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

Pattern...what pattern?

I made some pj shorts for my next present. I took a pair of short’s my sister had and used them as a pattern to make another pair. Because I used tartan fabric and I wasn’t sure how to match it at the seams I purposely turned the fabric so the pattern went a different way all together. The fit wasn’t as good as her original shorts but for a first try without a pattern I think I did pretty well. July 2010

A sewer's best friend...

With all this sewing I was doing I was finding one problem. I would sit on the floor to pin my project, leaving the pin-wheel on the floor, I would then go to the sewing machine and as I sewed I would take out the pins and put them on the table in a pile. I would then go back to the floor to pin the next bit and find I didn’t have any pins and I would then have to go put them all back in the pin-wheel before continuing. I found this all very frustrating so I decided to make myself a pin-cushion I could wear on my wrist, so wherever I went my pins came with me.It is only small but it does the job intended and doesn’t get in the way while I’m working. June 2010

Sophie the doll

I wanted to make something different so I started scouring the web for ideas and came across the idea of a doll. When researching I found a type called Waldorf Dolls. These have a face that is not just flat, but that is shaped to be more life like. I bought a book and went from there. It is quite specialized and so it took me a while to find somewhere to get the ‘skin’ fabric. It’s also meant to be made from natural materials, but instead of the wool fibres they recommend I just used normal stuffing as I already had some.
The head shaping was quite tricky. I used a sock (new/unused) to stuff then tied some threads around it to make the indentations specified. When I was happy that it would work I got the rest of the things I would need including ‘skin’ fabric, doll making needles, and wool for hair.
I had some chopsticks (that I had never used) that I used for getting the stuffing into all the small spaces, and found that they did a really good job. Who needs to buy special sticks just to stuff toys?
The whole doll was pretty tricky to make, but the hair took forever, as it needed to be hand sewn (something I’m not such a fan of).
I used patterns from the previously bought doll book to make the clothes, but did adapt them slightly. I made the top from some cotton I have used in several other projects and the trousers were made from some linen trousers I no longer wore.

The doll was named Sophie by my niece (whose birthday present it was). June 2010

Another birthday bag

It's been a while since I last posted as I've been working on making more things. Since I still have quite a back log of pieces to put on here the posts will probably be quite short so I can catch up with myself.

Making birthday present’s for my family has kept me pretty busy so far this year. For the 3rd birthday present of the month (June) I went back to my old faithful, a bag. I used material from a jacket I had previously pulled apart. I decided to do a simple bag without a lining and so I used French seams to keep it neat inside. I used ribbon around the top of the bag, sewn at intervals to draw the opening in. I then made a yoyo flower and matching handle in an accent material and added some buttons for decoration. June 2010

My first quilt

When I first got my sewing machine, last year, one of the main reasons was because I wanted to make a quilt. I spent many an hour at the end of 2009 looking online at quilting fabrics and found a company that I love called Moda who do lots of great fabrics. Not only do they do great fabrics but they do collections that you can get lots of fabrics that all go together. And what’s more you don’t have to buy masses of one fabric you can get different packets of small amounts of fabric from one collection. There is some strange jargon for the different shapes and sizes but some of the packs you can get are: Jelly Rolls, Charm packs, & Layer cakes.
I decided to use a Jelly Roll for my first quilting project. This contains 40 strips of 2.5 inch wide fabrics from one collection.
For Christmas I received 2 books with many quilt patterns for Jelly Rolls. I decided on a style, and then in January I bought the fabric I had been coveting for a couple of months. I used the collection called Eva. I had to also get some plainish fabric for backing to go along with the Jelly Roll to make the desired size.So after having the fabrics sitting around for months, my sister got some fabric to make a quilt for herself and started work on it. This really made me want to work on mine. Hence I decided I could take the time and make the quilt I wanted as a birthday present to myself. After spending a few evenings working on my quilt I took a day off of work and spent the whole day making my quilt. In the end I think it probably took me about 2 whole days to get the top part of my quilt finished. Now all I need to do is buy the wadding and backing and then I can finish the quilt. Jun 2010



I would place the bits over the living room floor to work out where I wanted it placed. Luckily I wasn't making the quilt any bigger because it fitted perfectly on the floor.




This is a section of my finished quilt top. It had a border on it and with that it didn't quite fit on the floor of my living room. Now I just need to add the batting and backing and do the quilting.

What every 3 year old boy wants...

Hmmm… what to make my nephew for his 3rd birthday. I didn’t think he would want a bag, or a cushion (these seem to be what I make the most of) so I went for a pair of pyjamas instead. I did cheat slightly by buying a plain blue t-shirt. I then made a little motif dinosaur to sew on the front that matched with the bottoms that I made. Jun 2010

Another bag

My sister-in-law loves green, so when it came time to make her present I knew I would use some green linen I had. Again I made a bag (very handy one-size-fits-all). I had a fat quarter of some quilting fabric that I had picked up just because I liked it and I thought it would make a good lining and detailing. A drew out a few designs and finally narrowed it down. It took me a while to make this one, as I had to keep trying to figure out the angles I needed to use. I put a front pocket on with the lining coming up over the edge to accentuate the edge. I then made the flap with the same edging. The bag turned out to be quite long in the end, but I was pleased with it over all. May 2010

Denim bag

When it came round to my nieces 12th birthday I decided to make her a bag. I used my old grey jeans that I had already used parts of on another bag, but this time I used the detail of a back pocket for the front of the bag. I used a flowery material (which I have used a couple of times before) to line it and also for the handle. I also had some brace clips I had bought previously, just because I liked them. I used these to attach the handle to the bag and also some matching poppers for the handle as well as the fastening on the front flap. May 2010

Yellow roses

My mum has been working on a cross-stitch of some yellow roses for years. The sewing has even travelled to Madagascar for two years with her. She finally finished this year and asked if I could make it into a cushion cover for her. It just so happened that her birthday was coming up so I said I would do it as my present to her. I found some fabric that I thought went well with the cross-stitch and then made a start. I made a border of my chosen fabric around the cross-stitch to make the front part of the cushion cover. I then made the back out of two bits of the fabric with a zip going across. This was the first time I had ever sewn a zip into anything so I was a little unsure of what I was doing, but used my trusty Sewing Book by DK to check the technique. I had also bought piping for the edge of the cushion, which like the zip I had never used before. I think it all came together pretty well. My mum loves it and it has pride of place in her living room. May 2010

This isn't the best picture, it's a bit dark, but you get the idea.

Bags of flowers

For my next project I decided to make a bag. I had some beige linen that I wanted to use and then I got some deep purple cotton to line the bag and do a flower to accessorize. I made this bag in a similar style to the first one I made (the red/grey/black one). I did a different sort of fastening for this, with a little flap that went over the top with a little loop that goes through a hole in the flap. I think it may have been better if the hole was a bit smaller, but it seemed to do the trick.
I wasn’t sure how to make a flower; I had an idea in mind but had a little look online anyway to see what was out there. In the end I just folded a length of purple cotton in half along the length and then sewed the open edges together with a wide stitch, then pulled the stitching to gather the edge. I then wound it into a circle and when I was happy that it looked like a flower I hand sewed it into place. Then sewed a button on to hide the mess in the middle, plus a safety pin on the back so that it can be detached from the bag if wanted. Apr 2010

Is it a bird... is it a plane... no it's a top!

I wasn’t sure what to make for my sister’s birthday and decided to try making a top similar to one I have. So I used my top for the main shape of the top, by folding it and drawing around it onto the fabric. This is probably one of the trickiest things I’ve made as I didn’t have much experience of making clothes and I was just making it up. I was pretty pleased with the out come. A couple of things that bothered me were 1) I didn’t attach the straps at the front of the top to the very outside edge of the top (but at least I know to change that if I make similar top) and 2) it looks quite boxy (I did put some elastic in the back to pull it in but I didn't do it tight enough. Plus when the top is on it doesn't look so boxy). Apr 2010

Lots of ribbons

My sister and I had decided to accessorize our living room with brown and teal, but I have been going through a green phase and wanted to add some green too. When I was out one day I saw a painting of flowers, which had teal and green flower heads. I loved it and decided that we could add green to our brown and teal bits in our flat. I went out and bought an assortment of green, teal and beige ribbons to sew onto a cushion cover to infuse the colours together. I did a plain brown cotton background and then sewed different widths, textures, and colours of ribbons across the fabric at various angles. I then sewed the length of fabric into an envelope style cushion cover. Mar 2010

Another udder

I grew up living in hand knitted cardies that my nan had made. So when it came round to her 80th birthday I decided to make her a needle udder to store the many needles that she has. I made it slightly smaller than my own one since she only uses short needles these days. She was very pleased with it, especially because her old storage case has recently broken and she said she couldn’t find a nice new one anywhere. Mar 2010