Some more little gifts

I was on a roll yesterday so I completed a couple more iron cord holders.  These will be donated to NOTYQ for the charity quilt stall at our quilt exhibition later in the year.

I shared a tutorial on how to make them yesterday so you can make some too.

Are you following along with the Say It With Flowers Blog Hop?  Here's todays contributors.

Squawk That

How Art You?

A Little Bit of Lorene

Handmade By Mama

Blooming Where I Am Planted

Jane’s Quilting

Just Quilt It

busybeequilts

Lisa In Port Hope

Les Quilts

Quilts My way

Thanks again to Carol and Mde Samm for organising this bit of fun for us all.

Skip to my Lou is full of fabulous ideas.

Just like this one.  Pop on over to take a look by clicking HERE.

PS Don't forget to enter my giveaway in yesterday's post

Flowers Everywhere

It's my day for the Say It With Flowers blog hop organised my fabulous Madame Samm from Sew We Quilt and Carol from Just Let Me Quilt.  Thank you so much ladies for organising this fun swap for us all.

I have a bit of an obsession with wool and wool felt at the moment so I thought I'd share some of my recent wooly flowers.

These all became pin cushions or needle cases and have been sent off to bloggy friends.

Suffolk puff flowers are another favourite, I use quite often.

A Very Easy Project

I've also made quite a number of iron cord holders as small gifts this year so I thought I'd share a little tutorial on how I make them.  A flowery version of course.
You will need 

• Two pieces of fabric 10" x 4"
• 1 piece of light weight wadding (I used an iron-on but you don't need to. You can just lightly glue ordinary wadding in place.  You can also use felt.)
• A 2" piece of velcro and a glue stick.
• Bits and pieces to decorate your holder.

Iron or glue the wadding onto the back of the fabric you have chosen as the front of your holder. 

Place the front and the back pieces of fabric right sides together and stitch around the edge, leaving a small gap for turning.Turn your holder right side out and slip stitch the opening closed.  Top stitch all the way around, very close to the edge.

Separate the velcro and glue one side to the front end of the holder and the other piece to the other end but on the back.  (I use glue in a lot of my projects but not special expensive crafty/quilty glue but a good old super cheap glue stick from the supermarket.  Just check it says suitable for fabric on the pack.)

Now comes the fun part.  Time to decorate.  I'm using suffolk puff flowers on this one.
Not made one before?  They are super easy.

Cut out a circle of fabric twice the size you want your finished puff to be.  I've got an old set of cookie cutters which went a bit rusty.  Instead of throwing them out I moved them to my sewing room and use them to trace my suffolk puff circles.

Now run a gathering thread around the edge of the circle and then pull until a tight little puff results.  Sew a few stitches to secure.

Stack a couple of different sizes on top of each other. sew a button in the middle and you'll have a little flower to decorate anything you like.

I usually pop a picture of the iron cord holder being used in with the gift so that the person I'm sending it to knows what it is supposed to be.
And there we have it - a cute and useful gift that costs virtually nothing and is light and inexpensive to post.  Plus it brings a bit of glamour to a boring old task like ironing.  What more could a girl want.

The thing I like best about this project is that you can use up any odd bits and pieces in your stash and it is a great place to use orphan blocks or little stitcheries.

A Flowery Giveaway

One of my dearest bloggy friends is a wonderful Aussie designer and she has just released her latest BOM - Daisy Days.  I think it is absolutely adorable and will be stitching it myself.

Just take a look at a close up of Block 1.  The sweetest stitchery ever.

And so as my giveaway I will subscribe to this BOM for the winner and every month another delightful stitchery will appear in your Inbox as a PDF.  If you don't win you can still stitch along by visiting Jenny at Elefantz and subscribing for just $5 a month - a super bargain.
You can enter by leaving me a comment on this post.  If you are a follower let me know in a second comment and you will get another entry.  I'll announce the winner at the end of this Blog Hop.

Here are the next blogs to hop over and visit and share in the love of flowers.

A Quilt Lady

Ella & Nesta’s Little Room

CLF by Nailaa

Atelier De Handwerktuin

Life, Quilts, and A Cat Too

Marjorie’s Busy Corner

Celtic Thistle

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Dreaming In Patchwork

Around The Homestead

Subscribe to Jenny's free weekly newsletter over at Elefantz and you will receive this gorgeous free pattern for a Vase Wrapper. 

Thank you so much to Jenny for all she so generously shares with us.

Wrapping up

I always feel a great sense of satisfaction when a swap item is finished and wrapped and ready to go.  Today I wrapped up my swap item for the Mill Rosie Get Together this Sunday.  We had to make something with a blue theme. 

Here's todays flower posts if you would like to hop over and visit.

Kris Loves Fabric

Teatime Creations

~De Zondagssteek~

Ridge Top Quilts

Devoted Quilter

Mrs. Pickles Garden

Life In The Scrapatch

Englating

Why Knot Kwilt

Love It Sew It

This gorgeous quilt, called Windmills at Night, is a fabulous free pattern very generously shared by Suzy at Suzy's Artsy-Craftsy Sitcom.  She made it from two jelly rolls and it's suitable for beginners. The comprehensive tutorial is wonderful too.  Many thanks to Suzy for sharing her pattern and tutorial HERE.

A Mill Rosie Get Together

The fabulous Mill Rosie friends are having another get together and it is this Sunday June 2nd starting at 10.00am.  Hooray hooray, I can't wait.

Where Ballan, Victoria (just off the western Highway, before Ballarat)
Where exactly? Milrose Quilts and Gallery is at 92 Inglis Street, Ballan
The Mill Cottage restaurant is at Main Road - 96 Inglis Street Ballan
Is there a map? Yes HERE
What is there to eat? Here's the lunch menu+ there are specials every day.

This get together we have a special guest, all the way from Lake Macquarie NSW, we have our dear friend and swap mama extraordinaire - Cheryll from Gone Stitchin'.  

Please join us if you can.  We will make you most welcome and I guarantee fun, laughing, eating, laughing, show and tell, shopping and some of us might even take a stitch or two.  I need definite numbers by tomorrow afternoon so I can confirm our lunch booking.  So far these are the lovely ladies attending (please let me know if you are coming and I have somehow left you off the list.)
Christine, Shez, Sharon, Barb, Marina, Elyte + three friends, Tracee, Sue, Robyn, Tracey, Marg, Leanne, Cheryll and me of course.+ Tania and Rosalie + O'Faigh hooray

Just adding Tania, Rosalie and O'Faigh to the list so we are complete.  

I'm not sure if I've shared this link before but I just love these stitch combinations for crazy quilting and you can find them HERE  at In a Minute Ago

Just in case I have already shared the stitches, here's a delightful free printable shared at wonderful Bumble Button.

PS and of course here are today's Say it With Flowers hoppers.

Secretly Stitching

Anolisl’s Kreative Seite

I Like To Quilt Blog

Hill Valley Quilter

InGa

Coto Patchwork

Stitching & Stuff

De Quiltborch

Jatajomi’s Stoff-nadel-fadenwelt

Gingini’s Crafts & Quilts

Debby Kratovil Qults

Click HERE for more details.

Back with a bunch of flowers

It is so wonderful to be back in bloggy world.  I started stitching again on the weekend and am now up and about being much more careful where I step.  Enormous thanks to everyone for your get well wishes.

I'm taking part in this fabulous blog hop.  It starts today and my flowery post will be on Friday.  I've got a tutorial and a giveaway to share.  Here are today's hoppers.

Just Let Me Quilt

Sew Many Yarns

Quilt Obsession

Nati’s Little Things

Stekje

Felt Free Pa Asly

Patchouli Moon Studio

Pig Tales and Quilts

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Kaydie

Linhas, Cores E Arte

Tutinella

If you want to know more just pop over and visit Carol at Just Let Me Quilt.

The minute I saw this beautiful free applique pattern I was in love.  It is very kindly shared HERE by Sandra at Sandra's Snippets.  Please visit her delightful blog, as I'm sure you will be charmed by all she shows.

Back tomorrow - see you then

The steps versus Melody

I've fallen down some of my steps a few times as balance problems are part of my MS but Saturday's fall was a really bad one.  I'm not able to walk or sew or even get to the computer so I won't be blogging for a while.  I'll be back as soon as I can.

A house full of sickies

It's virus time here in our household.  Both Sam and Henry are sick and so have come home to mum and granny to be nursed. As Henry's virus involves vomiting, I seem to be spending much of my time washing and there is no time for sewing.  I'll be back on Monday when I'm hoping all the bugs will have been banished.  Have a wonderful weekend and if you are a mum I hope you are super spoiled on Mother's Day

Healing hearts

One of the lovely ladies at my much loved quilting guild, NOTYQ is very ill and fighting her own battle with cancer. 

We are all making healing hearts in autumn tones to put together a quilt of hearts to send her all our love.

Every time I see a chicken pattern I think of lovely Christine over at MacDonald's Patch.  I hope she likes these, I think they are very cute.  The free pattern is very kindly shared HERE at the BD Sewing Workshop.