Buttonberry

進歩

Right then if all went to plan, that title will be in Japanese!!!

It means "Progress" or at least that's what an English to Japanese translation website assures me it means!  I have no idea because I can't speak or read or write a single word of Japanese and that is sad because I am utterly addicted to these:

I have these amazing Japanese craft books all around my house (I retrieved this pile from under my bed to photograph them as I was too lazy to wander downstairs!)  I would LOVE to be able to read them

But then, to be honest, with pictures like these painting at least 1000 words each, does it really matter??

I have endured many smirks and eye-rolls from friends about this but today it ends because today I am ready to unveil my first ever project made from one of these wonderful books.  Ladies and possibly gentlemen I give you...POT MAT OF PEA

Yes that is it's name and I love that as much as anything.  I know that the binding is poor and needs redoing and I know that Jo (the recipient) would no more stand a pot on this than I would and that some of the peas are more like 50 pence pieces but nonetheless I love it!

I also feel that the floodgates are open and I am no longer afraid to plunge headlong into these books and give it a go!  Today "Pot Mat of Pea", tomorrow "Luncheon mat of flower"....possibly. 

Emma :o)

Still Here!

 Oh we're so sorry - really truly sorry for our absence!

We have been doing good and not so good things which have kept us busy as bees - good things include holidays and wandering around places such as this...

...tough job I know but I was brave...:o)

There's also been some stressy stuff keeping us busy and away from the sewing machine but this is a happy blog and since we've all got stuff which makes us feel miserable once in a while, we didn't think you'd thank us for waffling on about our troubles!  Suffice to say, we're fine and normal sewing service is being resumed as we speak!

One of the things that has kept us smiling are all the lovely cards we get from you saying hello or thanks or whatever you like - the BB notice board is fairly heaving with them so thank you all for them, they're always so welcome and lots of them are hand made too which is just fantastic! 

Here is just one of the beautiful things that our postman has dropped off for us recently. 

This was made for us by the lovely Jan Gregory with some of the things we send to her (quite regularly actually Jan isn't it?!)  We are only fighting a little bit over who gets to hang it in their house...!!

Here are some close ups.....

Anyway, we promise to be posting some projects that we've been working on very soon so thanks for sticking with us!

Emma xxx

Drum Roll Please.....

...because we have a winner!  Yey!!!

Thanks so much to all of you who left us feedback on our new look - good and bad, we're glad of it!  Thank you thank you.  We've had storms which means problems with internet connections which means we resorted to the old fashioned - pulling out of a hat (not a hat as such, more a bowl really) method of selecting our winner and without further ado, we're sending congratulations and this fab Moda project bag to Silvia Broekhuis - yey!  (Silvia we have mailed you...)

Sorry if you didn't get picked but we'll do more competitions we promise.  In the meantime, we thought you might like to see what's been keeping us so quiet this last week or so...

As you may or may not know we've braved heaving seas (check out this view from our cabin on the way out)...

...made slightly more bearable by this view of the inside of our cabin...

After a relatively incident-free car journey (Lisa knows this to be a lie..) we made it and well what do you do when faced with this lot?

Easy really, you fill up loads of these...(this is just one of many!)

And because having so much fun is so terribly exhausting, you stop for plenty of these

We were terribly lucky when we got there to be able to see - in real life - some of Yoko Saito's fantastic quilts.  Here's a couple for you to marvel at...

Now the reason Lisa is looking so astonished here is that close up, the background of this quilt is made up of teeny tiny squares - see?

So we've had a terrible weekend as you can see, but we've braved it and we're back!  Tough job eh?

Back in the factory....

Well it is that time of year again, you know the time - when nine months after Mummy's and Daddy's were fed up of the short dark nights and little to watch on T.V. - yes, the influx of new borns joining our little world has begun again. Well in my world anyway, I swear I have a real life queue and 2 year old backlog for little quilts to wrap all those new arrivals in!

I have taken a little break in my gruelling schedule to pop by, say hi (hey that rhymes - i'm a poet & i know it.... hmmm okay it sounded better when i was five) and show you a few photos of my first gift all packaged up and ready to go to it's new owner, who should arrive very shortly!!

Since the quilt is for a little 'un i only used 100% cotton & washed it all once it was completed on a 30 degree wash. I then simply line dried & popped it in the tumble dryer for a few minutes to give that ruffled, softened look to make it nice and inviting! These quilts get better with age, i find the more they're washed and used the better! I popped the care instructions on the back of the gift label and simply rolled it all up and tied with a bow....

The quilt itself was made with charm squares from Moda's folklorique range, it is really beautiful and very versatile - i was easily able to swap in other fabrics from my stash! I decided to add a little bit of lace here and there to give it a vintage girly feel, this was really simple to do i just stitched the lace in whilst joining my squares horizontally, i then pressed the lace into position when pressing my seams before joining all my rows together. If anyone is interested in more detail as to how this is done just shout!

I also actually started off by hand quilting this project, it is something i have always really wanted to do but never had much confidence, unfortunately i got half way through and bottled it as it was taking me so long (i'm such a novice), that i knew i would never finish in time!!

In the end I quilted in the same style using the machine, i backed it in a simple yellow Moda essential dot and bound it in some beautiful pink polka from lecien!

Phew! Now i'm sure that was much more of a break than i am allowed so i best get back to it, 1 down, many more to go!!

Lisa xxx

PS:  thanks so much to all of you who have left a comment on our "facelift" post.  If you haven't - there's still time!  We'll draw the winnder next week...good luck!

Botox 0, New look without surgery 1

Well after a lot of deliberation, umming, aahing and going back to our (very pretty) drawing board - here it is, our 'budget' facelift without even having to leave the house!

Now since it is such a big change we thought we would trial it for a little while to see how we  & you like it ('cos you're all very important to us)! We need to know if there are any urgent reports of 'cross eyedness', we're fully aware that this is a serious condition, after playing around with polkas for a couple of weeks! It isn't to be sniffed at - honestly we're sure it even has a technical term - here at BBHQ it is simply known as googly eyes (we even had a bundle in it's honour)!!

Now around here we'll use any excuse for a competiton and since we have gone and given ourselves a little makeover, we think one of you lucky readers deserve something too! As you probably all know next week we're off to our supplier  - it's terribly hard work buying fabric and gorgeous things all day (honest) - but since we are surrounded by gorgeous things, what better place to find a lovely gift? All you have to do is leave a comment, we'll buy the gift and use our super random generator thingy to pick one of you to be the recipient on our return :)

So anyhoooo without further ado, welcome to a new look - behind-the-scenes - Buttonberry, we hope you visit often and enjoy listening to us country girls ramble while we work full time & run our business  - just for the love of it :)

Lisa & Emma

xxxx

"Awesome serendipity"

Hello - how great is it when you rummage about looking for something and end up finding something EVEN better!  Serendipity - that might be the word.   Anyway, whatever the word is, look please just LOOK at what I found when rummaging for some embroidery threads at my mum's house.

As soon as I saw these I remembered them from when I was little (yes, only 5 years ago - you can tell from the style of them.....) but how could I NOT have remembered them until then??  They are - to quote Lisa* - "awesome"!!!  My mum and my auntie made them (this is the tip of the iceberg) and when asked what they were to become I just got blank looks and a "well, nothing".  They just did it for the sheer joy of sitting and sewing and chatting (I say "chat" as it sounds nicer than "gossip")   The outputs might be different but the principle is still the same for us today when we meet on a Tuesday (and on a Thursday in mum and auntie's case - how dare they have that much free time....)

I just can't believe the work that went into these.....just look!

Now for the real clincher.  Uncropped you can see what they are made from - panels from a linen skirt!!!  Recycling before it was fashionable! 

I desperately want these to become something, I don't know what.  I can't even credit the person who wrote the pattern as I've not a clue (neither have they) where it came from!  I can't (daren't) iron them for now so I'll just be content in looking at them in all their funky feline glory.

Emma xx

*I have not locked Lisa up.  She is working her socks off on our facelift (I'm being helpful by saying - "shall I eat some biscuits, will that help?"), she's built a deck at her house, made numerous quilts and is now making costumes for the entire cast of a dance show.  She's just lazy really.  (And I of course am able to write this confident in the knowledge that the poor girl won't have the time to read it!) 

British Weather 1 - Buttonberry Blog 0

Well, since that last post, you will be surprised to hear that the met office have NOT been on the phone and they have NOT offered me a job forecasting weather for them!!!  If you were lucky enough to have some of the amazing weather we had in Suffolk this weekend then you'll know what I mean!  I shall write predicting rain more often!

I did however stay true to my word and dig into that stash - rather fortuitously, this book that I'd ordered a while ago arrived on Saturday (what an appropriate name)

It's a lovely book and has lots of inspiring projects which really do encourage use of stash and the quilts are photographed in really nice settings (the one of the front is on the beach which put me even more in the mood to play with fabric, even though the weather was mighty fine!)

In particular, a project called "Sweet Dreams" caught my eye.  It uses this block which is called "Walter's Place" apparantly. (I know it's not pressed properly and the points are off but just squint ok, it'll look great)

I have made a start - see...

The jar is to stop the blocks flying all over the place and I also stuffed the offcuts in there - actually, it's quite a good tip because when you're cutting lots of different fabrics you can see at a glance the balance of colour by checking out the offcuts jar.  I discovered that quite by accident!  There are (and this is an estimate) about four million triangles in each block so you can imagine my horror when I lovingly arranged the blocks I've made on my bed and at a conservative estimate I need to make 57 of the blighters to actually cover my bed.  I am not a person with a great deal of patience so I'm sharing this in the hope it will guilt me into finishing this project!

Finally, and totally unrelated to anything at all, I wanted to show you this ronunculous (and do PLEASE leave a comment if you know how to spell that properly!) that is blooming gorgeously in our garden, just got it lined up (would've cropped that bag out, obviously) and see who gatecrashed the picture...

Hope the sun is shining on you :o) Emma xxx

Looks like rain..

Hello - here we are standing on the edge of a wonderful long weekend.  Yey!  As is customary with the Bank Holiday, the British weather will make quite sure that any plans we have which involve the outside are kept firmly on tenterhooks!   I've decided that this weekend I will welcome the rain - for one, if we're trapped inside it will mean that we have no choice but to sew!  Not our fault is it?  A little creativity is long overdue on my part - especially since i've been nursing this basket of gorgeousness for a while now (oh it is lethal going to shows!)

Secondly, the rain does rather make this "green and pleasant land" exactly that - green and pleasant!  Earlier this week, I escaped from my desk in my lunch break and went on a little bike ride around and about where we live.  Sunny Suffolk (and it was on that day - look at that sky!) is just BURSTING with "green and pleasant" at the moment and I thought I'd share some of it with you...

(I nearly fell in the hedge taking that one)

I must admit to being slightly worried about my washing on the line when I saw that cloud..

   

Yup, all in, I think i'll try NOT to complain about the rain when it arrives this weekend :o)  Whatever you are doing, have a lovely time!

Emma x

What's that then?

Hello, look at this. 

It's a box of stuff.  It's not a computer or a gadget or china or glasses or anything of that nature at all.  No sireeeeeeeeeeeeee Bob.  "Well what the heck is it then" we hear you cry in a slightly cross voice.  Ok ok, keep your lovely hair on, we'll tell you.  It's only a flippin' bloomun' project for Australian Homespun magazine that's all!!!!  Packaged up and ready to make its long journey to the other side of the world!!!  Can you believe it?  (Don't say no - we want you to believe we are capable of such greatness!)  We are off-the-chart excited about this event.  Oh and that's not all, no there is indeed more to add to this already momentous piece of news - its for the CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!!!!!!!!

So not only are we going to feature in our all-time fave crafting magazine (in the whole world ever) we are going to actually be in the Christmas in July issue.  Honestly, if there was a pumpkin on the front as well then we might just expire with the bliss of it all!

Now then, lots of the ladies whose blogs we frequent do this allllll the time and are totally cool about the whole thing but for us, it is a squeal-worthy piece of news so bear with us - we will bring the pitch back down very soon we promise.  We also noticed that a lot of the ladies who do this sort of thing (the Homespun thing, not the squealing) give you a sneak peak or a glimpse or something of that nature.

So hear you are - have a peep.....

That's all you're getting.  Our lips are sealed and our photos are deleted so there will be no more from us, no more clues, nothing.

Oh one more thing, if you do manage to get the mag, those pictures are NOT of us.  No, we were unavailable on the day of the "shoot" and we had our ugly stand-ins do them for us!

Facelift?

Ok don't get excited, we're not talking botox here.... knowing our luck if we dabbled in such areas our faces would melt as we were bent over the craft iron!! We're talking spring time, spring cleaning - we think the Buttonberry Blog needed a little redecoration, a new coat of paint , you catch our drift?

We're thinking bright and fresh what about these for inspiration?

We're loving the polkas so we're leaning towards PINK! What do you all think, opinions on a pretty postcard please! xxxxx