March at Eternal Maker

Time for my visit to Eternal Maker, I know Rachel and Anna have been busy at the Cologne textile fair over the weekend looking at future stock, so let's see what's in store at the moment.  Japanese company, Hokkoh produce beautiful prints on high quality substrates. These bird prints are on a cotton/linen blend, in blue and yellow

There is another bird print by Hokkoh on cotton canvas that is stunning- great for bags, cushions, baskets etc and in the most gorgeous shade of blue.

This print, Daisy Play in yellow from The Makers by Cori Dantini for Blend fabrics caught my eye.  A very soft pattern, it reminded me of Angie Lewin's lino cuts.

I also found this Rogue Stripe in blue from the same range and I really like it- organic and gentle with a little heat from the pink dots.

I do love that in my trips around Eternal Maker, I always catch ranges like The Makers that have passed me by on social media but I am glad to have found.  I stumbled across a print called Dairy Stripe from a   Moda collection called Milk Cow Kitchen by Mary Jane Butters.

Isn't that gorgeous!  It would be great used on an apron or even as a quilt binding.  I found this print, Utensils in blue and red that are part of the same range.  Mary Jane Butters designed the Glamping range for Moda a  couple of  which was another range that I really liked.

I do always find some old favourites at Eternal Maker.  Jane Klopp's Amercian Jane prints are always a delight.  This Little Miss Muffet print is a classic vintage style floral.

I think it would play beautifully with this larger Lecien floral, Medium Floral blue from Flower Sugar.  There is a larger version of this print available too.

For Echino fans, there is a 10th Anniversary fat quarter bundle of their newest prints.  So vibrant! Love that hot pink.

And to finish, a pattern/fabric combination which is the perfect marriage.  Christine Haynes' Marianne Dress pattern for knit fabrics (you can find the sew along posts and tutorials here).

And this blue/charcoal cotton/spandex striped knit (also available in pink and green).

You can also find jersey bias binding, newly arrived, in a large range of colours and great for necklines.

Enjoy your shopping!

March at Eternal Maker

My thoughts are turning to Spring and Summer so that is the theme for this month's trip to Eternal Maker.  This stack is for a Summer project that I will be working on soon and all these fabrics are from  Eternal Maker.

Top to bottom:

Lecien, pink solid yarn dyed,

Lecien, pale blue solid yarn dyed,

Lecien mint mini gingham,

Lecien yellow trellis, 

Cloud 9 Free as a Bird,

Joel Dewberry Woodgrain

The Lecien yarn dyed comes in a few colour ways and is a lovely quality.  An easy handle with all the irregularities in appearance of linen but the handle and stability of a quilting cotton.  Here are some further examples:

Lecien Yarn Dyed Pale pink tiny gingham

Lecien Yarn Dyed Denim stripe

Lecien are one of my favourite fabric manufacturers, great quality and lots of collections with a retro feel.  The Retro 30s child Smile prints in pink and green caught my eye and they have a definite Spring quality to them:

This is a lively pink floral  is also from the Retro Smile range:

And this green retro daisy from the same collection is gorgeous!

Flower Sugar is another popular Lecien collection which is always features florals.  This beauty is Roses on Pink and White Polka dots:

The same roses feature on a range of gingham style backgrounds.  This is the turquoise colour way but there is also red and pink.

For a more modern look towards spring/Summer, this sumptuous yellow shouts sunshine:

'Circling the Wagons' in Honey Bee from 'Glamping' by Mary Butters for Moda

Also with a splash of sunny yellow, 'Lamp post Bunnies' by Kate and Birdie for Moda

Cutesy blue sky from Sky by Caleb Grey for Robery Kaufman, (organic cotton)

And this is a lovely light modern floral meadow print, 'Grassy Meadow' from Birch fabrics

Enjoy!  

Sharing

I am sharing some great finds today.  Kicking off with the best! On a random perusal last night I found that Eternal Maker now stocks Lecien Cosmo embroidery thread/floss.  As far as aI know this is the only shop in the UK to stock the Cosmo.  I have been told by the folks at Eternal Maker that they plan to get a larger range of colours if these sell well and that some colour cards are on order.  I have assisted in this process and ordered one or two or three...

With these threads, I have found a colour card to be essential- the colour you see on the screen can be a very different tone, it will save you a lot of time money and effort.  And what is special?  Finer and silkier than any of the usual embroidery threads, outstanding!
You know I love tea, my usual black tea brew is Ringtons Organic Classic Loose Earl Grey.  I wake up with a massive mug of this, all brewed in a teapot with a cosy of course!  I try not to drink too much tea so I am always on the look out for alternatives and Florence mentioned Teapigs.

I live near a stockist so I bought a pack of Mint and Licorice- and now I am hooked.  I will warn you these are not cheap but they are not the dusty musty stinky usual herbal dust that I associate with herbal tea.  You can see the licorice root and the green mint leaves and the taste is clean and light.  I know Justine is a fan too and has just discovered the same flavour!   For the price of a few high street take out lattes you can buy a selection to test the tastes on the website.  Good for traveling with too.

And a random extra-scented candle suggestion.  I am very sensitive to smells- to be honest I am very sensitive to a lot of things.  I find most scented candles make me urge- I stand in shops smelling them and then saying ughh out loud- not populalr with the staff but I can't help myself.  And then in Waitrose   I found they had a scented candle section (that could only be in Waitrose!) and found these: Wax Lyrical linen and cashmere tealights.

When they are hot the wax turns completely clear which I rather like and the smell is lovely!  They are slow burning so a box of 12 lasts ages.  The holder is by Tord Boontje, a stunning designer just in case you wanted to know.
Random sharing- enjoy x

Zakka Style Sew a long Week 5

I have been seeing lots of Zakka style projects on all over blogland and Flickr, it seems a lot of you are sewing a long.  Many of the patterns are so quick and easy and offer a great opportunity to personalise  add your own spin so you can make them for special recipients.  If you are really organised, you can get all your Christmas makes done extra early!  I opted for the scrappy Patchwork Pencil Case designed by Shannon Dreval of Petits Details.  Mine is a gift for a horsey girl- I just need to add her initial to the fastener at the front to finish it off.  Shannon has some lovely embroidery and French inspired stitching on her website, well worth a look.

The pattern suggests using tightly woven lightweight linen and I used Essex linen/cotton blend in 'Sand' by Robert Kaufman.  I always have a little stash of this as it is a great basic to work with and I get mine from Mandy at Simply Solids.  It doesn't fray as easily as 100% linen and is perfect for stamping and adding embroidery thread/floss.  I used the pattern measurements but added extra scraps to the linen and lining sections to squeeze more fabrics in.

The fabrics are mainly Heather Ross prints ( thankyou Amber and Krista for sharing scraps) with a few extra text and fruit stash additions to keep those horses fed.  I regularly use stamping in my makes so I thought I would share a little tip.   Take the pad to the stamp and tap the ink onto the stamp.  this is a lot more effective than pressing the stamp onto the pad.  Small ink pads are easier to work with than large ones.  I use Versacraft.  It sets easily with an iron and has staying power.

I love this alphabet rolling stamp, it has small letters and is quick to use.  I got the idea when Penny used one at Sew-Ichigo.  You can find them on Etsy under supplies with the search 'alphabet rolling stamp'.

By taking the pad to the stamp there is less mess and excess ink, I use a bit of wet kitchen paper roll to catch any unwanted bits.

And stamping does work rather well with a little stitching.  Lecien were kind enough to send all the blog hop project makers a selection of floss and a colour card of their Cosmo threads, and Katy was even kinder and shared some of her Cosmo with me to give me even more colours!

 Cosmo threads seem to be easily available in USA but for those of us outside, I found a good selection at Pink Castle Fabrics on Etsy and a great choice at The Workroom.

They are the silkiest and prettiest threads.  I have done a fair amount of cross stitch in my time and tended to use DMC but these outclass those, more sheen I think, all I know is I totally fell in love with them!  I used a chenille needle which has a blunt narrow end for my stitching.

 This is the back, I enjoyed the fussy cutting here!

There is a good technique for joining the lining to the outer but take your time and read the instructions carefully at this point otherwise everything will be the wrong way round!  It is a quick make and, like many of the projects, a versatile pattern.

And of course, my piecing was done as always with Aurifil 50wt.  I cannot do anything other than wholly and completely recommend this thread, I use it for all my piecing and a lot of my quilting and  nothing beats it.  Want some?  Five variety packs await your comments.  I will give 3 to UK residents, 2  for outside the UK.  To enter leave a comment and tell me about a food from your country.  I'll start you off, when we visit my husband's parents in Preston, Lancashire, we always pick up a couple of Butter Pies. These are a local delicacy restricted to the Preston area only.  Meat free and a reminder of the strong Catholic links to Lancashire I can't tell you how delicious they are.  They taste strongly savoury and definitely not of butter.  I am not a fan of pastry or butter but these surpass both those things!  

So share some of your culinary heritage and don't forget to incude the country that you are in.  Giveaway closes midnight 6th May GMT, I need to be able to contact the winners so add your email address if it is not in your profile.

You can add pics of your makes to  the Zakka Style Sew a long Flickr group and find the blog hop info here! And for more giving away, visit Lindsey's blog here where you will find all the sew-along info along with new Kaufman linen essex printed fabrics to win!

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Plans...

I am just nearing the end of a very busy deadline period- nearly there but not quite.  As an incentive to get me finished, I have my next quilt project planned.

The pattern is a multi blooming dresden by Annela, on sale here.  The background fabric is from Connecting Threads.  This print is from their Hope Chest range and is called 'Pinafore'  They fdon't ship internationally so this came via Penny, I sent her Liberty and she sent me this (and other goodies!).   The pink/blue/red/green prints are mainly Lecien, OOP but available again on etsy at Kerri's Lovely Little Handmades in different colourways.  And I am making some extra additions- there are three Koeski prints on the left and I have a few other bits and pieces that I think might work.  I am really looking forward to this one.  

Have a great weekend x