Liberty SOS Quilts

I must tell you all about this wonderful Charity Quilt initiative by Alice Caroline for Romanian Orphans. I was intrigued by this when I heard about it and as usual, had all good intentions of sending off a quilt of my own using the wonderful Liberty fabrics. Alas I am far too slow at making them, probably because I sew by hand. So maybe next year. However my daughter is currently in London for a few weeks and popped into Liberty, so I asked her to look out for the SOS quilts on display. I have decided that I need to see them for myself and will pop along soon. They're on display until October 21st 2016. 

Well to update, I did go to London to see the quilts. We left Wales at 7am and were back by 7.30pm. London is always hard going but this was a good trip on a Sunday as we pre-booked parking for £12 at Victoria Station. We walked (we were going to get a tube/bus pass, but we decided to walk) on to St James Palace in time for the changing of the guards and a quick visit for my husband to pop into the Soldier shop for his Britain's metal soldiers that he likes to collect. Then on to Liberty where the quilts were displayed on the balconies as you can see from the photo, with more folded and piled up at another display. (I do hope they get rotated!) Such generosity of the quilt makers - must be a wrench to let go of such hard work - but all to a good cause. Like I said earlier, the quilts were machine sewn - so maybe a bit quicker (just a bit!) than I can whip them up. 

A chance to see the gorgeous rows and rows of Liberty Fabric - just like being in a sweet shop, but alas the prices!! £23.50 a metre. Of course it is available on Ebay for cheaper - but intriguing detective that I am, I have tracked down the factory that prints the fabric in the UK. So guess what - I'm off to their outlet shop on Thursday. It's a long journey to Lancaster that requires a stay over in a spa hotel - poor me!! But hopefully I'll stock up on some bargains. 

Birthday for a little girl

It's our granddaughter's 2nd birthday, and a week of celebrations starting with her Baptism on Saturday. She shared the day with her cousin.

I've used Sizzix dies to make these cards.

I bought her a toy kitchen from Ikea and made a few felt goodies to go with it. 

Jam tarts that I made from felt in a vintage cake tin that I found in a charity shop

and some pasta which was super easy to make

Playing with Daddy

Holiday Hexies

I prepared lots of hexagons before setting sail on a cruise around the Mediterranean. 

These are the white fillers for my turquoise quilt which I stitched into rows of 4 flowers. I have decided to make cot sized panels of 30 coloured flowers and sew them together at the end to make stitching them together more manageable.

I even found some quiet time on the cruise to do some stitching.

Nearly finished this second panel and I'm running low on fabric so have had to order more. 

Eight weeks in and this is how much I've done so far. I've had 6 weeks off from my job (school), so in between babysitting, pottering around the garden and the usual household chores, I've spent my days sewing. As I've said before - this is my therapy, I find it relaxing, it's 'me' time.