Good Starter

I finished my first Divided Basket. I had heard that Noodlehead patterns were clear and easy to follow and I found that to be the case for the Divided Basket. I'm planning an aqua and orange quilt for a gift for a friend and I thought a Divided Basket in those colours would be useful for all the bits and pieces you need with a newborn. I'm really happy with how the basket turned out even though I could only find 1 inch webbing (the pattern asks for 1.5 inch). I used a zig zag stitch to make sure I caught the thinner webbing securely though in future I would use Peta's tutorial . The only other change I made was to add an interfaced panel to the front pocket and to move the optional sewn line to split the pocket to the edge of the panel. Now I need to pull some more fabric for my own basket. If you plan to join in the sewalong remember to post your finished basket to #dividedbasketsewalong on Instagram by August 10th for the chance to win a $25 gift voucher kindly don

Today I have my very first guest blog. The Noodlehead Divided Basket sewalong I am co-hosting over on Instagram starts today and my co-host Peta is here to show you her gorgeous Cotton & Steel basket and share a tutorial on a handle detail she came up with which looks fantastic . Thanks Kendra for letting me hang out on your blog today. Excited? Well yessiree I am! How great is Instagram! I love checking through my feed each day to see what the wonderfully talented quilters and sewers have been up to around the globe. Instagram is such an inspirational and generous community and, of course, it’s how I met Kendra and how the Divided Basket Sew Along came about. I don’t have a blog (and really admire people like Kendra who do) but I’d love it if you came and said hi on Instagram, my user name is @shequiltsalot . Now… onto the Sew Along. I love Anna Graham’s style and patterns. I’ve sewn a couple of items from her tutorials and have found the pattern instructi

Yesterday I shared the mini quilt I made for the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. I had so much fun making it that most of the time I forgot I also had an unknown partner who was also making a mini quilt just for me. I was delighted when I did receive my surprise mini as it was this gorgeous envelope quilt. I'm in Australia and my partner, Kristin of gooba designs , is in America so it seemed very fitting to have a text print that has 'beyond the seas' featured. I had mentioned my favourite fabric line is Carolyn Friedlander's Botanics in the sign up form for the swap. I didn't dare hope I would be lucky enough to be matched with a partner who would use it so well. The quilting is so lovely I had to get close. And in black and white you can really see how it finishes off this mini perfectly. One of the extras I received was this little purse. I am saving it to use for best so it has only been out with me a few times so far. Each time

I recently took part in the Schnitzel and Boo mini quilt swap. Now that I have both sent and received I can share them here. Today I'll show my mini and tomorrow the wonderful mini that arrived to me. I made a Modern Hexies mini wall quilt using the Modern Handcraft tutorial. I will definitely be making another one of these for myself. My partner requested her favourite colours teal, orange and purple. I shared a photo of these colours in hexie form while they were sat on my grey couch and I had that many positive comments on the grey background that I switched from the white I had planned to a fat quarter of cotton couture in dark grey. Quilting this mini was so much fun, though I did get a bit creative with the straight lines towards the end to ensure I was still creating triangles.   I went with a scrappy binding (partly due to not having enough dark grey and my local quilt store being out of stock) and I'm really happy I did in the end, I think it added something to the

I have recently discovered Instagram (I know, I know I'm late) and that hasn't helped with my plan to blog more often but it has led to something quite wonderful. Reading the always wonderful Noodlehead blog on Saturday night I spotted Crafterhours were having a Friday Fiver offer on the Divided Basket pattern. I've longed to make a Divided Basket for quite a while now but I had a self imposed pattern buying ban as I have a million other patterns (at least) to make first. But $5 was too good to miss (craft economics at play here as the pattern is very reasonable even without the discount). So now we come back to the IG connection, I happened to mention I had bought the pattern and asked if anyone had any tips for me before I started or wanted to have a sew along. Well a few messages later my brand new IG friend Peta (we are in a birthday swap together too) suggested we open the sewalong to anyone who wanted to join us and check with Anna Graham if it was ok to use he