Grateful

For the last month I have been pretty much homebound as my little monster's been quite seriously ill. Don't worry, he will be fine! I mean serious as in it is taking a really long time for him to recover and fully work this virus out of his system. Antibiotics have no effect, there is no quick fix so we're just going to have to sit this one out.

Source: kristanlynn.com via Leila on Pinterest

I'm looking at this time as a blessing, I believe that with the right attitude any ordeal can be a blessing in disguise. Despite the unpleasantness of the illness we're both making the most out of it. And although some days the walls are caving in on me I'm rather enjoying getting to spend all this exclusive time with the one person I love most in the world!

It is making me so grateful for blogging, and Flickr and all you lovely people! Knowing you all are out there just one email away makes me feel much less cut off from the real world than I know I'd otherwise would have felt.

Thank you so much!

x Leila

It's just an empty cage girl..

If you came from Amy's blog and are looking for my  Blogger's Quilt Festival entry  check here

My bird quilt is finished yay!

A little info, this quilt measures approx 57" x 72" {143 x180 cm}

Made with Laurie Wisbrun's Tufted Tweets and some Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for the binding. Solids are from my local market.

Hand quilted with vintage white embroidery floss, black silk and Sulky in grey.

It's been horrible weather so I had to take pictures inside unfortunately. This was the best I could do! This is my first {and certainly not my last} pieced backing. I drew more cages on the back used up some left over bits of tweets and added the white  and black because I'd ran out of grey. I love how it's turned out even though the design was quite random.

This quilt has a lot of 'me' in it.  Often I find inspiration in song lyrics, this happened to be the case with this quilt as well. The two lines that kept running through my head were "it's just an empty cage girl, if you kill the bird" from Crucify by Tori Amos. And "all your life you were only waiting for this moment to arrive"  from Paul McCartney's Blackbird. Once I saw Tufted Tweets I just knew they'd be perfect for my black 'ravens' and empty cages quilt.

Quilting is therapy for me, as I know it is for a lot of you out there as well. It offers me the opportunity to have a creative outlet for my emotions and things I go through in life. This last year has been a tough one for me and my battle's not over yet. Five years ago I ended an abusive relationship and it's been a long lasting battle to reclaim my own life and freedom. These birds and their empty cages symbolize these last five years for me.

 

It took me a while to figure out just how to quilt this but I decided to repeat one of the patterns in the fabric for the quilting {the connected oval shapes} and I added some vertical and horizontal stripes in various widths. 

This orange binding is completely out of my comfort zone! But I've been trying to overcome my fear of orange {I blame football for that!} and I'm really pleased with how it looks!

I love this bit on the back where the quilted cage overlaps the one I drew!

Somehow I feel this quilt's very appropriate for Halloween. Maybe not in a traditional witches and pumpkin kind of way but the colours and the ravens feel very much in theme with the season to me.

Happy Halloween!

x Leila

p.s. The inspiration lyrics for my next two quilts are...."I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ah!" {yup that's the Spice Girls and I'm feeling the shame! ;-)} and it's a tie between "From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen" & "you're my pride and joy etc."

about rain, a bird & some hexies

Autumn has started while summer never really came.

I feel like we've had nothing but rain ever since summer break started {that's not exactly true, but close!}

I've really missed  the long summer's days and lazy summer nights I was so looking forward to. We've only went swimming once!

Still I don't mind staying in so much, it gives me more time to sew.  My little man however is seriously bouncing off the walls these days.

I think we're almost ready for school to start again!

x Leila

Tweet!

A while back I ordered these lovelies  from Seamstar

I told them to sit in my stash and look pretty for a bit because I was too lazy distracted to start designing a new quilt just yet.

I have this idea in my head of what I want to make but I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to do it! Sounds familiar? no ~ must be just me then!

Here's some upside down progress on sketching  birds. So far so good but I keep getting lost on what the overall design of the patchwork should be.

Perhaps my mind's just stuck in the past a bit with my little monster turning 5 last thursday.

A whole hand! Time sure does fly! 

I'm getting old lol!

x Leila

fish are jumping & the cotton is high

Summer break is finally here!!


The kids were so very pleased to get to take their pillows home. It made me feel good to get them all finished up in time for them to show them to their parents ~ glowing with pride of course!



Im excited about not having the alarm clock go every morning. Getting to spend more time with my family and friends, spending more time outdoors and probably a little less time blogging {something's gotta give } But I'll be around and I'm most likely to be working on something that I'll feel like showing you all.

Thank you for your kind comments on my whimsy quilt, they really make my day!!
I've taken some time to make a tutorial should you feel tempted to make one for yourself. I found this quilt to be quick & simple to make with a very cute quilt as the end result. I'm thinking it would be a great quilt to just whip up when you're in need of a present for someone quickly. It being my first tute there might be some flaws there so just let me know if you stumble acros any mistakes I've made. And I'd love to get some pictures of course!

Ejoy your weekend!

Going back and forth { a long post}

While machine quilting my Whimsy quilt I've got lots of time to think. So I thought I'd share some of these thoughts with you. This quilt has a lot of firsts for me, first time using precuts, first time I'm machine quilting { if you don't count my very first attempts at quilting when I was machine quilting with my regular pressure foot! I know!} first time using machine applique, first time a quilt has come together this quick. Well I just had lots to ponder on.



On using the precuts, I love that by eliminating the bulk of the cutting a quilt top can come together quite quickly. I'm pleased that I decided on a design where I used up all of my Layer Cake and Charm squares. I just knew that if I didn't I would end up with the bits of fabric I liked least in this line and they would be destined to remain stash for a long time.
It's easy to use precuts, but that's also the part that I'm not liking so much. There's a thrill in taking a fabric that you absolutely love and going out to find just the right fabrics to match it. Using precuts you know in advance that all the fabrics will go together. But I like the anticipation of cutting up fabrics I pulled together myself and keeping all my fingers crossed to see if they look as good all grouped together as I thought they would in my head. {I don't have one of those fancy computer designing programs, so apart from some sketches it's all in my head}
Trying to work out the placement of those two or three fabrics that on the whole help the quilt look good, but next to each other just look all wrong.
I do think I will use precuts again, I know I will because I still have a Layer Cake of Aviary and also because my local quilt shop doesn't have as many gorgeous fabrics any more as they used to some years back. Ordering online precuts, or fabrics from the same line/designer takes the risk out of ending up with a bunch a fabric you can't use. But I think I'll mix it up a bit more next time.



Since I'm not as brilliant at free motion quilting as I'd hoped, I went for straight line machine quilting. I chose to not mark my horizontal lines but rather use the edges of my walking foot as a guide. I knew that doing this my lines would end up being a bit {or a lot} wonky, wich in my mind would bring a bit more life to my quilt. And I think it's sorta kinda working. I'm not completely sure that I chose well in quilting just horizontal lines all over the quilt, but I do think I love them being wonky. I was right in thinking it would be terribly boring if the quilting lines were to be straight as well. I'm just not so sure that these wonky lines ensured a non-boring quilt. I've done about a third of the quilting and I am noticing that my blocks are starting to look a bit warped. Not sure whether that is because of not basting my quilt properly or just not quilting it properly or both!




One thing's for sure this is going to be my quickest quilt ever. I haven't even had my usual thoughts on what my next project might be, it's going that quickly. Wich is perfectly all right since I'll still be hand quilting my orchids quilt for quite some time. Oh lovely quiet hand quilting where I can watch some telly, listen to my music and let my thoughts run freely on what my next project should be.

I am so pleased you've made it to the end of my post, thanks for reading!!

Enjoy your weekend!

I'll have my cake & watch it {..for now }

I've got these lovely new layercakes.
Mr. Man said I could have my layer cakes and eat them!



I really want to start sewing up a new quilt top straight away. But I can't since I was run over by a rotary cutter yesterday and my thumb will be in bandages for at least two more days.



So I'm laying out Whimsy on the floor, arranging and rearranging colour combinations, and just stare at them for a while!
I've got a layer cake plus a charmpack of Whimsy and I've arranged them on the floor with a charm square on top of the layercake square. I'm loving the look of these 'boxed in' squares and if I cut up my layercake to border the charm squares I should have enough strips left to make scrappy binding for the finished quilt. Perhaps even some for a pieced backing too. So I might go for that.
But I also like the idea of turning the charms into an applique on top of the larger squares, I'm thinking circles, and I'm loving that idea too!

But since I've got at least two more days to think on what to do with them I'm open to suggestions ~ what would you make with them?


Enjoy your day!

Orange Fever

I'm not really into football myself but it's hard to miss...the world championships have kicked off.
Thought I'd just give you all a look at what my street looks like these days.






{just so you know...this is not my house!}



I much more prefer this view of my street.

For those of you who watch, enjoy! May the best team win.

I'll be stitching in my garden :-)

Have a nice weekend!

~Favorite Quotes~

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?"
–Marianne Williamson

I hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Sew, Mama, Sew Give away day

Last week was give away day hosted by Sew, Mama, Sew. This was all new to me I just happened to stumble acros the Sew, Mama, Sew blog two days before 'The Day', lucky me! I admit I went a bit crazy once I saw all the lovelies that were up for grabs. I entered loads and loads of give aways! And I even won!

First this cute owl pattern by Carmen Rigby from It's A Wonderful Life

This picture I took from her blog It's A Wonderful Life. Once I find time to make my own little owl I'll be sure to post some pictures of it. Thanks Carmen, so very generous of you to give away your pattern to everyone that commented!

I also was one of the 100 lucky ones that won a 'take one make one' bag from Green Bag Lady.

(picture from their blog)

A wonderful initiative to get people all over the world to trade in their plastic shopping bags for a fabric one. I'm all for going green and this is just such a lovely project. Visit the site at http://greenbaglady.blogspot.com/ for the simple bag pattern and how to video.

I think I'll have to join in the fun next give away day and host a give away of my own... So wonderful to see all those blogs from all over the world!

Party and France

The party was lovely yesterday. We sat outside all evening and drank margarita's woop! Not the ten year old of course! She was asleep on the couch half way through her party. Her girls slumber party the night before lasted till the wee hours and the poor thing was exhausted! She loved her tote though, and so did her mother. I decided to give the other set to my friend instead of keeping it. So I'm all out of bags again. Wich only means I have to make more :-)


I went to visit my mum in France two weeks ago and made this picture on one of our walks. The weather wasn't too great but nice view don't you think?

Thanks for all your kind comments, they mean a lot to me!

Enjoy your day.