A Quilting Chance To Win $2,000?

Who doesn't recognise this beautiful, iconic interior? - Grand Central Station, Manhattan.  

  When this photo was taken 3 years ago we were in NYC on holiday from the UK, I had no idea that 11 months later I'd be living here!

Well this year Grand Central Station celebrates it 100th birthday

 I snapped this photo when I was passing through last week.

 My favourite part of the station just has to be the fabulous ceiling

The City Quilter has created 2 exclusive new fabrics in 2 colourways to celebrate the Station's birthday.  They arrived in store while I was at Sarah Fielke's Trunk Show so, of course, I had to buy just a small amount of each to play with!

 This is Grand Central (Aqua)

and here's Grand Central (Aqua) alongside GCT Constellations (Aqua) - Constellations is a study of that wonderful GCT ceiling!

 and here's the Aqua colourway alongside the Beige/Ivory.

And now for the really fab news, and probably what you're all here to find out about! There's a Quilt Challenge organised by American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine & The City Quilter in association with the NY Transit Museum & The Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  

and

the top prize is $2,000!!!

The competition rules are available here and below I've taken a photo of the handout also available in CQ.

Now that's a challenge well worth joining in with but please note the rules do state 'US residents only'.

Updated at 20 May 2014

Of course I wasn't actually able to take part in the challenge as I went and got myself a job at The City Quilter.  You can read all about it here along with a post about the winners of the competition and another about the quilt exhibition opening night at Grand Central Station.

In other news I've had another fantastic week on the blogging front, being featured on 3 terrific blogs:

My Quilted Pillow Cushion With Hidden Zipper Tutorial has been featured
by Kym @Totally Tutorials
and also by Jill @Creating my way to Success

and my Strip Sashing QAYG Method was featured by Pam @Threading My Way
and Pam also made me her feature blog of the week on her side bar.

A very big thank you to everyone :)

As if that wasn't enough, today I woke up to read a really special blog post by my great friend Sarah @Quilt Candy doing the sweetest, kindest shout out for my blog and thanking me for some goodies I sent over to her in a surprise package.
You can read all about it here!!!

All in all it's been a fantastic week but the absolute highlight has to be Flicky's Prom last Friday and here's a handful of photos from the day that I just have to share with you!

Hair by Whitney and Jess @Toni & Guy, Hoboken; pre-Prom photos in the Manhattan garden of my good friend Karen from The City Quilter; arriving at pre-Prom party in Soho; and finally a photo taken from my living room window of Flicky's Prom Cruise Yacht, the Majestic Princess, sailing down the Hudson River - she phoned me as they sailed past and I was busy waving to everyone!!!

Hoping you all have a wonderful week ahead of you :)

Chrissie

Looking Back At My Week

Thursday - visited Karen Haynes, my tutor for the Sparkle Plenty quilt, who has since become a good friend.  Karen was home on bed rest awaiting the arrival of her twin babies so we spent the afternoon talking all things quilty and baby and girly.  I did marvel at Karen's rented apartment wall - I've never heard of this before - dare I say it "only in NY"? ... great idea though!  By Saturday those babies refused to wait any longer and thrilled everyone with their arrival - a huge welcome to Georgia Maeve and Weston Michael :)

Friday - Daughter, F, had her hair cut and dyed again - here's a peek at how it looks this time, I love, love, love it

Hair by Peter & Jess at Toni & Guy, Maxwell Place, Hoboken

Saturday - Got smashing news from my eldest son, JA, that this week he'll successfully complete his CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and has accepted at job at a language school in the centre of Seville, Spain, starting next week through to June/July next year.  Excellent news and we're all really thrilled for you JA, you deserve everything for all your hard work xxx

Took my first trip out to 2 Stix & a String, a new wool shop on York Street, Jersey City with E & M from my Jersey City Crafty Knitters Meetup group.  The shop is fab - Karen, the owner, is very welcoming as are the farmhouse kitchen table and chairs so you can sit, chat and knit and the yarns are sooooo delicious, I was spoilt for choice.  I finally settled on a great knit and crochet hat book imaginatively titled Hats!  I stayed a while at the shop and started crocheting the Bobbly beanie using Rowan Cocoon in Lavender Ice - it's an 80/20 Merino wool and Kid mohair mix and scrummy to use.  Finished the hat later on Saturday evening, it's going to be a gift for someone very soon so can't share photos just yet.

That's me outside 2 Stix & a String, 234 York Street Jersey City

Monday - October Bee Block fabric and instructions arrived.  Another great month with Queen Bee Bernadette giving us lots of freedom with the design so I'm already well underway with my planning.  I'll post about it separately once the block's completed.

Tuesday - Since I started blogging I've made some great blogging friends and one of these is Sarah of Sarah Sews Quilting Blog.  A few weeks ago we were discussing the merits of air erasable pens and I mentioned that my pen had run out of ink and I was having a bit of difficulty getting hold of the identical pen here in the States.  Turned out Sarah was having a similar problem on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy.  Within days a friend of Sarah's had picked up a couple of the pens in England for the two of us and Sarah posted it off to me, how fab is that?

Well this morning the pen arrived, but not just the pen ... Sarah also sent me these goodies - how cute are they and I'm loving the Kath Kidston Notecard?  Thank you, thank you, thank you Sarah, your timing is perfect - I need the pen to draw quilting designs on my Dad's Memory Quilt and also my Double Irish Chain Quilt, I'm so happy and grateful :)

Pop over to Sarah's blog and her Flickr page and take a look, she's studying for the City and Guilds Design and Craft Level 3 Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting with the The School of Stitched Textiles and her work is so fun, cute, crisp and simply perfect.

My parcel of goodies - thank you Sarah :)

The rest of the week - every day I've been doing some quilting on my Dad's Memory Quilt for my Mum.  My right shoulder is giving me some pain at the moment and each time I quilt it aggravates it further, so I've been doing it a little at a time but I'm not moving on with it as fast as I'd like.

Tomorrow - I'm so excited about meeting fabric designer Tula Pink at 12 noon when she does her trunk show in Manhattan - I'll take pics to share if I can

TULA PINK 

The fabric designer, quilter, sewer extradinaire, Tula Pink will give an insightful
talk about her love of sewing and the creative process that has allowed her to produce four fabric
collections, and become a national spokesperson for Bernina. Along with sewing and talking,
Tula will have an extensive trunk show to share during these free sessions.

And finally, for my round-up of the last week here's the latest posts and tutorials for you to check out as part of Plum and June's Let's Get Acquainted! Blog Hop:

10 Tips For Better Blog Photos from Holly at Bijou Lovely

Peak Hour Quilt tutorial from Jen at Closet Quilter

Reversible Coaster tutorial from Amanda at Fabric Engineer

Charming Hexagonal Table Topper tutorial from Amanda at Material Girl Quilts

Anna at Pink Padme
 Lina at Smultronbo's Pieceful

A Weekend Update

To round up my week, in one of my last posts I told you I was going to spend the day sewing - and I did. I made a baby quilt but, having machine sewn the binding to the front I've decided not to hand bind the back until I've got myself some labels professionally made - I've been meaning to do this for so long and it's time to get myself sorted.  Set about it on Friday but it turned out to be a much bigger task than I'd anticipated so this quilt may not be bound for a while yet!

So here's a quick peek at where I'm up to

I'm also trialling a larger font for my posts.  I was reading a post by Julie of Jolie Maxtin and she asked for feedback on her blog - everyone was incredibly positive about her great blog but one comment was that the text was a bit small, and I did rather agree.  Quickly checked my own blog and realised my text is the same size, hence my experiment in larger text. Let me know what you think: should I keep it this size or go back to my original format; does it make my posts seem way too long; and any other comments please?


I'm still trying to catch up with Plum & June's Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop - having joined late I've still got 6 blogs left to visit to get me on track.

This week I've visited the following blogs and can recommend you take a look at them too:

Book Cover tutorial by Taryn of From Pixels to Patchwork

Novelty print charm square patchwork ruffle skirt by Em from Sewing by Moonlight

Little Artist Backpack by Svetlana of Sotak Handmade

School Rules Mini Quilt Tutorial by Beth of Plum and June (and our fab host on this blog hop :) )

A Quick and Easy Placemat by Julie from Jolie Maxtin

Pot Holder and Oven Mitt Tutorial by Lori from Adventures in Fabric

Yesterday my daughter, F, and I spent the afternoon over at Toni & Guy in Hoboken.  When we moved over to the States we were worried about who we'd get to do our hair having had the same fab hairdresser back in England for many years and realising that it just wasn't practical to contemplate flying him over every six weeks, even if he had become my best friend (I'm sure all you ladies know just what we must have been feeling).  Anyway, we needn't have worried - we headed up to Toni & Guy (as it's such a known English brand we hoped we couldn't go too wrong) and it's the best thing we did since we arrived in the US (alongside from me learning to quilt and getting Tatty, our dog) .  F's hair is coloured by Jess then Peter cuts it and my hair is cut by Whitney.  The salon is fabulous, ultra modern and spotlessly clean and the staff are amazing and friendly and look after you brilliantly - on top of which the haircuts are fantastic.

F modelled for them at their recent Freedom collection promotion - and we had a great night out at the event.

F, centre stage with Zak Mascolo, Creative Director, T&G USA who cut her hair

F, looking fab :)

In the audience, two proud parents :)

So this time, F, decided to go for a really short cut, I've wanted her to do it for a few years now - she had her hair in a pixie cut when she was very small and looked great so I thought it would really suit her.  Jess put some great platinium blonde through her hair and Peter gave her the most WOW haircut, what do you think?!

I know she's my daughter but I think she's stunning x

I keep going back to my Dad's shirts - it's taking me so long to cut them back to flat, usable fabric - I think this bit will take longer than actually making the quilt, anyway it makes sure I'm never idle!