Hexie Love

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my recent swap makes, I sometimes forget to take photos in my rush to send them off so it was great to be able to share them with you. It's also nice to know that the simple things in life, like den building under the table, will always be the best way to spend a rainy day!

Today I decided that a bit of charity shop shopping was in order to see if I could find any bits and pieces for my up coming swaps. I always like to look at the curtains and fabrics as you never know what you might find, some days you are lucky and others there isn't much to see.

Today was one of those lucky days as I found this fabulous hexie quilt. 

I love hexie's and I would love to make a quilt one day, but in the mean time I can admire and enjoy the love, time and patience that went into to making this one. 

Wouldn't you love to know it's history? 

The thought that someone somewhere sat and took all those different fabrics from curtains, bed linens and clothes paper pieced them into hexagons and then hand stitched them all together with teeny tiny stitches is incredible.

I"m not sure of it's age but it has two diamond jubilee badges sewn onto the centre hexie of a lilac pretty flower.

The fabrics are varied in colour and type 

and have that wonderful aged appearance that you  wouldn't get with new fabrics. 

Although it needs a little repair here and there I think it's amazing!

I love the randomness of it, 

which is unusual for me because I love a bit of order and symmetry to most things!

It's a lightweight quilt and has been backed onto what looks like an old bed sheet with a little wadding inside

It will need a wash first and I would have like to have taken some photos outside but it's just too, too wet and soggy outside so this masterpiece will be packed away until the weather improves and then it will be mended and used, which is the only thing that you should do with something so beautiful, I just wish I could say it was all my own work. Maybe one day I will.  

So how much did I pay for this stunning piece of hand crafted work....

the princely sum of £7.99

A bargain right????

a BIG old round up......

 I really seem to be out of the habit of blogging at the moment, although I am still managing (only just) to keep up with all your posts. I think I just need to manage my time a little lot better! 

Oh and thank you for all my birthday wishes x

So what's been happening in my little corner of the world then...

Well the most important event was today as my baby turned 5, I can't quite believe that at lunchtime 5 years ago I was busy pushing a new life into the world whilst Paul was enjoying a cup of tea and chat with the midwife!!!

Tomas loved his chair and desk and has been happily writing away since coming home from school. It's his party on Sunday and we will have 30 odd 4 and 5 years bouncing up and down on a bouncy castle!! Wish me luck!

Right onto some crafty makes now.

Back at the beginning of February I finally got around to recovering our dining room chairs, they were originally cream but had recently become so mucky that it was a tad embarrassing when we had friends over. So armed with some bargain curtain fabric and a staple gun the chairs were recovered in no time, why I had put it off for so long I don't know!!! I did try to recover the grotty iron board too but for some reason it turned out a bit small so no photo of my epic fail!!!

Also back in February I took part in the Heart Swap and here is what I sent my swap partner Lisa over at NoodleBubble. Lisa likes owls so I tried to incorporate those into the heart theme too.

One of the reason for not blogging is that I have been really busy sewing here are some of my recent makes....

some drawstring bags for a party planner

notebook covers, a personalised horse racing one

and an oriental embellished one.

a football themed PE bag

personalised napkins (I found another great tutorial on how to get the best mitred corners)

 Some lovely Easter makes

 A couple of patchwork striped bags, one for knitting and one for crochet.

My first ever fully finished quilt. A gift for one of Tomas' friends.

A marvel comic fabric cushion.

Phew! that's a lot of makes!!!

It hasn't all be hard work though there have been some shopping trips along the way too and although I haven't got photos of everything I have picked up a bargain or too.

The bobbin lamp wasn't a bargain as such but I had my eye on it since before Christmas and thought that I had missed out because the new version in the Spring NEXT catalogue is a different colour so I was thrilled to see it still for sale on the website and snapped it up. Had to pay full price but it was worth it...

There has been some fabric shopping too some you can see in the makes above, the marvel comic fabric, the stars fabric and the wonderful horse racing fabric. Whilst I was shopping for the fabric to make the grey Easter basket some fabulous fox fabric fell in the my shopping cart as well, I'm not sure what I will make yet but it will be mine all mine!

There have been a couple of new charity shops open in our area recently but I haven't had time recently to pop in so on Tuesday Paul surprised me with a trip to the Boreham one and I picked up lots of goodies, a Next mid brown cord jacket, ideal for when the weather gets warmer, a pair of Per Una jeans, a rugby lover glass for Jack, a couple of t shirts for Tomas, a mini hot water bottle and the basket in the picture above all the just under £20. I do like a charity shop that is realistic with its prices and the staff are lovely too.

Well hopefully that is me up to date, one thing I wanted to mention was pen pals, I was paired with the lovely Millicent and a little while ago I wrote a rather long and rambling letter to her, today I received her reply in the post. I'm really looking forward to getting to know Millicent through our snail mail letters but she has been feeling a bit under the weather recently so pop over and say hello and brighten her day.

I still have a few more WIP's but will post about those once they are finished, thanks for reading this rather long post and I will be back soon xx

PS just click on any of my photos to make them bigger, if you want to that is....