working through the wip list

I am not a huge fan of paper piecing, I find it a bit challenging, and beyond my poor little brain. But the results (of other people) are always amazing.
I had to make 2 blocks of pink trees for a quilting bee I'm in on flickr, and found a great paper pieced pattern for a fan tree whilst trawling the internet. It looked simple enough for my small brain to cope with, and it actually worked out pretty well. I'd love to see a tree like this in real life. Along with the trees from Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and squirrels that crack nuts on demand.

I also paper pieced a simple triangle tree, and then improvised another triangle tree to make the block up to 15.5 inches. It turned out rather beautifully, if I do say so myself.



Next on my list of things to get finished is the quilt from the old red barn co. quilt along. I have half basted the sandwich, and then ran out of pins. I know I have another pack somewhere, but I can't find it for the life of me. Seems the pin monster has snuck in and gobbled them up. Or I've put them in one of those really safe places. Quite often I buy things for presents for the kids or the husband and hide them, only to lose them again until after their birthday/christmas. Told you my brain was only small.
This quilt is going to be for Miss G, for at her mama's house. I was planning on making the mystery quilt out of sew hip magazine, but I lost my mojo with that one after 2 blocks, so until I find it again this liberty print beauty will suffice. I bought an egyptian cotton for the backing, which was incredibly cheap (£5 for 3 metres) but decided it wasn't quite the right colour when it arrived, even though you won't see it really. It's like a vintage sheet, so soft. But in the end I went and bought a big piece of 'real' liberty tana lawn from shaukat, and spent too much money, but it does match perfectly and I know it won't bug me to death for the rest of my life like it would have done if I'd used the egyptian cotton. I love shaukat, they have an amazing selection of fabrics online and the real life shop is even more amazing. It's like a labyrinth of corridors and tunnels, with more great stuff around every corner. Well worth a visit if you are ever in London Town. The prices are minus VAT, that gets added on at checkout, so bear that in mind if you get over excited and start shopping.



I also managed to get a quilt finished for my best friend's daughter (Miss G's best friend). She had seen an eiderdown type of quilt in one of my books. I had a layer charm of moda's snippets fabrics, and bought a (cheapy cheap) single duvet from ikea, which I trimmed down a bit because I didn't have quite enough to make a single bed sized quilt top. I even hand tied this one too, so that was another thing to try crossed of my list.

We took it round to Miss E this week, and she was over the moon. So was her mum, which made me over the moon too. (It's a bit crumpled in the picture - NooNoo the cat decided it was his bed, he's not best pleased it's disappeared).




Don't forget the giveaway is still on until tomorrow evening (my time - that's UK time), head over and leave a comment for a chance to win! I can't believe how many comments I've had so far - over 100. Wow. I think I'll have to put together a few runners up prizes too, won't I?