A quick catch up

Time and days seem to be flying by at the moment.... and we are having an amazing amount of rain here, it seems to have rained almost all week, and the roads and fields are flooded.  I hope this is going to fill up the reservoirs as officially we are in a drought zone.  Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a weather report - it's a quick update on some of the sewing I have managed to do whilst stuck indoors.

Firstly my stash bee blocks for this month.  My first attempt shall not be shown here!  I got in a muddle about the folding over of the black edges, but I persevered and was really quite pleased with how these two blocks turned out in the end, considering I've never done anything like this before.

So here, they are all ready to be sent off with a little pin cushion ring for CeLynn.  Once again I was pleased to have learnt something new from this block technique, and I'm quite looking forward to seeing what the block will be for the month of May...

Then I made my Mum a paint brush holder (from a fab book I borrowed from the library, called 100 pretty little projects).  She does lots of painting these days, and has two art exhibitions coming up, so this is a little good luck pressie for her.

Then I had a bit of a glum day when I discovered that there are lots of exciting swaps and things going on for the FQ retreat in June that I had not been aware of.... so had missed the boat and not been able to join in.  But I cheered up when they let a few more of us late comers to the group join in the sample swap, so I signed up right away.  No time to panic for this swap, just get on with it!!  (There was an attempt at making some pocket wallets for notebooks but after one good attempt and one terrible attempt, I realised making four of those was beyond me - Mark said he'd never heard sewing cause so much swearing before).... so on to plan B which was these pot holders.....

Sorry about the terrible photos, it's so dark here with the rain and grey skies.... but I enjoyed sorting through my scraps to make these, and am beginning to love the  paper piecing method of sewing.  The tutorial is at Fairyface designs and can be found here.  In fact I am a little bit addicted to making them, and have two more underway.  Ooo while I'm here, can anyone give me any tips about keeping the backing fabric from moving around?  On the last one I made I have wrinkles, and I thought I had pinned it well, but obviously not.  I know these are only very small quilting projects, but would there be any other techniques than pinning the layers that I could use?

x