Space dust

Way back in the summer at the Fat Quarterly retreat, Kelly asked me to quilt her Tula Pink Spacedust quilt. 

The brief ... do whatever you think on it! 

so it sat, for a while, and I quilted others ahead of it,

and I hung it in the studio for a while so it could inspire me ...

and I knew what I was going to do in the background, 

and then I started quilting it ...

and it just sort of happened, 

and the back

Kelly has a done a beautiful post about her quilt here, so please go take a read,

if you are ever not sure about a quilt, sometimes taking a leap ... and handing over the reigns to someone else can be just the ticket to bring your focus back to why you loved it in the first place.  

Thank you Kelly for placing your trust in me.  

Secret Santa!

It's quite the tradition in the Brit Bee for us to do Secret Santa, 

and this year was no exception!  

We even had a plan, each of us to make a cushion cover, our choices and preference declared, Christmas themed or not, the stitching began.

This is what I opened on Christmas Day ..

its hard to see, but it has matchstick quilting all over it, 

its truly stunning!

Thank You Ms Santa, I'm still pondering your identity!

I love it!

edited:  Thank You Katy!

and because she already knows, this is what I sent ...

Up north!

I hope your Christmas was filled with many surprises, 

much happiness and merriment, 

and some quality family time.

xx

Baby Secrets

no, stop those thoughts right now!

Not those sort of baby secrets, 

but these ...

secret packages being sent from friend to friend ... 

quilting, and binding

and present giving to Ceri, at the Brit Bee Social...

(Susan, I borrowed your photo's - thank you x)

Susan's blog post all about our day out to Laulli's is here

and this is the lovely Harriet with her new quilt

(picture borrowed from Ceri's IG feed - thanks Lovely!)

so you see, these little secrets have been happening a lot lately!

then there was one for Sarah too!

Celebrating Bean with a baby shower, organised by Rhonda!

Oh my, the wonders of technology!

So there was this other package that arrived in the post, this was never meant to be a puking, sickie type of baby quilt, this had to be special ... so special I did!

a couple of late nights ..

its hard to see, but the back shows just how heavily quilted this was

I never managed any daytime shots of this, as it headed straight out the door as soon as the last stitch was put in the binding!

but you get a better view of it on Sarah's blog post about the baby Shower

and of all the other beautiful gifts

so there you have some secret baby news

next up some of my customer quilts I've been working on :)

hellooooooo!

Its been a while, and I have so much to show ... and tell!

With the run up to Christmas I had a few quilts to get done with deadlines ...

but I didn't tell you about my weekend away with the Kitchen Guild Girls ...

Katy did a great blog post about it here ...

and of course there were preparations to be done ...

you can read about Katy's star here too!

so that Katy managed to get the binding on this beautiful star made with velveteen's and flannel

Laura Jane pieced this Tula Pink Anchor quilt over the weeekend

Justine got the binding stitched down on her Swoon quilt, back from the land of Angela Walters no less!

I managed to piece a quick star with the left overs from my previous star quilt

Mandy quilted and bound her Made to Measure Medallion quilt

and I got all 50 of my pb&J kaleidoscope blocks made and trimmed

and we even came home with a retreat treat

it was such a fabulous weekend, spent with friends, fabulous food and much laughter!

Thank you ladies, same time next year!

There have been a few secrets happening around here too,  

more on those next time!

(need to give you some time to get over the shock of me blogging first!)