From Cuzco to Central Park

This is definitely a Kate Spain month on my blog!
The first designer fabric I ever bought was a Charm pack of Central Park, closely followed by two charm packs of Good Fortune. I completely fell in love with the colours and the prettiness of the fabric. Two years later I have finally managed to complete a quilt with the Central Park fabric, and a Good Fortune quilt will hopefully follow closely behind! 

The pattern is the Baby Lattice Quilt by Amy Smart, although I added the extra white borders to make the quilt a bit bigger. I machine quilted diagonally along the strips using white Aurifil 50wt thread. I love the pattern it gives, although it was my first experience of having to bury so many thread ends which I didn't enjoy so much! For backing I used a fabric I picked up a couple of years ago in Spotlight which matches perfectly, and the icing on the cake is definitely the Kona Cerise binding - what an amazing colour!

This quilt will be an early Christmas present for one of my nieces. 

Linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday and Ho ho ho and on we sew. This is also my April Finish for ALYOF (original post here) and my third finish for Q2 FAL 2014.

Colourful Cuzco!

One of the hardest things about living overseas is the regular flow of people leaving. In a month I say goodbye to two precious friends (one thankfully will return in a years time), and these small gifts are my way of thanking them for their friendship and the encouragement they have been to me.

Linking up with TGIFF (which is hosted by Alyce this week) and Sewjo Saturday. And this is my second finish for FAL 2014 Q2.

Le Challenge - Bright

I love bright and colourful fabric! It makes me happy! 

So I knew I had to enter this months Le Challenge with the theme 'Bright'. 

I wanted to make some cushion covers for my sister as a 'Christmas' present for when I see her in June. (I don't see my family that often, but when we do meet up we give each other presents to make up for all the Christmas' we've missed out on!). 

I chose a 'Simply Color' charm pack that was in my stash and made these:

I used my favourite tutorial to put covered zippers in the backs. I love the colours and I think my sister will too. 

Linking up with Le Challenge, Sew Cute Tuesday, Ho Ho Ho and on we sew, and this is my first finish for the FAL Q2.

Cheerleaders needed!

Well here goes for Quarter 2. I am feeling rather stressed out about how much sewing I want to get done in the next couple of months, but there's nothing like deadlines to make me work more efficiently and friends to cheer me on! 

On my list for this quarter:

Four quilts!

1. Central Park quilt. This needs a border, then quilting and binding.

2. Good Fortune quilt. The rows need piecing together, it needs a border and then quilting and binding (sorry about the terrible photo - I am camera-less at the moment!)

3. Children at Play quilt. I keep changing my mind for a pattern for this. I am now thinking of Liz's Super Simple Baby quilt 3 design. 

4. Madhuri quilt. For my parents. I have the fabric and the pattern (Quilt-it today Roundabout) and just need to get a move on with this one!

Smaller projects

5. Cushion covers. These need to be quilted and made into covers!

6. Two zipper pouches for friends leaving Indonesia.

7 and 8. Teacher presents: A tote bag and a cushion cover. The boys are helping me to make these so they should be fun projects.

Linking up with Katy for the Finish-A-Long 2014 Quarter 2

ALYOF April Goal

My goal for April is to get this Central Park quilt finished. It will be a 'Christmas in June' present for my niece. I am thinking of adding a white border to make it a bit larger and then some simple straight-line quilting following the diagonal lines.

Just scraping in ...

....with a final finish for FAL Q1 (my original list is here).

This was a mini quilt swap arranged between Samantha and myself, as we both decided we needed more mini quilts to decorate our sewing spaces! It took me a while to decide what to make, but in the end I decided on some EPP so that I could work on it while we had a weeks holiday by the beach!

I love the way it turned out, and I hope that Samantha does too! 

So I have done pretty well for my first Quarter in the FAL 2014. I made five things out of the seven I was aiming for (2 baby quilts, 2 secret swaps (the mini quilt above and the sweet pouch swap) and some commissioned pillows):

I also made a few extras that weren't on my list!

Linking up with 

and the winners are....

Congratulations Sarah@milaandcuatro and Martha@weekenddoings. I will be in contact with you by email. Thank you so much to everyone else for entering. I will be on the lookout for more good fabric finds and pretty ribbon so I can have another giveaway soon.