Your big break?

Have you seen this yet?
Michael Miller Fabrics and Spoonflower are hosting Project Selvage a competition to find Michael Miller's newest fabric designer! How exciting is that?! They're looking for a baby boy fabric design, the winner will also be expected to design a baby girl line. But baby boy is what you should focus on to get in. All the details are on the site
 The deadline for sending in your design is the 24th of March so there's still time for you to enter!
I wish I could enter myself but there's no way I can on this old worn out computer of mine, even a simple photo edit takes forever these days. This looks like a cool chance for those of you dreaming of designing your very own fabric line and becoming a quilting rock star :-) Go check it out!

On another note, a lot has been said already on the topic of 'no reply' bloggers, if you don't know what I mean by that there's an excellent post here
I respect the fact that some of you wish to remain anonymous. Just know that if you ask me a question and do not leave an email address in your comment, it's going to be difficult for me to reply! I'm just saying ;-)

Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

x Leila

~Fab Friday~ {the things we do for fabric}

Sometimes fabric is so good it's worth jumping through hoops for, we all get that right? So when a friend is in need of dominating the 'Henna Garden Universe'  I am more than willing to oblige ;-)
Kaelin being the sweet person she is, sent me these gorgeous fat quarters as a thank you for helping her out with the international shipping.

I LOVE them! Yay to online friends and fabulous fabric friday's!

Have a great weekend,

x Leila

Original?

Has this ever happened to you?  I wonder...

I had this stroke of 'brilliance'  where I came up with a 'clever' look for a board to pin my postcards on. They always end up in a drawer and it's a shame because I love getting cards in the mail instead of bills and other boring letters. Anyway,  I made this board and in the final stages it got scorched by my iron @#%**&!!
A few deep breaths a day or so later, I'm getting myself together to start the whole thing over when I see this picture on Flickr which looks VERY similar to what I'm in the midst of making!
Now it's not like I had not seen anything like it before, in fact the inspiration for this board came from one of my Flickr faves {don't you just love this?!!} But still it left me feeling a bit discouraged from finishing my project. I have this need to be original, do you know what I mean?
I think you do, I think most of us want to be original and create something that has not been done before, or at least has not been done over and over again lol! Wich proves pretty difficult as we're dealing with quilts and quilting has been done for centuries.  It's pretty safe to say it has all been done before!

First let me just show you what I made. I took a blank canvas board, you can get those pretty cheap, and stapled this quilted top to it. Easy peasy!

Back to originality, what makes a quilt original? How do YOU try to stay fresh and original when there's so much out there already you can always find a similar creation to yours. Most days I just make what I want to make in the fabrics that I love. But this was one of those times where blogging and Flickr was making me insecure. I was feeling the pressure people! The pressure to be creative and original just like everybody else ;-)

Be back soon with my 'notebook paper quilted' pillow {oh no, she didn't just stop at one ha ha!}

x Leila

My mother's dress...

...was blue with a large floral print. She often wore it with a blue leather belt and ankle boots. To me she was the most beautiful woman in the world in her blue flower dress. I wanted one just like mummy's and be pretty too! And although my mum sewed tons of pretty dresses for me, up till now I never had a dress that possessed the same magic as hers did.


But when I was trying on the new dress I sewed the other day, my little boy looked at me and said 'you're pretty mummy' and I recognized that look in his eyes... I finally have my own mother's dress!

I used Anna Maria Horner dobby dot voiles and her Museum Tunic Tutorial  
The decision to combine the two voiles was born out of necessity, I only had one panel instead of the
1 1/2 needed, but it worked out quite well this way I think.
The only thing I would perhaps change is to place the little squares a bit lower, now they're a bit bulky around the waist. The pastry line voile is quite flattering with it's vertical stripes, it works well on the areas you may not want to draw too much attention to (hips, waist). So if you're tempted to try this version for yourself that's something you may want to concider :-) 

Did your mother have a special dress too? I'm curious to know!

x Leila

~It's a Clean Machine~

Sometimes it's the little things that make my day :-)

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Feast your eyes
Have you seen this blog yet? Modern Day Quilts it's like unwrapping a visual present each day!


Feast your soul
Beautiful and moving stories from inspirational women. I am Enough.

Is it just me or do you have Penny Lane stuck in your head now too after reading the title to this post? very strange..

Have a happy weekend!
x Leila