Sawtooth Star quilts

Just to update you on the whole starch situation - I hand washed a couple of pieces and the brown tinge came off a little bit, so I've decided to carry on with that 8" Sawtooth Star quilt top and just shove it in the wash before I baste and quilt it. Hopefully it'll all work out well.

In the meantime though, I've started another version. Typical huh? This one is without starch, (by the way) and is made up of 25 four inch blocks, made up out of eight different patterned fabrics.

The plan is, that this will be a quilt for a baby whose gender is unknown as yet so it has to be neutral-ish. That's why I've gone for greens and browns, with a spotty white on white for the in between bits. I've also minimised the amount of flowery fabric used just in case it ends up for a boy.

I know by rights that the sawtooth star should have a different fabric in the centre square compared to the outer points, but I thought I'd try them all in once constant fabric. It might make it all look uninteresting, but worth a shot, eh?

It wasn't me, guv

We have finally got our tree cut down! Anyone who's read my blog for a while might remember that we started cutting down a tree in our garden last year, but ended up basically taking off the branches and leaving the trunk as we were far too scared of using a chainsaw. I know this isn't exactly amazing news but I just wanted to show you what the professional guys (who cut the tree down in super quick time) made from part of the trunk in about 5 mins with their chainsaws. Totally cool! My daughters love them too.

And since I was showing you this, I thought I'd make this whole post about some other clever peops makes that I have purchased recently. Starting with an amazing monster purse made by the ever clever Beth at  the Linen Cat:

I got major hugs when this came in the post, my daughter thinks that it's brilliant and tries to clip it on every outfit. It's definitely going to be a possible pressie for most of her friends this year, infact I'm tempted to get one for me too.

Then there was a brooch for me, made by Anna at made by anna on Etsy:

I especially liked the hand drawn note, it was a really lovely touch. Now that I've been back to get the link for her shop, I've noticed the red perspex one. might have to go back for that one.

And then, because I love anything crafted out of paper, I bought a couple of card pdfs from pop up card making on Etsy. I bought the koala one:

and the fisherman one:

Personally I liked the koala one best, as it seems to work better. What you buy here is just the pdf, you actually make up the cards yourself.
I mainly bought these as I'm into Kirigami, and try to use as much of it as poss in my day job. It's also because I've been wondering about doing my own range of kirigami cards in a similar manner for my folksy shop, not the pdf thing, but ready made cards. I kind of wish I hadn't come across these in a way as this guy has some really amazing designs, it'll be hard to forget them.

I know I haven't shown much of what I've been making recently as I've been busy making both my mum and dad's b-day pressies, but I have been printing again and the odd bit of quilting so I'll try and do a post about that next.

Census

I've just been doing my recycling this morning, and couldn't help thinking that the new census logo looked very familiar. The pink and orange version is what I've been using as my own personal logo for the last couple of years.  Funny isn't it?