Aaahhh some sewing

Finally I managed to find a couple of moments to sit in front of Bernie!!

It seems to be baby making time in our peer group. Most of our friends have either just had one (or some), are pregnant or are planning to get pregnant soon. Our dear friends who left New York for opportunities in Hong Kong are just about to have twins! I find one exhausting enough ... two ... at once - well I hang my hat up to anyone who copes with that!

I wanted to send them a little something 'hand made with love'. So in between the baby squeaking I sewed some old scraps together and made two little mini quilts in a carefree Denyse Schmidt esq process.We have used our little super simple baby blanket so much. We use it to put down on the floor for some wriggle or tummy time, out in the car or stroller, wrap her up for a cosy cuddle ... the uses seem to be endless and the ease of washing and tumble drying essential. I hope these two little scrappy quilts are useful too!I obviously wanted to document the little quilts ... but my little model was a little shy and uncooperative. How can something so small wiggle quite so much!!

Denyse Schmidt Quilting Workshop

Yesterday Bernie and I took a road trip. We got in the car and drove to Bridgeport, Connecticut to Denyse Schmidt's workshop where we were taking a quilting course organized by Make Workshop. The course was SO much fun I can not begin to explain how liberating, fast and fantastic it was. I gave it a 10 out of 10 - I would gladly (speedily) go back - or perhaps beg Denyse to let me live in her workshop so I can engorge my greedy self on inspiration. You can see how much sewing we did in 5 hours from the little green piece of fabric I used as my thread saver.
Here is the first block of the day .... as soon as I saw it (it was so incredibly not me at all) ... I was proud as punch and immediately decided that it had to be made into a cushion (that's a pillow in the US ... or as we call them in our house "sofa slugs"!)
Today I got to finish the cushion. I bordered the block with bright turquoise and machine quilted the front using the same red cotton that just happened to be on my machine during the quilting class.
My only wonder is if whether I should have quilted across the green patches in the middle ... hum ... but I'm still rather proud of it. It is so bright and springy ... perfect for a garden chair ... sitting in bright green grass on a sunny day (has it stopped being cold yet?) I'll be putting it my Etsy store tomorrow.

The most liberating bit of the class was how we chose the fabric ... or rather the fabric chose us. (It was so hard not to cheat ... I did cheat a little ... sorry.) We had to pull the fabric blindly from big paper bags. I loved the process (despite trying to cheat) - so in my little workroom I now have 3 paper bags on my desk and every time I find or cut a scrap of fabric I am popping it into its size appropriate bag. I can't wait to see what comes out!