Bunting

My latest project over the last couple of weeks has been bunting. I did my first one for my friend's wedding which she really liked. Once the fabrics were chosen and cut to size it was so quick - I did cheat due to time constraints and used fabric adhesive - 'heat-a-bond' to save time with the letters.




Once I had got to grips with it I did the next one very quickly, this time it was for my sis-in-laws baby's christening. There were again some cheats to make things quicker: iron on bear motifs for each end, printed letter templates on Word document that can be adapted to any size, triangle template from cardboard scraps, pre-prepared bias binding to use as the ribbon, raw edged letters, pinking shears for the nice outline.
My sis-in-law loved it so I was very pleased! She says she'll put it up in the nursery afterwards.

Originally I was going to double side the bunting by sewing two triangles together, this would have made it take much longer to prepare and would have given it less of a rustic feel.I liked the way that these projects allowed me to make choices about fabrics and which ones work together, a challenge that I have tended to avoid up to this point as I'm not very confident with this.  I was pleased by the outcome. 


I'm looking forward to having a break now to concentrate on finishing little Holly's long-awaited quilt. Being a teacher I have the summer holidays which will be perfect for this and for starting some new projects too! I can't wait!! :-)

Gifts for the lovely in-laws!

For my parents-in-laws I decided to hand-make a gift this year.

A door hanger for my lovely mother-in-law:

I chose two of my favourite fabrics from the brilliant Patchwork Corner shop. They seem to work so well together so I put one on each side. You may not be able to tell but I also used my new super-duper trooper sewing machine and tried out a really nice decorative swirly stitch on the front. If you look closely you might be able to see it on the front outlining the heart shape.

For my father-in-law a useful (hopefully) Ipad case:

I found a freebie pattern on the internet which was great, it fitted perfectly and I took the idea of a large button and some elastic to make a catch to secure it from another design that I had seen. There is a pouch at the front for leads etc. I originally had planned to sew along the middle of the pouch to make 2 smaller ones but it is confusing to ensure that you think ahead enough to do that at the right time. By the time I had realised that I hadn't done it, there was no going back....unless I started unpicking!

A project that went wrong!....

My cousin had a baby - Eva, in January and I was keen to make a hand-crafted gift. I decided to make an owl using some lovely fabrics that I had bought whilst in Wales last year. This was a project that went wrong although my cousin tells me that it takes pride of place in the cot! You'll see why it went wrong from the picture below......what is it??!!

The moral of the story is make sure that you have a pre-prepared template that definitely looks like the creature that you are trying to portray! On reflection owls have small pointy ears (although of course most have hidden ears) that stick out to the sides, these are too deep and rounded! Also I went for the raw edge look but left too deep a seam allowance so it doesn't work as well as it could. I still love the colours and think it would have worked brilliantly had I made these few adaptations - it's all part of the learning process though!!

Next quilting project...

Since finishing the quilt (and starting the next for my friend Becky who's little one has since arrived - I promise it's coming soon!!) I'm now at the quilting stage having completed the front piecing and border so I will take a picture and show you the progress so far. I did have a change of mind on the style and decided to go with a more Cath Kidston style flowery look rather than my original Hungry Caterpillar idea. I'm so pleased that I did this as it fits perfectly with the nursery that Becky deorated beautifully :-).

Not organised enough for this blogging malarkey!!

Hello,

As you'll have noticed, some time has passed since my last post and I've discovered that I'm just not organised enough to keep these up-to-date. Though I'm going to make a concerted effort to get better at this, it may well be that I post past projects, we'll see!!

So I finally finished my first quilt - just a week after my nephew was born so not too bad considering! The final quilt took approximately 40 hours and I started it in October. I think it's great to have a deadline because it means that it gets done, though it's very hard to fit it in around full-time work.

Here's the finished article - my sister-in-law loved it so I was really chuffed.