Playtime!

Sometimes you need to play!

In between boring housework stuff today I digressed with the tripod to take 

a few staged quilt shots.

This was much more fun!

Both quilts have now left the building to go to a charity drive 

being organised by one of my customers. 

More photo fun was had on Friday too.

 No 3 kiddo had an inset day at school so we went shopping in Farnham 

and found this amazing wooden sculpture of A Lamb and Lion.

How's about that mane for a bit of quilty inspiration?

A Longarm Twitter Trial!

A couple of weeks ago Lynne over at Lilys Quilts and I started chatting about Longarm Quilting. 

As some of you may know I've been longarming for almost 12 years now and naively I thought everyone knew about it and it was a been there, done that  sort of subject.  But it appears I am quite wrong. 

A lot of new quilters don't know about long arm quilting and a lot of older quitters are inquisitive about using a longarmer. So we decided to do a series of posts about the subject to try and enlighten you all. 

 Lynne has asked me to quilt her swoon along quilt for her. She has never used a longarm service either so I suggested we get together to talk about some quilting options.  Now here is the interesting part. Being either a very brave individual or a rather stupidly naive one (I'll let you decide) I suggested we did this chat on twitter and let anyone who was interested join the conversation. 

We are going to do this tomorrow. Tuesday morning (24 Jan) from 10am till 11am UK time. 

 If you would like to follow the discussion and chime in with any questions then please do. 

 I tweet @quiltmehappy and Lynne tweets as as@lilysquilts. 

You can also follow the conversation on tweetchat.com too using the hashtag #LQTPQ (standing for Lily's Quilts / Tee Pee Quilting).  

.

Now if you fancy joining the chat but don't tweet or can't tweet because
 of the time difference or hate twitter or whatever ... 
the transcript of our 

tweeted conversation (including any extra tweeps joining in) 
will be posted on Lynnes blog so you can all get a feel
 for how a piecer / LA quilter conversation 

might go (... well one that I'm involved in anyway!)

See you Tuesday!  

p.s if you want to find out a little more about Longarm Quilting 
beforehand you can pop over to my website and click on 

Longarm Services at www.teepeequilts.co.uk 

for a little background info.

Good news all round!

Goodness its been an amazing couple of days!

Despite my initial reservations Farnham Maltings was a huge success ... for everyone I think!  Vendors and visitors alike!  I arrived just before 8am to the most delicious smell of bacon and coffee but resisted until after the stall was set up. Trusty cousin Emma arrived shortly after me and after a momentary panic when it all seemed beyond me she set me straight and everything slotted into place.  There was a couple of minor issues to deal with like - no pen and dull scissors but that got sorted pretty quickly. I was really pleased with the way everything looked but I forgot to take a photo!  (silly me).  We were hungry though so we made a bee-line for the cafe and had the most humungus breakfast bap. I reckon it must have been 6" in diameter.  Actually it was so big I couldn't finish all of mine but it was probably the best thing we did because as soon as the doors opened at just before 10 we didn't stop all day!  I worked out afterwards that we'd had a customer sale every 4mins!   How amazing is that!   Old friends came to say hello and I think we made a couple of new ones too.  A really enjoyable day. The sale closed at 4 and with some speedy packing and bagging we had loaded the car and I was home by 6. Mr Quiltmehappy had made fish pie and the world was good. I slept very well Sunday night! 

Monday saw the first day of the VeryBerryHandmade Resolved to Sew giveaway. I have sponsored a few prizes along with 5 other UK shops so do pop over to VeryBerry and join in the giveaway. There are 11 prizes to be won. A lovely 10 FQ bundle of Erin McMorris, A £40 voucher to spend in one shop, some Kate Spain Terrain fabric as well as the bits I sponsored. 

The Giveaway is open to all worldwide and all you have to do is write a blog post on the theme of Resolved to Sew in 2012, mention the giveaway and leave a comment to tell VeryBerryHandmade you have blogged.  

I have resolved to sew clothing this year. I struggle to find clothes to fit my short dumpy body so I'm going back to my sewing roots. I have some lovely Anna Maria Horner voile in the shop I want to use to make a floaty top and some Lecien Grey Faded Bouquet that would be perfect for a tunic style dress.  Just got to make or find patterns. 

And more great news and a huge relief ... I learnt today the breast biopsy I had last week was benign. It was picked up during a routine mammogram just before christmas so it was a bit of a worrying time but life is good today.  And finally a big thank you to everyone who brought the charitable scrap packs at Farnham Maltings.  You raised £66!  This will be donated to the Portsmouth NHS Queen Alexandra Breast Services Fund for Patient Support. THANK YOU! 

I do have 5 packs left if anyone wants a little bit of my quilting history in a crystal bag! £3 a pop - absolute bargain! 

... and we're off!

This week saw a bit of a gear change in the QuiltmeHappy household. 

DD was safely returned to her Uni halls for the new semester and I had a new class of eager-beaver students for my Apple Barrel Scraps BOM yesterday.  

I love it when the new year starts "properly". 

Last year we had a few false starts with all the snow. Do you remember this?

The UK came to a dead stop for what seemed an age. 

My car never shifted out of the drive for over a month and the kids had at least 10 snow days. The year took a painfully long time to start moving and seemed  'grindingly slow' thereafter. So I was pleased when this weekend the year leapt into action.  

 After somewhat of a difficult week for me (I tell you more next week about that) I was feeling a bit frivolous on friday and decided to host an impromptu 2 hour flash sale at Quilt meHappy.  The good people over at The Sewing Directory and Lily's Quilts retweeted for me on twitter and it was a huge success. 

 Between 7 and 9pm we had a staggering number of visitors to the website and lots of goodies were purchased.  I was thrilled and even Mr Quiltmehappy conceded it was a success !

Anyway all the lovely fabric orders and been packaged and sent , and should be winging their squigdy way as I type. 

Its good to be off the starting blocks!

Today I am trading at Farnham Maltings. Its been a very long time since I have traded at a show and I was slightly unnerved by all the very big white vans in the car park and the vast stream of trolleys wheeling bolt after bolt of fabric into the place. So I'm feeling a little intimidated with my tiny stock of fabric. Lets hope its not a false start!