Friday 1 October 2010

Quilting Shows

I've been so busy recently and feel I should do a few updates on what I've been up to.

Firstly I've got into quilting in a big way. As part of my new found addiction I combined a family break with the Festival of Quilts 2010. I got a few hours to browse the stalls as well as be amazed by all the stunning quilts on show. One of my favourites was the Traditional Quilts winner by Pauline Ineson, featuring 3d flowers. You can see some pictures on her website here. The Best in Show was a miniature quilt by Kumiko Frydl (can be seen here) and it was stunning. The detail was amazing and it really captured the essence of a miniature quilt.

In September I visited the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate. I was very impressed; plenty of stalls and plenty of quilts to see. I picked up quite a few bargains. I also attended a couple of workshops. One of these involved stamping fabric and colouring it to produce a decorative panel.






I'm planning on machine quilting the sky with variegated blue thread and creating clouds with white thread after seeing this effect in on of the quilts at Harrogate.

I couldn't resist picking up a pattern for this embroidered panel. I was able to sit and do the embroidery while the children played together, which was an added bonus as most of my sewing is done in an evening once they are in bed. I will definitely be doing more of this!


One of the hardest things was finding the tiny buttons for the flowers. I got lucky at the market in Leeds.


And finally, here's my quilt. It still needs the binding in this picture. I've now managed to sew the binding to the front and it just needs hand-stitched to the back.


This is the Pandora's Box pattern from Pam & Nicky Lintott's Jelly Roll Quilts book. Made from a Fabric Freedom jelly roll.

Monday 23 August 2010

Etsy Shop






We have decided to have an Etsy store dedicated to our hand-dyed yarns, fibres and fabrics. We felt these products were getting lost in all the other items on our main store and feedback we've had suggested that most people tend to look at sites like Etsy for these products.






As you can see we have quite a few items listed already. There will be more coming soon but we took a break during August for a short family holiday.






Coming later today on this blog - some sewing book reviews.

Friday 4 June 2010

Worldwide Knit in Public Day

Do you knit?

If the answer is yes, then I'm impressed because I can't! But whether or not you can knit, you can still take part in Worldwide Knit in Public Day. There's many events around the country but if you're in Leeds, or willing to travel here, then there's The Big Knit on Saturday 12th June 2010.

Grab your chance to learn to knit or crochet for free. There's stalls and entertainment. Latest news is live sheep shearing on the day! How fantastic is that?!?

We'll have a stall there too, with felting demonstrations. You'll be able to buy our hand dyed yarn and fibre, as well as felting kits. So come along and say hello.

Back To The Grind

Well, I'm now back from maternity leave. It's been odd letting someone else have responsibility for the business I created and have run by myself for so long but my husband has done a fantastic job.

Our baby is now almost 10 months old. She's crawling around and wanting to explore everything, especially her big sister's toys. As for her sister, she's starting nursery in September.

As for the shop, well we're introducing some new lines. First up and launched during Buy British Month on the Cloth Nappy Addicts forum are crocheted woolies. Produced under license from Wigglebunz Creations, we can now provide soakers, shorties, longies and skirties. Due to family commitments we aren't currently offering custom slots and will just list things as they're made but feel free to contact us as we may be able to accomodate you depending on workload.



There are a couple of other product launches coming soon, so sign up for our newsletter for the news! We might also be looking for testers and this will be announced via our newsletter and is a great way to pick up a bargain product.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

A Royal Mail Ramble

So, it's been one of those days. I've been trying to get out all day but trying to find time to get to the Post Office with a teething 6 month old and a 2 year old is difficult.

For starters, I had a meeting this morning. It was scheduled for 10am. Great, I figured that gave me enough time to fit in the PO trip before Orla wanted fed again. Unfortunately someone had broken down in the middle lane of the M62 and delayed my visitor until 10.30. So, I had the meeting then Orla wanted fed & changed. Of course by this time is done the older one wants fed and she's a sloooooooooooow eater. I turn the pan of homemade vegetable soup on to heat up.

This is where childrens' amazing ability to pick the worst time comes in. I hear the grunting baby noises for "I'm filling my nappy". I don't know how they do it but it's always when you're doing something else...or in the nappy with the broken elastic. Now being the caring, loving mummy I am, I change the nappy right away...promptly forgetting about the soup. It's burnt by the time I race into the kitchen to turn it off.

So I open the fridge, then the cupboards, look around the kitchen a bit and finally produce "picnic" lunch for Erin. So she's eating away and I decide to try and get a cup of tea. By the time the tea is cool enough to drink Orla is awake and wanting to play. Yes, my second daughter has a wonderful talent; the ability to smell tea & coffee and know just when it reaches drinking temperature ;-)

Orla is now 6 months old so we're starting to do baby led weaning. So I grab some rice cakes for her, which end up on the floor eventually. Still they entertained her long enough for me to drink half my cup of 'slightly on the cold side' tea.

By the time Erin has had a drink and Orla has had her nappy changed again, it's time for her next feed. Once that's done I consider going to the Post Office but it's near a school and its school pick up time. Not only is traffic a nightmare but the queue in the Post Office will be horrendous and I have far too many parcels. So I wait half an hour, at which point my mum rings. Orla is getting sleepy so I settle her to sleep for a nap. Oh and it starts to hail.

So I'm sat here with a baby napping, 50 minutes until the Post Office closes thinking how inconvenient it is. We're surrounded by supermarkets open 24 hours and offering home delivery but I can't post my parcels outside 9-5.30. I can even pay for my postage online but I still have to go to a Post Office and queue, unless I pay 25p per parcel for Fast Drop....which my local PO doesn't offer. Now I get that it's expensive opening longer hours, I get that it's not feasible to implement everywhere but I live near a big city. Could they not open one branch late? Or have evening drop off points at a couple of post offices or sorting offices? Surely there is some way of providing a service to all those people working 9-5.30 jobs who can't nip to the PO in their lunch hour - my husband tried that and waited 45 minutes :-o

Since closing smaller branches it's harder to get to the ones that remain open. My nearest PO is in town, car parks are free so it'snot too bad but the staff look fed up, don't listen and the queue is often out of the door so I go a little further to the one at the petrol station. But I used to be able to nip across the road to post my parcels, to my local corner shop, where the owners would chat to my daughter and the postman would leave my post if it wouldn't fit through the letterbox and I was out.

Come on Royal Mail. I miss my local PO, I miss the friendly service but most of all I miss the convenience.