Announcing the Travellin' Pic-Stitch Bloghop

Don't try saying that three times fast!

As you know, Katy and I are going on our own crazy post-Sewing Summit road trip.
We thought we'd sew in some odd places, take photos, play with fabric colours fitting the landscape and see what we can come up with. But we thought "why should we have all the fun?" and "but there will be an awful lot of red rocks and some colour variety would be nice". Soo...

• got an exotic location? or a location that might not be exotic to you but bloggers overseas might find fascinating? (see the boring old Kangaroo I spotted on my dog walk 5 minutes from home? YAWN)
• Got a love of English paper piecing?
• Got a blog or flickr account?

Then join us!
The bloghop will run from October 1 to November 30. You can join in with a blogpost of your own (grab the Travellin' Pic-Stitch button from the sidebar), sew along using your own inspiration, follow the bloggers who will be joining us, or do all of the above!

Katy of ImAGingerMonkey will kick it off on October 1 with her rocking paper piecing skills. On 6 October, Jess of LifeUnderQuilts and creator of the most watched "how to paper piece with a small ginger child on your lap" on the web will be offering some expert pointers that will be of use even to those without a small ginger chilld... (It's a video well worth watching). And some other web-lebrities are joining in too!

Paperpieces.com is providing a discount code for any hoppers and there will be a linky party with some AMAZING prizes on November 30... Read on for more juicy details..

What do you have to do?
I'm glad you asked!
1) Take a photo to start with. Somewhere great.
2) Create a palette from the colours in the photo. You can do this by eye or you can use something like Degrave's Color Palette Generator or Play Craft's palette builder or Adobe Ideas for Ipad to do something like this: 

Aww, nice kanga.

3) Pick a selection of fabrics which match the photo palette and name it if you like.

(I'm calling this collection Peek-a-Roo...)

4) Choose an English paper pieced block (such as Katy's Spring Carnival or Rachel's starblossom) and sew it in those fabrics. We'll give you a rundown on some popular blocks and what you need shortly.

5) Write a post or flickr post it including a link back to the main page either at QuokkaQuilts or LittlestThistle.

6) Link up on November 30th!

There you are! If you're not inspired already, check out the sponsors and prizes!

Paperpieces.com are offering you a code to help you sew along with the bloghop. Enter PAPER20 in the voucher code box and then hit ok you will receive a 20% off discount.

Fabricworm are offering a fat quarter bundle of the beautiful, organic Scamper.

Pink Castle Fabrics are offering up a warm and a cool Fat Eight Bundle as a prize and a code for bloghoppers.

Tammy at Marmalade Fabrics  is offering up a1/2 yard bundle of Kona Modern Quilts (Pacific color-way)!

Image borrowed from Stitched In Color - Rachel is bloghopping too!

Fat Quarter Shop are offering a bundle of the oh-so-beautiful Indie.

Aurifil are offering THREE drool-worthy sets of BEAUTIFUL threads.... Take a look.

The first giveaway will be from Jane at WantItNeedItQuilt, so keep an eye out for that one!

We'll give you some links to resources and ideas SOON. And some of our first blog-stops will be how-tos and helpful hints, so don't be scared if you haven't EPP'd before! If you need some Pinspiration, check this out.

There are a few places left if you'd like to be a pitstop on the bloghop so let us know and we'll send you the deets. If you don't have a blog and just want to sew along and join up on November 30th, please do! It's going to be heaps of fun!