When Helen Philipps invited me to be part of the book tour for her gorgeous new release Home Sweet Home Sewing, I was so super excited! I've followed Helen for quite a while now and have some of her other books. She is an incredible designer, her projects are so inspiring and her style and photography is beautiful. 

When the book arrived I had a hard time choosing a project. There is a lovely mix of projects that are quite quick to make, and projects that take a bit longer and have lots of hand stitched details. The book has projects in that use a range of techniques too from machine piecing, to embroidery to English paper piecing. I chose the Little Birds Doll Quilt because it uses a lovely combination of machine piecing, embroidery and appliqué. 

I'd recently received a beautiful bundle of Liberty exclusive fabrics for my birthday and I new they had to feature in this little quilt. I'd also received a new mini iron as a birthday gift and it is literally the best mini iron ever! I wanted to improve my machine piecing skills and I spent a couple of lovely afternoons cutting the little squares and sewing them up. I found that just taking my time, pinning the seams carefully and pressing with my new mini iron really helped me to get the seams to line up well.

Once the quilt top was done, I took my time over the subsequent weeks, embroidering the little birds and stitching the flowers on. The pattern uses buttons in the centre of the flowers but the buttons I had didn't look right so I just added some French knots instead. 

This is a doll quilt but I am going to use it as a wall hanging in my sewing room. Therefore I just quilted it simply by hand with a diagonal running stitch. 

This was one of those projects that I didn't want to end (even though I am thrilled to have a new mini quilt in my sewing room) because I loved every stitch. Thank you so much Helen for inviting me to be part of this lovely tour. Make sure you check out the rest of the tour, there are so many wonderful makers taking part. The hashtag is homesweethomesewing. The book is available at local bookshops as well as Amazon. Thank you so much to Helen and Tuva Publishing for my copy of the book and for having me on the tour.

Giveaway now closed. Thank you to everyone who entered, I enjoyed reading about your favourite flowers. Random number generator picked number 25 and that was Janet Lockland. Congratulations! I've sent you an email Janet. 

Every day I am blown away by the incredible support I am shown by all of you. I am truly thankful and I wish I could find a way to give back to each and every one of you. As a small gesture, and to say thank you also for the 20 thousand followers I now have on Instagram, I thought I would do a little giveaway. I tried to host it on Instagram but for some reason Instagram seemed to think my post was branded content (which I have never done) and they seemed to think I was breaking their rules if I didn't tag a brand. I think it's just a case of their computer algorithm getting it wrong. But just in case my account would be compromised, I thought I would have it here instead. 

Over on Youtube this week I showed a little video where I made some floral art work. For the giveaway prize, I will make something similar for the winner. To enter, leave a comment on this blog post letting me know what your favourite flower is! I will leave the giveaway open until October 20th 8pm UK time and then I will randomly pick a winner and announce it on Instagram. You will have to leave your name on your comment so I can get in touch with you.
Thanks so much, for your incredible support.