Yay, it's Christmas!!!  Well, not really but the fabric companies are releasing their Christmas fabrics and they're keen for us to start working with them straight away - the plus side for us is that we can get a lot of our gift making done in advance of December - well that's the idea!!!

This year I'm taking part in 3 blog hops and here are the details:

This blog hop is organised by Sarah @Confessions of a Fabric Addict. There are 25 bloggers involved and It's my turn on the 15th. Sarah will be hosting a daily Quilt Along and promises you too can have this festive quilt top with only 1 hour of work on each of the 12 days.

To give you a chance to get ahead of the game she shares the fabric requirements on here on her blog.



Week beginning 18 July it's Windham Fabrics Christmas in July blog hop.  Here's a sneak peek at the fabrics I'm working with.



Towards the end of July, I'm working with Benartex Fabrics again and here is another fabric sneak peek.



There will be giveaways involved in all the blog hops so keep an eye on my blog if you'd like to enter them as it's possible some of the giveaways may be over by the time I send out my next newsletter :D
 

Three iconic photographs: Richard Avedon: Dovima with Elephants (above left), Sid Avery:James Dean (above right) and Robert Mapplethorpe: Patti Smith (below).  It was amazing to see these photographs as they were intended by the photographer and not in a book.  I was particularly taken with the portrait of James Dean as this image is actually blurred, the image is only in focus in the stitching on the collar and button flap.  I've never picked up that level of detail before.

Just look at these amazing paintings - that's right they're both paintings, hard to believe particularly of the one above.  I included some people in my photo to give a sense of scale - this is huge and you have to really study it to convince yourself it's actually an oil painting.  Rudolf Stingel: Untitled (After Sam).
 

And below is Chuck Close: Lyle - I love all of Chuck's work and those created using this method feel like quilts to me - I've included a detail pic so you can see what I mean.