I met my goal!!

All of a sudden this last week of March was here and all of a sudden I realised I had only a few days to work some little magic and get some goals completed - but - yaay - I did it!
My one monthly goal (OMG) for March was to transform a rather sad looking lump of fabric into a cushion...a ufo that had sat around for a couple of years when I got (very) behind in SewCalGals's FMQ cushion challenges. (I posted about this goal *here*).

Hunting through my shelves for inspiration, I came across the book Dream Feathers by Peggy Holt - I'd fallen in love with this book, and even ran a giveaway for a second copy, back in 2013.

Peggy has a slightly different way of making feathers, where you make feathers against a basic shape, when they get big, you use the last large (individual) feather as the spine of a new set of feathers, and so on; this methods creates lovely indulating sets of spineless feathers. If it helps the photo below shows what I'm trying to describe!

So I set about playing, had a ball, and finished my cushion centre!

A bit of simple ruler work and the border was done.

 A little more sewing and the cushion was together. In went the cushion inner I'd purchased back in 2013.

It's been a while since I've done any feather play so I really enjoyed finishing this up.

I didn't do one of the fun scrappy backs that I like to do as I actually had enough fabric this time! I did, however, use *this* tutorial to make a zipped closure rather than my usual buttoned one.

Remember the days when buttons, zips, fastenings were carefully unpicked before worn clothing was recycled and became new clothing or rags? This zip was in a pile Mum gave me and I suspect it was out of a dress!
You can find the end of month link up for OMG on Elm Street Quilts...thank you Patty for hosting us and giving me the little push I needed to complete this UFO.
I'm also linking up with Joy, of Days Filled with Joy, with Finishing Stitches, her monthly UFO Challenge. It sure is nice to have another one done!

I had a lovely few hours sewing with some friends yesterday. I hadn't yet had a chance to work on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour of red (for March) so I took along my bucket of red scraps. Using a couple of the blocks I was gifted by Sue (Mother Patchwork) as a starting point, I sewed two more scrappy sprout blocks.

(The photo of them all together is a little dull sorry - I took it first thing this morning well before the sun had risen!)
Red appears to be my favourite colour (as I'm not short of red scraps) so I would have expected to have made about 20 of these this month but it wasn't to be. I can always add to these later on :-)
Thank you to Angela for running the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - even though I didn't use many of my reds, it was still nice to rummage through them!

I'm not usually very big on advertising on blogs but you may have noticed that I have added some links to my sidebar. All three of our girls (our two daughters plus our daughter-in-law) are running their own businesses so I have added the links to their websites. I realise that most of you live nowhere near them, but it doesn't hurt to promote these small businesses does it? And you never know who might be reading and who knows who and so on! (And while a Chiropracter cant really help via the airwaves, maybe a Graphic Designer can?!) Thank you in advance for your interest and support :-)

Happy Stitches,