FMQ Feather Border & Stash Stack Club

I have been quilting a little when I haven't been able to sleep from cough. A very special little quilt this, but since it's going to be a gift, I don't want to show the whole thing until it's been gifted. But I'll tell you I'm loving this quilt and it will be really hard to part from it. After some practice I decided to go for FMQ feathers for the borders, all thanks to the help of the December tutorial from the FMQ Challenge, by Patsy Thompson.

It's not perfect but 100% freehand, the only marking I did was a line for the start and end and middle where the feathers meet and I'm super happy with the result of my first FMQ feather border =)

The brilliance of painters tape when quilting borders!
The painters tape was a new thing on my side, I hate quilting the borders because they tend to bunch up, get stuck and just be generally tricky to hold down nice and flat. With the tape I could mark off what would be hidden by the binding and at the same time tape the top to the batting to ensure I could easily quilt it all while it stayed in place. I will always tape the outside edges of my quilts before doing border designs from now on, makes life so much easier! =)

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A little belated but I naturally received my Stash Stack Club for January & February =)

January was purple and all the fabrics where just so yummy! Delish! <3 My favorite is the second one from the bottom, Orchid Citadel - Cuzco by Kate Spain tightly followed by the top print, Leafy Stripe in Eggplant - Simply Color.

For February there was blue on the menu, some where oh so lovely - but I wasn't a fan of the bottom two. They felt like "grandma fabrics" (not judging my grandma here, she has fantastic taste, just your "typical grandma") with the yellowish white contrast and washed out look, not my cup of tea. I have to say, after 8 months I've receivd 2 fabrics that I didn't really fancy - this club is awesome! =D

Interfacing Free Storage Basket

After our IKEA order I need storage baskets for our new shelves in the bathroom (sadly only half of the shelf was in stock so it hasn't been assembled fully yet, but enough so I could try out baskets ^^). After looking at a number of different options I found a tutorial one over at Jezze Prints that sounded perfect, no interfacing needed and still washable as the cardboard was removable. Brilliant!

I cut into some of my beloved Tula Pink the Birds & the Bee's fabric for this as it was the perfect shade of purple/plum for the bathroom decor and I just LOVE the outcome!

I had some small difficulties knowing what was what in the tutorial so if you want to make your own, the small piece (at the top in the pattern piece image) is the bottom piece, which is dark gray in my version and visible here. The Bee fabric on the outside is the rectangular piece.

And the Lazy Stripe is the middle (biggest) lining piece in the pattern. 

I also wanted a cardboard bottom for mine to make it perfectly rigid. But I wasn't interested in adding even more pieces to this so instead of sewing the bottom piece (grey) to the lining piece around the top as suggested in the pattern, I sewed it only in the seams at the sides as suggested in version two. Then when all was stitched together (as you can see I did the side seams as in version one anyway) you can measure your bottom (mine was 15x15 cm) and cut a piece of cardboard that size. Fold the cardboard once in the middle, stick it in between the two lining pieces (this will make sense once you have your own basket before you) before adding the edge cardboard, unfold it and have a hard, cardboard bottom too, not just sides. The bottom piece  is removable too - just like the sides for washing. =)

My Sewing Room & IKEA Hack - Benno DVD Tower as Fabric Storage

We made an order for some stuff from IKEA  a while back and I ordered two Benno DVD towers, and one Billy Olsbo glass door. We screwed the towers together and added the door (fits perfectly!) and voila, one super cheap, perfect fabric storage shelf with dust cover! When folded over my ruler, fat quarters and half yards fit perfectly in the little shelves! I'm so happy to finally have my little stash out of the plastic boxes so I can actually see what I have!

Makes it so much easier to use the fabrics and they're such an inspiration when you walk into the room. They're not deep, which leaves me with a bit of floor space for laying out quilts which is much needed in my little sewing- (or "guest-" as my fiance insists on calling it) room. ! =)
Aren't the fabrics just so gorgeous all neatly piled and color sorted?

As my little stash is missing a few colors yet, I had lots of fun decorating the empty shelves a little for now. The bumblebees and the flowers are made by my amazing mother.

My shiny and nice quilting threads and my little guardian angel, also a gift from my dear mom. <3

And I even have room for one more next to it for the future, if my stash ever outgrows this one.

It also gave me the opportunity to clear out my previous stash shelf, I'm not going to show you before pictures but if you want a picture, imagine my sewing room throwing up all over this poor shelf ^^ In the future, I'd really love to exchange this and the table for something white...

Previously I had all my threads tossed in a box, it was hard to find what I wanted and get an overview of what I had so I modified this pretty box with little cardboard pieces to keep them neatly sorted and prevent them from rolling around. It's the black one at the bottom of the middle shelf in the photo above. Pretty, pretty colors!

The only use my poor quilt rulers have seen lately...

... is as wallpapering tools :(

We've been super busy lately, we're redesigning one of our games and it's taking all our time, all work and no quilting for me. We stole some time one day a few days ago to redecorate our home a little by adding some wallpaper.Walls here in Malta are 99% of the cases always just a bright white, it's a very depressing, hospital like feeling so we decided to go for some wallpaper on a couple of walls to get a more homey, inspirational work and living environment. An awesome move if I may say so myself. =)

We did however choose some seriously difficult wallpapers to put up, they where terrible work to get to match up perfectly.

Love the wallpaper we chose for the bedroom, it's a purple python pattern, sounds horrible I know but so much fun, you can't help but smile when you enter our bedroom now and it actually works really great I think. Can't wait to have time to design a purple quilt to go with it. I have the design all sketched up, just no time to actually make it... Will try and get some nice pictures of the finished areas once I have had time to clean.