Fat Quarterly and a Birthday

Well today I have news.  Firstly a quilt I designed is going into Fat Quarterly, the wonderful e-zine for modern quilters, which goes on sale this week.  The theme of this edition is pre-cuts, which I love love love as some of you may have noticed.  And secondly, it was my Mum's birthday party yesterday and I want to show you what we gave her.

So firstly Fat Quarterly, imagine my excitement when Tacha asked me to design a pre-cuts quilt in Dr Seuss fabrics for their e-zine.  I have two boys so am always on the look-out for boy quilts.  Here is a sneak peek of Jack lying on the sofa just now snuggled up under his quilt which I called "Comic Strip" and which you will, I am afraid, have to wait until Wednesday for FQ to be issued, to see it in its full glory and to find out how to make it.

For her birthday, my Mum asked for a family tree quilt from her three daughters (I am the difficult middle one).  I made this using shot cottons on a soft paisley background and free motion quilted the names on.  We gave it to her yesterday and she loved it (or is a good faker).

As an extra surprise present, we gave her a set of the most beautiful Japanese handkerchiefs you have ever seen.  If I had the time at the party, I would have photographed every single one to show you - the colours are so soft and beautiful and each one has the most wonderful simple designs on representing a letter of the alphabet.  Here is a picture of them all lined up in a gift box we put them in.  Here is a link to the Japanese shop they come from although they do not ship them outside Japan.  

And here is a picture of my Mum holding up the "J" handkerchief to show to Ayumi  (one of the nicest and kindest people in quiltblogland and flickrland) who found these for us in the first place.  And yes, this is the UK and we are in the garden in t-shirts although I did spill coffee all down mine.