Village Habby news

Annie has a busy year ahead what with a a new bricks and mortar shop and a baby on the way but she has found the time to keep her online store  packed as usual with new temptation and sale offers.  She mentioned that Anna Maria Horner Field Study Voiles were in stock- happy news.  Little Folks Voiles have to be one of my all time fav fabric lines, perfect for clothing and ideal for a bit of quilt luxury.  I fancy the Field Study for (dare I say it) 'spring' clothing and accessories, scarves and the like.

And there is plenty in the sale with an extra 20% off sale with the code SALE20- offer up to 18th Jan.  YOu can find Liberty Bloomsbury, as used in my Sewing Portfolio pattern.   This is the Lytton print in colour way C

Cherry Christmas-Deck the halls in Cardinal.   you know you'll want it next Autumn when it will be long gone and you are just feeling like making a Christmas quilt!

With my new found appreciation of purple I have been cutting into a bit of this Heather Ross print, Country mice, available in pink, natural and green too

Check out more sale fabrics here

Liberty Sewing Portfolio

I have been waiting a little while to reveal my latest free pattern/ project .  This was a project designed for Liberty Lifestyle.  I was asked to come up with something for an intermediate sewer so I designed a mini sewing portfolio travelling case.

 All the fabrics are from the Bloomsbury collection and you can find detailed instructions, labelled photographs and downloadable diagrams at the Liberty Craft Blog.

It is the perfect size for travelling to sewing classes, or carrying small projects to sew on the go and there are pockets everywhere.  I promise the zip is not as scary as it looks and the binding covers up all the zipper stitching as a bonus.  The scissor zip pull was from Ayumi!  I wish I could find more things like that here, cute and practical.

You will find is an interview with me there too.   From past attempts, I have not been able to get comments to work on the Liberty blog but you can find other projects like Katy's Bloomsbury Stripes quilt and Jessie's star decoration , so go visit, share on Facebook, tweet and if you make one do send me a pic!

Picture Books

We are all big fans of picture books in our house.  When my daughter was young Damian and I would pour over books bought solely for their illustrations to read to Lula, many of which we kept as I couldn't bear to pat with them and all the memories they hold.  Each Christmas we seem to add a picture book or two,  (I think this was last year's purchase) and this year we discovered a couple of beauties.

The Fir Tree, Sanna Annuka

It is a typical Hans Christian Anderson sad and sorry moral tale with breath taking pictures. Sanna Annuka is a English/Finnish print designer who works for Marimekko as well as producing her own products.

 The shapes, colours and tessellation's are a delight, every page is a quilter's inspiration.

 The sun is possibly my favourite.

Damian found this book.  He is a big fab of creative paper cutting as well as fairy tales.  

The Fairy Tale Princess

 It is the newsprint that really grabs me and excites me in these pictures.  The princess and the pea is a treat.

 The Dancing Princesses...

 Sleeping Beauty...

 Both are a pleasure to read, you are never too old for a picture book.

Outside the comfort zone

Lula is studying Japanese and has is showing an increasing interest in Japanese food.  She is a typical tweenager when it comes to vegetables and as we don't eat meat she has to embrace them or eat cheese but the influence of East Asian cookery is certainly helping as did some bento style Christmas gifts from here and here. We all ate Omrigiri- moulded rice cakes.

She made herself a bento lunch.

 She is cooking us a Wagamama recipe tonight- think buckwheat noodles, soup, vegetables and salmon.   This is my favourite kind of food, clean, fresh and an antidote to roasted roast veggies.  And we have mochi to finish with a nod to Japanese new year traditions.

Embracing new things is important in life.  Nobody wants to stagnate, we have to leave the safety of our comfort zone. From a textile point of view I have little to no purple.  I have always found it a difficult colour although some combinations- orange/purple, yellow/purple delight me so I have been buying the odd purple FQ where I see one I like.  The left kitchen print and the Heather Ross mice are from Frances at Miss Matabi, she has a sale on at the moment too.  The Bo Peep print is a 30s repro from Country Threads, Bath.

New Year, a good time to try new things.  I have some bad stuff going on but also some incredible, exciting and happy stuff to counteract and exceed the bad.   There is always something good somewhere, always important to remember that.   Happy new year x

Wishing you happiness...

It is not all doom and gloom here.  Thankyou for all your kind thoughts and for being there when life gets tough, it does help.  We are all at home now, eating and sitting around- not me- I am sewing obviously- and generally messing about.  Lottie underwent a brief metamorphosis... to a rein-dog

Hard Times

I had some very difficult news last week, a bereavement that I can only describe as extremely challenging.  To be honest, I have been holding off posting because it has been so hard.  I should add, we are all still here, Damian, Lula, our pets, me, safe and sound and all together but life for me has been been eventful and deeply upsetting.

I will still be around online, reading and looking, posting erratically.  I will not be commenting, responding to post or emailing very much just at the moment.  I am having to spend a huge amount of time having conversations  that I would rather not have and time disappears in great big chunks so I have to save what remains for self protection.

We are wrapped up warm in our little house.  Work is nearly finished for us all and I will be having a quiet Christmas with D & L, my mum, brother, sister and nephew.

L has been busy stitching and baking with D. I am so proud of her Frosted Pumpkin Dessert of the month, all finished.

Wishing you happy times x

Here's to friendship

It is always an utter treat to meet online sewing buddies in person and on Saturday I did just that.  I met Amanda  (right in picture) last year at Fat Quarterly Retreat and hit it off, plus she is based in Bath which is only 1 1/2 hours from me.  Danielle (left) is on a round the world trip with her husband and three children and Bath is on of the places she has been able to fit in on the UK leg of their journey.  We know each other from blogs, flickr, instagram and twitter and online friendships seem to accelerate more quickly so that meeting up in person is never difficult, there is always common ground and a warmth and understanding.

We spent a long time in Country Threads which is a wonderful quilting shop with a great selection, and  incredibly helpful staff.  Amanda brought a bee quilt to show, considering she is 6 months pregnant and Bath was busy with Christmas shoppers this was a brave decision but so worth it.  She met Danielle through this bee and many others and it was a beautiful piece of work from the bee members, topped off by Amanda's hand quilting.

And we did a little gifting, Danielle gave us tea towels screen printed by Cat and Vee, gorgeous!

 A truly lovely day.  Much love all round xxx