said before i really have learnt a lot, i'm thinking of doing a series of post for anybody thinking of doing a craft fair and want to know some more about it :)

... and i think we can all agree that it was the year of the cushion! (these aren't even all of them) cushions are a great way to get all the creative ideas bouncing around your head out in a quick, fun way and aren't as time consuming as a big quilt.

so it's a new year which means resolutions, here are a few of mine:

- blog my progress and finished quilt-y items more 

- to carry a sketchbook and doodle all my little ideas

- be more adventurous in my quilts and fabric choices

- take better photos

- learn to use photoshop and illustrator

i think that's enough to be getting on with this year, what are your resolutions? are you making any?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

and here's hoping for a great EVEN number year!

rachael x

w.i.p wednesday

*can i just say THANK-YOU for all your lovely comments on my last post, seriously the quilting world has the nicest and sweetest people, so THANK-YOU :)*

it's a cold, grey, wet and windy day here the perfect excuse to stay inside in comfy clothes with my sewing machine and netflix!! do you remember this quilt from like ages ago, well it's been sitting basted for months, so i thought today was the perfect day to quilt it :)

ahh i love it and can't wait to finish it!!

question: would anybody be interested in a low volume charm swap??

rachael x

linking up with WIP  wednesday

a wall jumped out behind my car

yay! its monday and i have no college!! and it's (kinda) sunny! double yay!!

i may have got a bit carried away with the a beautiful mess app

you may have noticed at the top of my blog that a new little button has appeared, yes i have opened an etsy shop! see i would like 'the floral suitcase' to be my business, it's like soo scary putting that out there, but i'm slowly learning not to be scared anymore. i also have a facebook business page, i don't use normal facebook but it is soo fun for business purposes.

i regularly attend craft fairs to sell all my handmade items and i have to say i love doing craft fairs you meet soo many great people and they also get your 'business' out there. when most people see my stall they either think i didn't make all the items or i'm just doing this as a hobby, which makes me feel kind of stupid. by telling you all this i'm hoping it will give me the courage to tell people that no it is not just a hobby but that it is my business!

my most popular items are my animal cushions and these aren't even all of them, i have loved making each one and making them all a little bit unique. I have been running my business for a few months now and i love everyday of it, some days are harder than others but it's worth it to be working at something that i am passionate about and want to do, i'm still in the early, learning stages but each day i ;earn something new and have so many great people helping, and supporting me through it all :)

probably my most favourite cushion ever!!

rachael x

p.s this post took me 3 hours to write