Colourful Day..

Today was my last day in work before the Easter break - yay!

So I am not sure why, but last night I needed to make a new pass lanyard!  Totally coveting the one Svetlana made the other day, I grabbed the remainder of my floral bundle and knocked this up during EastEnders...

It made me happy anyway!

But perhaps not as happy as when I got home from work and retrieved an unexpected parcel from the neighbour...

A couple of weeks ago I was scuppered by a rogue spool of Aurifil; a few breaks and random threads caught up mid-reel; but Mr V offered to replace it, and he also popped in some awesome extras after he kicked butt on the production line (his words not mine!).

And so there may be a huge pile a school uniforms and PE kits that need washing, plus the house needs a good clean and tidy, but it's Friday night and quite frankly I am happily ignoring it all and watching Masterchef xxx

Sorted...

I only have one scrap box, and it contains way too many small and probably rather unusable little offcuts, but it has been getting to the point where it was hazardous and pointless to dive into.

So being the end of the holidays, I had the bright idea of enlisting volunteers for the job...

OK, so they thought sorting into colour order was a brilliant idea, then buggered off pretty quickly after tipping everything all over the floor, but hey, it was a start.  I finished up with bags of separate colours and feeling rather tidy and pleased with myself, for about five minutes.

I can't actually find anything in there now!

I have also managed another finish on my FAL list, but that will have to wait until tomorrow for a photocall.

The house is clean, the chocolate has pretty much gone, and summer uniforms are ready in the wardrobe, so here's to a relaxing weekend before going back to the grind x

"All the leaves are brown, and they sky is grey..."

The Mama's & Papa's song has been going round in my head ever since I decided on the fabric for a quick bit of stitchery yesterday.

I pinned a really simple pattern for a reversible bag a couple of days ago, and decided to pull out some of my bargain fabrics from Pink Castle and make one!

So as the hailstones pounded the conservatory roof, I cut and stitched my Jenean Morrison California Dreamin' fabrics, and in under 2 hours I had this psychedelic beauty!

I love it - one side might be a bit loud, but I don't care!

'Oh she could have ironed it before taking the photos!'

It really is an easy to follow pattern, you can download it from Very Purple Person; it requires very little fabric, no interfacing, zips or fancy business, and would definitely make a quick Christmas present, (oh did I really say that!?).

And as if that wasn't enough colour for one day, my zips arrived from Jennifer at Zipit.  Thank you everyone who suggested this was the place for zippers.  You were right!  I ordered 25 x 7" and 10 x 4" for the delivered price of about 5 measly zips from my local fabric shop.  Sorry local fabric shop, but this is too good a deal to pass up.

So I am all set to make an incomprehensible number of zippy purses in the run up to Christmas.

See, now that's two posts in two days mentioning the 'C' word - there really is no escape is there!

I seem to be blogging a day in arrears too - but today we went indoor ice skating and I am pleased to say that all three kiddies, their friend and 'us mums' all had a great time and I didn't fall over - so total success!

If you haven't yet voted in the Pings & Needles Japanese Scrap Bag Challenge - whataya waiting for?!  Thank you for all your words of encouragement so far - don't forget you can have up to 3 votes, so use them wisely.

Success!

Well you doubters and mickey-takers, I win!

I love it when a plan goes even better than I could have possibly imagined!

All this 'help' and a parcel of lovely charms to boot - I feel spoilt!

This evening I am starting to quilt the Across the Sea monster, so I can't hang about.  I'll be back to answer comments and blog hop once the novelty has worn off x

Reverse psychology...

It may have seemed like I was resisting joining in with the Lily's Quilts' Dead Simple Quiltalong.  In fact you would be forgiven for thinking that I had a few other things to do with my time!

But I have been plotting; oh yes, I had a plan since day one.

I had a little stash of fabric that I was saving for 'a project', and I hoped that this could be the one.  When Lynne finally published the fabric requirements this week, I couldn't have been happier!

Kerching, a fabric-quiltalong match made in heaven!

Needing 12 FQs for the smaller version of the quilt with the larger, 9" blocks, I got kind of excited, in a bit of a smug kind of way; I haven't even had to have to tweak the requirements!

My 30 Fat-eighths of Oakshott have been narrowed down to 24 and I couldn't be happier!

In the spirit of the QAL, I have worked this one backwards and searched out pictures on Design Seeds and Color Collective.  OK, so Oakshott get total credit for putting this combination together, but I did have to reject 3 colours, and it was fun playing along.

Source: design-seeds.com via Hadley on Pinterest

Source: color-collective.blogspot.com via Hadley on Pinterest

And as if this wasn't all too fortuitous enough already, I am hoping said quilt top is going to be turned into a simple tablecloth/cover as a Christmas present for my parents.  Everyone's a winner!

The Colour Purple and Others...

Now it will be no surprise to anyone who has been here more than a couple of times that I am a bit of a turquoise freak.  I will pretty much add turquoise or aqua to anything I can; the current Hexie bag for instance, the choices for that were a no-brainer!

But now I think I have another colour to rank along with 'orange' on my 'New favourite colour that if you'd asked me 6 months ago I would have hated' list!

Purple is not one of the colours that I normally consider using when making something for myself.  Twin 1 tends to get purple as an alternative to pink-mad Twin 2, but it has not been 'up there' with the cool kids for me!  I still have the pile of purple Sugar Pop charms left over from these cushions!

However I think this has been rightly challenged by the Ruby Star Spring line - I did have a dilemma in choosing between the Springtime or Nightlite colourways, the green print swayed me... eventually, but there is a lot of purple in the prints I chose!

I decided that my Central Park layer cake would be a good starting place for my Across The Sea fabric selection, and this, as you will no doubt be aware, has lovely purple prints, (and also orange, green and turquoise!!). 

Deciding that I didn't want a mix of the whole palette, I then had a moment of clarity/confusion when I started looking at the two Just Wing It layer cakes I'd safely put aside for November's Brit Bee blocks.  Hmmm...

The Momo has a lot of pink and red in; pink is great, but not what I have in mind for the quilt I want, and red just isn't a colour I like a lot of.  There are good reds, and there are bad reds in my book, and probably only in my crazy mind can a distinction be made between them.  Think 'yes' to Bliss and Sherbet Pips, but 'no no no' to so much more!  There are major flaws in my dislike, red and navy blue, yuk, however, sonny-boy's Cath Kidston cowboy quilt is a really great for example of 'yes yes yes'... but I digress!

I have pulled all the reds and pinks from the Just Wing It, and will no doubt find the perfect project for them in time.

I managed, by combining the 3 layer cakes to meet the fabric requirements for the Across The Sea QAL.  I finally went for this lovely combo of purple and green to go with a Natural Klona background fabric...

... and 72 squares in a pretty pleasing spectrum for the Bee blocks...

I am looking forward to having new colours entering the FB Mansion!

PS.  Fellow Bees, I have sneakily stated elsewhere in blogland what I am intending to put you through in November, look around, you may find it, and having ordered the backing and binding this week, I am getting excited already!  M'wah ha ha ha!!