Meet Our Sponsor: Sew Brite Craft Tables

Sew Brite provides quilters with quality USA made cutting tables that can be arranged to make the most of your floor space and maximize your creative time. Where's my stash? Good question! With a Sew Brite modular table, all I need for each project could be right at hand - talk about furniture made with quilter's in mind!

I'm always re-imaging my creative space (at the moment I'm working from my living room for the beautiful natural light....and maybe the extra space too!). A quilter can never have too much room, but the reality is that many of us have to 'limit' our process to a room or studio. Now, there's furniture custom made for out needs that respects the space we need whilst providing us with real, useful options. Here are my own favorite options from the Sew Brite catalog:

I'm very fond of this idea because it's how I work. I like to move 'around' my main table and work at different items at each 'turn'. With so much storage right at hand, my days of table stacking fabrics would be over and with that extra table space I might even be able to run 2 projects at the same. A table made for WIPs? It looks like it!

This would be my first choice as a design table. I need so many 'tools' when I'm designing my patterns, I would love to have them all collected in a neat row of drawers as is offered here. The right tubs are ideal for fabric stashing which means I could keep my new fabrics close at hand for inspirational drafting! I couldn't have designed this better myself, it's just about perfect. 

My last must have is this drawer station. I have so many drafts and WIPs, I would love to set my projects into their own 'compartments', it would clear three quarters of my 'creative mess' at once. 

The Sew Brite catalog offers quilters real options for organizing their space whilst being useful, resourceful and responsibly made in the USA.

As quilters, we all have purchasing power collectively to support products and brands that respect us and our creativity through quality resources custom made for our needs. I feel strongly that its time to move away from cheaply produced 'made in China' resources and return to well thought out, planned and made furniture and tools.

I'm proud to introduce Sew Brite as a Sponsor of this blog and hope you'll  browse their catalog when considering your next quilting /crafting furniture purchase. 

WOW: Ready for Glad Tidings?

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays

How do you feel about some Christmas quilting? Are you interested in creating a new family heirloom, a quick weekend project or just that little something extra to show off those gorgeous festive fabrics? Well, I've got all those options covered. On Friday I'll be releasing my 2015 Christmas Projects, so stay tuned...

What's Your WOW?

An InLinkz Link-up

Finishing Touches

Today I'm putting the finishing touches on my 2015 Christmas Projects which I've called 'Glad Tidings'. My yearly Christmas Project is always something I'm excited to share, and this year I'm happy to say, it's the biggest yet. It's a beautiful festive offering and I can't wait to share it with you on Friday.

Re-Organizing Inspiration

It's been a few days since my birthday which I think is enough time of 'hands off' enjoyment, so now it's time to pluck out my inspiration and to get into those bunches and start chopping, selecting and pressing interesting items. I just love these oak leaves which have been conveniently assorted in all sized from very small to large - a perfect study for me, I try to keep files on as many different leaves as possible.

All bouquets that come into my house end up looking something like this. I'm quite fond of this little white vase because when I'm seated at the table, it's the perfect height to bring to flowers to my eye level - useful when I'm sketching.

And of course, thorn inspiration. I always add thorns on my designs because I just feel they belong there!

Beautiful HB Wishes

Thanks for all your Birthday Wishes everyone, I had a beautiful day at home with my family and it was exactly what I wanted. I only joined Facebook a few months ago and was surprised to find hellos over there as well as over in my BOM Group and even Google decided to wish me a HB (below). A few years ago, this would have really puzzled me, but I think I've become more blase about how intrusive technology is becoming in our lives. Sure, it's just a cute note but it does make me wonder about how technology is becoming or trying to become more 'humanized' by creeping into our life events. 

What do you think? Is Google being nice? Or weirdly intrusive by reminding me that they know everything about me? There were plenty of flowers because I love them and I'm at that age where I have everything and no one knows what to buy me and I don't even know myself. I used to just ask for a new fancy cup/s each year, but now I have a cupboard full of those and couldn't think of anything else to ask for!

I always take hundreds of photos of my bouquets because I use them in my designs. Here I am sneaking in to pull out a rose - I usually pull out any extraordinary flowers and make new 'bunches' to study them and in this bunch a lovely rose caught my eye. But I resisted pulling it out just yet, I decided that I would leave all the flowers alone on my actual birthday, but it was tempting...

In my mind, white lilies are funeral flowers so I'm always surprised when they appear in bouquets. They're very popular here and are pretty much in everything which I still think is so strange given how much variety and colour is out in the natural world. Perhaps I'm just being old fashioned. I love all flowers so it didn't lessen my enjoyment, it just gave me a start to wake up to a kitchen full of white flowers!

I was going to bake a cake but didn't get around to it. In the last few years my family have stopped purchasing cakes from the shops because they always look so pretty but somehow all taste like cold slabs of margarine. We're all in a cake slump! 

I sent my DH out to pick up some cannoli's from a local bakery which are usually so good, but they must have used old oil because they tasted like they'd been fried in sausages! This has just confirmed my determination to pull out my old box of Bundt tins and start making family birthdays cakes myself all over again. I really thought I was over all that, but quality seems to have dropped everywhere so I think I'll have to get back into the swing of things.

WOW: It's My Birthday!

WOW = WIPs On Wednesday

As it's my birthday, I suppose I can consider myself a WIP. My DDs have kindly given me an extra arm which I can tell you, I'm thrilled about. I've wanted one of these for ages. I did have one a few years ago, but my DH got rid of it as he felt it made me lazy. And I may or may not have started using it to pass him objects at around the same time. I can't really remember. Which is another advantage of aging.

Now that I'm old enough to be expected to share wisdom, I can tell you this: there is never enough time to do everything you want to do or undertake everything that interests you. If I had 100 lives, I could fill each one with a whole new range of interests and pursuits, so my birthday advice is this: love what you do or stop doing it.

Today we'll be having my birthday lunch at home. I get irritated at restaurants because they never prepare the food exactly as I want it and I've finally snapped and declared my birthday a restaurant free zone - so you can see, I've already started taking my own advice.

What's Your WOW ?

An InLinkz Link-up

It Must Be Pattern Making Time!

The oddest thing happens whenever I release a new quilt pattern - something in my house retires. It's happened so many times that we often joke about it now, wondering which thing will 'go' next? Without fail, whenever I am releasing a pattern, things go wrong in the house. At first I thought it was a strange coincidence, then I thought I was being paranoid about things that must have been due to happen anyway, but now there's really no way to explain how all these things happen precisely when I'm working on quilt releases! It's so strange.

Well, my washing machine and PDF software both failed when I was on the computer typing up the Nelke pattern. The washing machine was so expensive to fix that it was cheaper to purchase a new one. It arrived this morning. My PDF software simply failed for no reason that the software company was able to determine so I'll be moving on to another brand and hoping it's all in place for my next pattern release. My photocopier is still on the blink. I keep going back and forth about whether it's worth spending the money to fix it. Whenever I'm scanning patterns, I'm certainly sure that it IS worth the expense, but every other time I think it's not. We'll see. My current system is too frustrating to keep up so I'll have to update how I work on my patterns.

As for the rest of today, I'll be doing the laundry.