My beautiful Goddaughter's Quilt

After saying many weeks ago that I'd upload the photos, with the help of my technical whizz friend (and her clever iphone) I can finally upload the photos.

Here is the latest quilt (finished in July last year) for my beautiful goddaughter. Try as I might I couldn't get it done in time for her birth in April but hopefully it was worth the wait :-). It's the second of my collection and the first with triangles in (yeay!). I might update this with better pictures (taken outside) as the colours in these don't show exactly as they are! I used a charm pack then chose a spotty beige fabric to use as a sashing and then two more flowery patterns which were used in panels in the main quilt and alternating in the binding too.

Christmas Craft Fun!

I can't believe it was a year ago that I first started my blog - by showing my Christmas crafts! After my husband repeatedly encouraging me, I finally feel brave enough to start getting it out there so hence why you may receive an invitation to follow me!

As with last year, I absolutely love Christmas as it's a great opportunity to do lots of making so here are some of the projects I have made over the festive period:

With the help (in fact she did practically all of it) of my best friend Em, we made some sugar mice for the netball girlies and my lovely sister and brother-in-law. I'm not going to lie, they taste horrible - but don't they look sweet!! Next time, I'm going to try adding peppermint essence so that you can taste something other than pure sugar.

Fudge for Dad and my Grandparents. I haven't done this since last Christmas and they turned out ok but quite crumbly. I suppose it depends how you like it - I prefer it a little more chewy in the middle.

Christmas bunting to go above our beautiful inglenook fireplace in the cottage, I have since turned it around as I sewed the back with another, unchristmassy pattern however TIP: always check that by switching one Xmas image with another on one side, it doesn't effect the alternating pattern on the other  - I just don't think I can live with the pattern having 2 of the same colours next to each other!

Christmas wreath. This time I simply used off cuts from the Christmas tree, added ivy and hawthorn berries from my foraging, cut and tied some cinnamon sticks with what I thought was pretty lace when I bought it (and turned out to be knicker elastic) and finished with a large lace bow in the middle.

In the window above you can see another craft experiment - making paper rosettes using nice Christmas craft paper. They didn't take long but they were forever pinging apart as the double sided sticky tape holding the circle closed just wasn't strong enough! I put a button with raffia threaded through in the centre on both sides.

Following a lovely crafty afternoon at a friend's with her doing cross stitch, I had created some handmade Christmas cards.

An attempt to make a new Christmas tree decoration back in November ended up with me making a GIANT sized snowman (which I disposed of with embarrassment), followed by a teeny Christmas tree so I adapted it to use as an invitation instead:

I found a really simple idea online for making a Christmassy table decoration - just gather some foliage and put it in a glass bowl with a candle in the middle! I went foraging in the garden to get a variety of green foliage to create different textures, I bought a candle to go in the middle then stuck the foliage around it adding some cinnamon sticks, dry orange slices and some cranberries (I couldn't find any berries anywhere!)

So now into January I'm starting to look ahead at what I will be crafting, here's what I have planned:

* Handmade gift for friend whose baby is due end of Jan (got it in mind just need to decided whether its going to be a boy or a girl!!)
* Quilt for nephew number 2 (due in May)
* 1st bday present for nephew number 1 and Goddaughter (got this in mind already - March & April respectively)
*project for new quilting class - king sized bed quilt for us
* draught excluders for cottage
* patchwork cushions
* learn to crochet - my granny has taught me the basics last week, I just need to practice now!
* t-shirt scrap material rug
* curtains for cottage

What a busy and exciting year I have ahead :-)

Birthday cards using fabric scraps

I made some birthday cards for my nearest and dearest in September using scraps of fabric. I was able to find a piece for my brother-in-law which came from the quilt that I gave my nephew, his son and it had cats on which I know he likes. I always find card-making for boys harder than for girls so was pleased with the outcome.

A delayed wedding gift....

I have realised after trawling through some photos that there are a number of projects that I haven't yet posted. I will try to put them in the right order so here goes....

For my sister's wedding present I decided to make her a fabric covered photoboard to display her wedding photos. I found a piece of chipboard in the freebie off-cuts section of the local Homebase store and thought it would be perfect in size, I then looked online (which took a while) to find the perfect material in the teal colour (bridesmaid dress thus wedding theme colour). I wanted something naturey/animally as these are things that they both like, eventually I chose a fabric by Lotta Jansdotter from Sweden.

I'm not exactly sure what they are but some sort of bird anyway!

I sanded down the edges of the chipboard to make them rounded then lay some wadding (an off-cut from a quilting project) across it and used a staple gun to fix this tightly in place. Then I lay the material over the top and again pulled it tight but also folded it so that there was a 2" edge which was neatly overlapping the back. I had to make sure that the images were lying straight so that took a little while. Then I covered the back with some of the same material and neatly folded and stapled it in place. My next job was to staple some ribbon across the board (from the back) which would later by used to tuck cards or photos underneath. This was quite an art and took some time. Finally where each piece of ribbon crossed I put a staple and then glued a button on top - I had bought some heart ones especially but thought I had only needed 6, unfortunately I needed 7 which is such a shame as I had been sent an extra one but had used it on the wedding card instead!:-( . Nevermind, I got around it by rummaging through the button scrap box my Granny gave to my sister who to gave me (only on loan I might add but never got it back!) and managed to find some similar brown ones. Lastly I added a loop at the back to hang it on using some left over ribbon.

I was pleased with the final result though one button did fall off after 5 minutes of them being presented with it! Easily fixed with more hot glue!