New Pre-Cut Paper Packs and a New Road Trip Cushion Kit

As my collection of curved EPP kits grows, as does my range of paper shapes, all designed by myself and cut on my trusty Brother Scan N Cut. Not only does it allow me to cut any shape I wish, but I can also add drawn guidelines to the shapes before they are cut - genius!

The kits are proving quite popular, especially with my Newsletter subscribers - but once you have a kit and are completely addicted, you may want to make more versions, so I thought I should start supplying the papers on their own. 

Designed to work in conjunction with a pattern or previously purchased kit, these papers don't include the instructions for construction. However, you can always watch my free Curved EPP Cushion YouTube tutorial for a comprenhsive guide to curved EPP - the templates for which are included in the new collection. 

As well as two size of Hexies and a 60deg Diamond, there is the Crescent shape used in my Overlapping Circles cushion, a small Dresden Plate, and the Flower temps mentioned above. This week I have also added the papers used to make my Christmas Wreath table mats.

Talking of curved EPP, I couldn't resist making a new Overlapping Circles Cushion kit from Alison Glass's new Road Trip fabrics - these abstract prints in luscious jewel colours look amazing backed onto Robert Kaufman's Essex Yarn Dyed Metallic linen - it's so glittery!! This kit comes with all the fabrics for the front, pre-cut papers and full instructions.

Until next week, happy sewing everyone!

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

TeesCreatives Open Day

I'm so proud to have been involved in the setting up of Middlesbrough's newest creative space, TeesCreatives. The brainchild of Jen - a friend as addicted to dressmaking as I am to quilting, her plan was to offer a space where fellow sewists can come and learn, develop their skills and be sewcial with like-minded makers. Jen is actually a hairdresser by trade and owns a beautiful Victorian terrace building down Middlesbrough's main road. While her salon is on the bottom floor, she once rented the rest of the building to students. However, as her sewing addiction took hold, the dream of a sewing space started to grow, and when she mentioned it to me and a fellow dressmaker and retailer, Laura who owns Cotton Reel Studio, we jumped at the chance to get involved.

The first course of action was to de-student the rooms which involved a lot of work on Jen and her lovely husband's part, then there was painting, and more painting.. ahhh! Finally with a couple days to go before the Open Day, everything was coming together. Laura and I did some last minute cleaning while Jen took the steamer to that beautiful tiled floor, as you can see, even Henry the hoover had had enough!

With Cotton Reel Studio's and Sewmotion's pop-up shops all set up and the machines all raring to go, we had a well-deserved day off before the big day. Jen actually went to a SewUpNorth get together where she met some Instagrams sewing mates, and even bought a few of them back! Did I mention, the building also has a couple of AirBnB rooms on the top floor for visitors to book Sewing Weekenders and for visiting tutors to stay over? So these lovely girls were our guinea pigs, and by the sounds of it they had a great time!

The Open Day was so much fun, we had our 'guinea pigs' working on some projects at the machines, fizz and cake were handed out to the many visitors and there was a lot of excitement about our class and workshop plans - a great day was had by all. Now the real work begins, we're hoping to start running classes and workshops in late November, with the website being launched soon. You can follow us on Facebook and on Instagram to be kept up to date, and if you're from the Teesside area, we would love to hear which  classes you would like to see run, is there a creative skill you have always wanted to learn? We are also inviting tutors to get in touch and work with us in this great creative space.

So thank you to both these gorgeous ladies, and here's to an exciting and creative future!

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

Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's that time of year again when the lovely Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side hosts this wonderful quilt party where we can share and be inspired by fellow quilters around the world. Click here to find out more and to see all the truly stunning quilts.

My entry has to be my Rainbow Rings I entered into the Festival of Quilts earlier this year.

Having totally fallen for curved English paper-piecing in a big way, I thought I should really create a show quilt using this technique and decided to raid my stash and make a scrappy rainbow design. Having planned out the shapes on the computer and worked out how many of each colour I needed, I dragged out my many, many boxes of scraps and got pulling - this is how the quilt started...

I then worked on the rings making sure the colours were in sink as they went round.

Then I had a problem - what to back it onto? Originally I had planned to go with the cream as I had used grey in a previous project. But as much as I looked at each version, the dark grey kept calling to me, the colours seemed to really zing against such a dark background - so dark grey it was.

I wanted to make this a totally hand sewing project so decided to big-stitch hand quilt the entire thing... during the hottest summer the UK has known for years! Haha! I echo quilted within each of the EPP shapes and then around the rings, and then added some replica motifs in the negative spaces which I left unquilted.

I was very chuffed to see the quilt on display at Festival and had some really wonderful comments from the judges and visitors, thank you!

I can't wait to see all the other wonderful quilts on display, though it may take me a while, please be patient with me!

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