A Practical Project and a Giveaway!

My youngest saw me looking at a fantastic bunk-bed tidy on the Sew Scrumptious blog about a month ago, and declared that this was exactly what he needed!

I finally got around to making it this week. I had found some brilliant Tintin sheeting fabric at our local market and had made bed covers for the boys with it. I used the left-over fabric to make the pockets, and two layers of the calico to make the main section. My big delay was finding out what the Indonesian word for velcro was! Once I had that sorted I went back to the market and bought 2 meters of it for 80 cents! 

This came together really easily and my son loves it!

On another note, my little blog reached 50 followers last week, and so to celebrate and to thank so many of you for supporting me,  I thought I'd have a giveaway. I just love the quilting community and I love that I've made some great friends through it. I really enjoy reading so many of your blogs and I have been the lucky recipient of quite a few giveaways. So this is my thankyou to all of you. 

I found these Japanese cottons (all half-meters) and these pretty ribbons at the fabric market. 

There will be two winners. One person will win this pretty floral design, the blue dots and the green ribbon.

The other will win this Liberty print (on Japanese cotton), the green dots and the blue ribbon

To enter just leave a comment (if you like you can tell which one you would like if you won)! I will draw the winner on Thursday morning, Indonesian time.

Linking up with Sewjo Saturday 

Me. Lately.

I loved reading recently Ros' description of herself and her life at the moment. It was fun to feel like I was getting to know a little more about her as a person, and not just her sewing abilities.

So if you are interested this is me....

Making: Progress on learning my third language - Sunda. The local language of my part of Indonesia.

Cooking: Banana cake

Drinking: My second morning coffee. I tried to cut down to one a day but didn't succeed!

Reading: The Rosie project, and loving it. I needed a book that would make me laugh!

Wanting: An adventure.

Looking: At the huge wall going up behind our house, blocking out all the light :-(

Playing: Ticket to Ride (the board game). Well not playing right now, but it is our favourite family game!

Wasting: Far too much time on the internet, browsing all your lovely blogs!

Sewing: a secret swap mini quilt - enjoying some EPP and AMH Dowry fabric.

Wishing: that my meeting today with a friend wasn't cancelled (for the third week in a row).

Enjoying: the bright green of the rice fields as I went for a walk this morning.

Waiting: to see my family again - 10 more weeks and we travel to the UK for the first time in 4 years.

Liking: Lindt Chilli Chocolate - amazing!

Wondering: How on earth I will get quilts made for all my family with only 10 weeks to go!

Loving: my two boys - at 10 and 7 they are such a fun age.

Hoping: that my friend and her son enjoy their first ever trip to the capital city today.

Marvelling: at amazing answers to prayer and God's care for people.

Needing: a close friend who lives just round the corner.

Watching: BBC world news every evening. I love to know what is happening in the world. 

Smelling: freshly ground coffee.

Wearing: the usual - a shirt and linen pants (trousers!). The temperatures are the same here all year round.

Following: my instagram feed!

Noticing: that this is really home for us now.

Knowing: it will rain this afternoon, as it has everyday for about the last six months!

Thinking: that using the word 'blessed' to describe ourselves when we enjoy something good is not right. It equates God's blessing with worldly things - Am I more blessed that my Indonesian friends because I get to have a nice holiday and they don't? (I have used this expression in the past many times and only recently started to think about what it implies - not having a go at anyone :-))

Feeling: overwhelmed by how many emails are in my inbox.

Bookmarking: endless quilt patterns as I try to decide what quilt to make for my parents.

Opening: a package of fabric that I won on Instagram :-)

Giggling: at my youngest as he walks around the house singing 'Let it go, let it go, don't hold it back anymore'. He has memorised all the words so that he can sing along with the girls in his class!

from my recent trip to Singapore. Learning to appreciate beauty in design!

Le Challenge - Order

I love order, but I don't see much of it where I live! 

Hence, I try to impose order on whatever areas of life I feel I have some sort of control over, and this includes quilting. At the start of the year I made a list of what I wanted to sew and when. However this got thrown out the window when I decided I wanted to make a quilt for the Pantone Radiant Orchid Challenge. Everything else got put on hold while I worked and worked on that! 

But this week order was resumed and I got back to my list. First up was a simple baby blanket for a lovely Indonesian friend of mine who had a little boy last week. 

I pieced together simple, ordered strips for the front and the back, alternating owls, plain navy and plain lime green. I added a layer of batting, and sewed it all together around the edges. Ideally I would have just used flannel or fleece on the back but I can't get that here.

I embroidered a little label to go on the back to make it a bit more special.

Linking up with

Head on over there and see all the other entries for this month!

Radiant Orchid

Life in a big Asian city is crazy, chaotic, noisy ..... in fact anything but calm and peaceful! 

As I was making this quilt I was wanting to bring some calm into my life, some rest.  

So I deliberately chose lots of neutrals with just pops of colour. 

I didn't have a definite plan or idea when I started, I just cut 2.5" strips and started sewing. I made

some larger blocks, and some smaller, and added in some extra strips of colour where it was needed. 

I didn't want to draw too much attention to the quilting as I felt it would take away from the blend of colours and neutrals, so I just quilted vertical wavy lines about 2" apart and added some extra hand quilting in each block with some purple perle cotton.

The back is pieced together from the rest of the purple fabric in my stash. I am now completely out of purples! 

The binding is a scrappy mix as I thought any one colour on its own would pull the attention away from the rest of the quilt

This quilt is a gift for my sister who is truly a lover of purple! 

It measures 40" x 47"

Linking up with

and TGIFF at Quilt Matters
This was also my March goal for ALYOF 

A Lovely Year of Finishes

A quick check-in to post my March goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.

I have been working on a quilt for the 2014 Pantone Quilt Challenge. Today I finished piecing together the quilt top.

My goal is to have this quilted and bound by the end of March. Although at the moment I have no ideas for backing fabric or for how to quilt it!

Sweet Pouch Swap

My package for the Sweet Pouch Swap finally made it to Kristi, so I can show you what I made.

Kristi said she liked pinks, yellows and greys, and she also liked animal prints, polka dots, scrappy and text. I decided to make scrappy polaroid blocks for each side of the pouch, and then I added some hand stitching and used a polka dot lining. 

She also mentioned that she had a love for the UK, so I made her a little needlebook using an embroidery design by Wild Olive. 

I filled the pouch with weird and wonderful sweets from Indonesia (which I forgot to take a photo of!). I hope you liked your package Kristi - I enjoyed making it for you.

Oh, and this is a Q1 finish for the Finish-A-Long 2014 and I am linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday.