Fabric joy and new projects

I am so lucky to be surrounded by beautiful fabrics and amazing colour every day. My workroom (spare bedroom) is also south facing so I get bright daylight flowing in, and even sunshine some days! This week I finally made time to photograph and upload some gorgeous new fat quarter bundles into the Sewmotion Shop... there's some 1930s feedsack prints, a little Riley Blake and Michael Miller and of course some Alison Glass. Each bundle has a different number of fat quarters and is individually priced, click here to see my whole collection.

For those subscribers who started my Curve Motion Medallion BOM in January, their third instalment has been sent out this week and features this cute chubby Dresden Plate block.

If you're a fan of English paper-piecing and would like to join us for 16 months of hand sewing joy, click here to find out more. I also got the chance last week to photograph the full quilt in some 'nearly northern sunshine', I find it hard to capture the grey background in all it's gorgeous glory, but I think I'm getting there!

Meanwhile, I've also been working on a couple of new projects, one of which is this Curved EPP cushion which I'm planning to be a free tutorial on the website, and in video!! I have learnt so much this week and can't wait to share it with you.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday

Being a Mindful Woman

Wow, what a month to be a woman, and a quilting one at that! Not only do we have Mother's Day this weekend in the UK, International Woman's Day today, but it's also National Quilt Month in the US - what more reason do we need to take some time out from the busy and more often than not, stressful day-to-day and treat ourselves to some 'me-time'. 

I for one really struggle with this, even though I don't have kids and have a wonderful husband who cooks EVERY night (I know, so lucky) I use these as reasons to work on the business harder than I should. While we took the conscious decision not to have children, I often feel I need to find another way to make my mark on the world, which is why Sewmotion is so important to me.

I'm lucky enough to absolutely love my work - the idea of designing, sewing and then sharing online is my dream job come true! I also believe sewing is the best therapy in the world and I know without it I would be a complete mess (especially at the moment, peri-menopause is a bitch!) Which is why, as you may have noticed, many of my recent patterns and kits have involved hand sewing in an effort to make myself sit down quietly and be mindful of just one thing for a while. 

While I do have the added pressure of the sewing being work, with deadlines and consequent patterns/kits to make up, I still find so much enjoyment and satisfaction in what I make, and I think this feeling of achievement and mindfulness is something we all need more of in our lives, we all need to slow down a little, not always, just now and again, and enjoy the slow and creative side of life.

I do hope you wonderful mums out there have a wonderful Mother's Day and all you fantastic, amazing, awe-inspiring women treat yourselves to a little you-time this weekend.

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, and Needle & Thread Thursday.

The Curve Motion Medallion BOM technique in action

The first month's instalment of my Curve Motion Medallion block-of-the-month quilt went out this week, with fabrics, temps and instructions to make the two centre rings. This is a great English paper-pieced project for those looking for some slow meditative sewing, and you can start anytime!

Over the next 16 months from when you sign up, you will receive all of the Alison Glass and grey background fabrics you need to complete the top, including binding, plus full sized templates to cut out and easy-to-follow-instructions. 

This gorgeous quilt finishes at 82" square and features a curved EPP technique using glue basting, the same technique I used in my Sun Spell mini quilt featured on yesterday's Sewing Quarter TV channel. 

If you missed it, you can now catch it on YouTube - it's on in the second hour, so you may want to move the time bar across to an hour into the show. The lovely Victoria Peat's excellent demonstration shows how easy this technique is thanks to the amazing glue pen and a 'flat back stitch'. 

If I've caught your imagination, and you would like to join us on my Curve Motion Medallion adventure, you can click here for more details on costs etc. Alternatively, if you'd like to try a smaller project using this great technique, why not try one of my Pincushion kits or the pretty Overlapping Rainbow Cushion kit?

Linking up with Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers and Needle & Thread Thursday