Hello from the new girl!

Regular visitors to the blog may be a little confused by my unfamiliar face and name, but hopefully as the weeks go by I'll become as familiar as Pete and Angela and the other Sizzix bloggers you know and love!

My name is Katy and I'm a quilter, author and blogger (you can find me the rest of the week at my regular home - Monkey Do), as well as a huge fan of the Sizzix big shot and dies.
If you were fortunate enough to visit the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham last August, you may remember me as being on the Sizzix stand with Angela running the free classes. It was a wonderful few days, and one of the highlights of my year. So, to be asked to become one of the blogging team for Sizzix is really quite exciting. I love to make quilts, and I love to share the process and talk about quilts (possibly a little too much, if you ask my family!)

One of my favourite types of quilt to make is a scrap quilt, and my Big Shot really does get a bashing with the amount of scraps I cut throughout the year. Whenever I make a project I cut the leftovers into squares or strips or triangles for ready made pre-cut pieces, like my very own charm packs or jelly rolls. It makes them far easier to store, and I'm more likely to use them if they're all cut and ready to sew.

Of all the Sizzix dies I probably use 2 more than any others - the Bigz 2.5" square die (either the single square or the Bigz XL longer die that cuts in multiples of 9), and the Bigz XL 2.5" strip.

This weekend I turned a pile of Christmas fabrics (I realise I'm a little late for Christmas, or possibly just incredibly organised for next Christmas - you decide!)...



...into strips....



In order to make matching Christmas quilts for my friend and me (using this free pattern). I'll be sharing my progress over the coming weeks and next Monday I'll have a little project for you to try using scrap squares so get your 2.5" square Bigz die ready for that!

Over the Christmas and New Year period I whipped up the quilt below in just 3 days (for cutting and piecing the patchwork quilt top). The 2.5" strip die made it so simple to cut all of those strips (there were 216 in total from 72 different fabrics!) I also used the same Bigz XL 2.5" strip die to cut strips for the binding.




So there you have it - that's a little introduction into what I like to make and what you can expect to see from me every Monday. I hope you'll stop by regularly and if you have anything you'd like to see then please leave me a comment and I'll do my best to give it a whirl!

Until next time, have a wonderful week and happy quilting!

Katy x