Purse

I had a go at using one of those quick sew patterns for a purse. It uses bias binding with cord inside as shown in orange on my purse. It was really easy to make but has sat half finished until last week. I've made it for my niece who's 11 and I think this will be right up her street....

It's getting bigger....

Made this dress for my friend's little girl. Quite pleased with it and will be making some more for my nieces.

I'm getting there slowly with this quilt .... Now need to get my hands on some more scraps of fabric...

It has been a long, long summer.....

I've started another quilt - this is going to the underside of the quilt - which is a bit busy! I'm basically using up all my scraps and then maybe buying a teensy bit as well..... Any excuse!

This is going to be the top side which will more serene.These are a close up of some of the blocks. I am basically just making up the whole pattern.

More photos to follow of progress!

And another one!

This was actually the first one I started but got bored with! It was my practice quilt and as I had lots of pink fabrics and no girls, I decided to use them up on this. It's a cot bed size and now I have no idea what I am going to do with it!

Then that got me thinking, I should really make something I want to actually use...... So I've now started making a quilt with these fabrics...... I absolutely love these fabrics I bought from M is for Make. I'm going to use a lot of plain colour sashing to soften it all. I've really got the quilting bug now, but as usual don't have the time to do it all.... At least me putting it on this blog means that I can't procrastinate, I have to finish!

Hoorah hoorah I've finished

My first quilt properly finished! It has literally cost me blood, sweat and tears! It was going so well with the freehand machine embroidery on the top of the quilt, when for some reason all the stitches on the back suddenly started to look like horrible eye lashes. I tried everything to sort it out - different tensions, different needles, different cottons etc etc. It was so frustrating, that in the end I took it back to the shop I bought it from (this is after weeks of trying). They knew immediately what the problem was - apparently Janome machines have to have their own type of bobbins - you can't use ones with ridges around or metal ones don't you know! It was so frustrating that I had spent so long trying to sort it out and it was as simple as that. Grrrrr.

Anyway all sorted now and making another quilt will be so much quicker as I kind of know what I am doing with the freehand machine embroidery, although there are mistakes of course!

Procrastinating but being creative!

Quilts are so frustrating! I really thought I had got the hang of free motion quilting and then disaster has happened - I've lost the knack! No idea what I am doing wrong, have tried tension, needle, speed etc and can't get it right. So frustrating! So I have walked away and not returned....

Anyway in between procrastinating about finishing off the quilts I decided I needed a doorstop .....

I love the front fabric especially - think it might be Joel Dewberry. The linen kind of fabric was from some old curtains somebody was selling on my street for £2.

I managed to get round to painting the church bench I bought from our local church.

The bench (see this post) I think turned out really well, was supposed to be grey but more bluey, but me likey. Sits in our kitchen now and very useful for pinning lots of children against the table.

Oh and our apricot tree in our small city garden produced this much fruit this year! Had to be turned into jam that day really before the kids ate them all. Sorry I just reread that and don't mean to sound like super mum! This is just a record of all the creative things I do in between shouting/playing with the kids etc etc.

Ok, we can't give that to anyone.....

More Quilts!

Basically I have spent every spare moment I have for the last few months (in between a few nights out of course), making quilts. I cannot believe how time consuming they have been! I have nearly finished this quilt - it took me probably about 5 hours just to quilt the top of it.

I now just need to finish stitching on the binding and then it's done. But guess what, I have got bored and already started a couple of other projects..... I don't feel too bad as this was going to be my practice quilt before I started on quilts for everyone else in the family. So here it is so far:

I'm pretty happy with it as a first quilt and it gave me lots of practice at free style machine embroidery.  It then inspired me to  start making this:

It's going to be a quilt for my youngest son and will hopefully be a bit of a keepsake.  I cut up one of Tom's babygros and used it  to applique the letters for Tom.   I've chosen some retro fabric for the back.... The difficult thing is stitching the top. I've just bought some spray adhesive from ebay so I'm hoping it will keep it all fixed in place and avoid the fabric being scrunched up at the back - this always seems to happen to me!

I also got round to making a dress for this cause that lovely Louise from Sew Scrumptious is promoting. Hopefully you'll get that in the post on Tuesday Louise!

Right, I'm off to sew some bunting and paint this that I also picked up from the local church - £70. It's going to look great in our kitchen once I scrape off the chewing gum and graffiti.....

QUILT!

I thought at long last I would attempt to make a quilt. I first cut all these strips up.....and then sewed three together.....
I then cut the strips into three sections to make these.....
and then I sewed three strips to each other again...

I then cut up some plain fabric - this is me checking how it would look first......

and this is it all sewn together..... It did take a fairly long time as you can imagine. At the same time as I had some left over strips I made another quilt top which I'll take a picture of next time. Thought I would post all about this so far so that it will make me finish it. It is a bit of marathon indeed! I'm not sure where I am going to use this or give it too either!

Next up quilting the top - yikes!

Japan and Barcelona

I think I've probably made my most favourite thing so far, so much so that I think I'm going to have to keep it...... I've had some oilcloth in my stash for ages with the idea I would make some purses but as usual forgot about the idea. I recently found some funky Japanese waterproof fabrics on the web and thought they would make fab make-up bags. I am in love with the bunny fabric....

This ones not too bad either......

Back to more sewing - trying to sort out the very difficult decision of cushion selection. I have so many cushions, but they all seem to be the wrong colour as we have bought new sofas. This one is made from some luvrely 50's inspired fabric from John Lewis. Sorry the picture shows it as a bit creased. I impressed myself by adding the bobbles and a proper zip and everything!

I also made this one to sell at the shop from some Amy Butler fabric I have.

I also had another go at making some necklaces - love the bird one especially.

Mad Sewing

I have gone slightly mad sewing recently. My old machine broke just before Christmas which weirdly made me want to sew even more.... So when I got it back I went a bit mad....

This was what I made for my kids for Christmas. I copied the pattern from a friend who made one for her kids the year before. However when I bought the fabric with a considerable hangover I didn't buy enough fabric. I had to make a feature of the top, which I think looks OK. Cost me a tenner in fabric so didn't mind too much! Anyway the kids love it and you can put it away at the end of the day which is always a bonus in my book.

I also made the bag which I am using to put all the things I have made ready for the shop. Probably will become a toy bag eventually. I made up the pattern for this and its really thick with a lining and felt to give it a bit more strength.

When I went to pick up my old machine from the shop, I kind of fell in love with some other machines....... They kind of told me there, that my machine wasn't really up to the job anyway and wouldn't a new machine be just the thing! I was sold.... and I managed to persuade the other half that it would be a good joint Christmas and birthday present. Hoorah! So pleased with it but also in awe of it - it has over 500 stitches and I don't know really what I am doing with it. Here's a little sampler I did to just try out some of the stitches - it is amazing! Luckily the machine comes with free lessons, which is just as well because it's like learning to sew all over again.

My brain is whirring with lots of different ideas......