I'm back...

So after 2 whole years of not posting anything I decided I would start blogging again. I haven't been making as much but really want to push myself to get back into it as I do really enjoy it.
I have really wanted to try free motion quilting and so finally I ordered a foot for my sewing machine. After having this sitting around for a couple of weeks I felt the time had come to give it a go. I blew the dust off of my sewing machine bag and started to set up the machine. I figured out how to attached the foot then went about looking for instructions to lower the teeth...only to find that I need to use a darning plate that should have come with the sewing machine(I bought it second hand). I looked through all the little attachments that I have and could not find the plate. I am gutted, so near yet so far. So now my machine is sitting out on the table but I've not got any further than I had two weeks ago. Now i need to trawl the internet to try and find a darning plate compatible to my machine. I wonder how long it will be before I can actually start sewing!

A gothic bag

I was asked to make a bag for a tween goth as a birthday present. I wasn’t really sure where to start apart from the fact I would use black fabric and accent it with red. I decided to use a rip technique. So began by backing black fabric (an old skirt that I don't wear anymore) onto red cotton using diagonal lines across the fabric. I made a simple messenger style bag, lined with red, fastened with a silver popper, and silver hoops on the sides for the handle to attach to. I then ripped the fabric between the diagonal lines. Although this did make quite a mess to start, as the black fabric was cord, with time the little bits of fluff will stop coming off and I loved the effect the ripping made. When it came to the handle I wasn’t sure what to do but finally decided to use a black chain (bought from B&Q) that I then wove some red, fraying, cotton through. Hopefully the bag met all the desired criteria. Sept 2010

Baby Snugglies

When I was out shopping recently I saw the perfect fabric for making baby snugglies. So I bought some knowing my sister-in-law was due to have her baby boy the next week. In the early hours of the day after I had made the purchases I had a text saying my new baby nephew had arrived. So I’m glad I had already got the fabrics. I popped into town to get a last few bits so I could get the gifts made before I went to visit that afternoon.
I made two snugglies.
One has a soft blue side and a cotton side with baby dinosaurs on, and I sewed ribbons along the edges.The other one is made all from the soft blue fabric and then I sewed that to a small plush toy walrus. Aug 2010

Hunky Dory quilt

For my birthday in June one of my sisters gave me some money to chose some quilting fabric. I found a collection that I loved by Moda called Hunky Dory and bought a layer cake, which consists of 40 10”x10” pieces of fabric. Because some of the fabrics had quite big patterns on I wanted to keep the pieces I used in the quilt quite big. I cut them all in half and then pieced them together in what I call a ‘brick pattern’. I still need to decide on the fabric I’m going to use for a border and then I can move onto the batting/backing/quilting stage. Aug 2010

Scrap Bag quilt

In June I went to the National Quilt Championships, Sandown. Not only did they have lots of quilts to look at but they had lots of stalls to buy quilting goods from. I found out about what is called a Scrap Bag. This bag contains odd cut offs of quilting fabric all from one collection by Moda (which just so happen to make my favourite quilting fabrics). The bags all contain a set weight of fabric and you can only see one fabric through the window, so unless you recognise that one piece from a certain collection it is just a lucky dip. I lucked out and got a bag that had some really nice fabrics from the ‘Simple Abundance’ range.
I decided to make a small quilt top. I haven’t gone any further than that as I am trying to decide whether to make it into a picnic blanket or just a small throw/quilt.I made the pattern myself just by playing around with what I had until I was happy with the look. It helped that I already had a fat quarter of one of the fabrics from the range that I added for some variation. Aug 2010

Before and After

My next job was pretty simple. I was asked to adjust a dress. I took off the top part and then sewed the raw edge over, and ta-da a new dress/top. July 2010

A tie by any other name...would still be a tie

When it came to my brother’s birthday I wasn’t sure what to make. This was the first grown male I had made a present for. Not sure that he would want a bag so I decided on making a tie. This was quite tricky in the end. It took me forever to find some fabric that I thought would work well as a tie and then the only guidance I had was a project in a sewing book that didn’t seem to tell me all I needed to know. It told me how much fabric to get and which way to cut the pieces of the tie from it but it had nothing about sizes. I managed to find my old school tie to try and work out the size but I think the school tie was smaller than your average tie, so I still just had to make it up. July 2010