Creations - of all kinds

Well, the house has been a shambles these last few weeks. With the cold hitting the household very hard, then a few days of building tear-downs and refits (the Blighter's bedroom) and the plasterer going through the house to plaster the bedroom, then today new windows are being fitted in 3 rooms upstairs.....

The place is a skip. A real mess. Dust, plaster, clothes everywhere, furniture has been moved from various rooms to accommodate the window and wall replacement. The sewing room is full of my last craft show stock plus stuff that has been dumped out of the way (see previous comments) so is also a mess.

Am fed up.

On the plus side, have had a birthday with cake:

There's even the gymball I sit on to sew! Fab, fab and delicious :D Although it looks more like my mother than me - this is what I have to look forward to!

And took the Blighter to pony club on Saturday, as a reward for getting enough stickers on her chart of good behaviour (the only thing we have found to really work).

And have been making wee xmas decorations that have worked out chuffingly well:

Just one of my ideas for the next Craft fair - and will hopefully be putting some up on Etsy once I get my finger out. Check me out at Fankle Quilting :)

And I managed to finish this too, which I really enjoyed making:

Single bed size, stitch in the dicth zig zag quilting, plain turq backing

And got this top finally finished too (Space! On the sewing room floor!):

Single bed size, will be big floral patch backing. Quilting - prob crosshatch.

And here's my boy who is just lovely :)

(Spot the sock mitre blanket in the corner, up to 50 squares now...)

Hope you're all having a good Monday. If that's at all possible.
Cheerie!

Return of the Native

Been a quiet holiday for the blog, but I have been beavering away between family outings and driving miles around Scotland for holiday purposes.

M.M.B.A... AHEM, I mean, scenery...

I decided to take a couple of sock wool projects away with me. One was a Christmas present for a friend, so am not putting a pic up on the blog (just in case) but the other is a mitre blanket, and it goes something like this:

Various 4 ply (well, 3-4 ply really) sock yarn oddments, 3mm needles (yup, thats a tiny UK size 11 right there) and a basic mitre pattern which knits each square on as you go along. Totally addictive and great holiday knitting :)

Every other row is decreased by two, so as you get nearer to the finish, the rows are shorter and quicker - its like a race with yourself! And then you have to start another one, and then just do a couple of rows, and then another couple to see what the next stripe is, and then, and then...its 2 in the morning....

Let me know if you want the pattern, and I can rough out a copy :) I have done one already, but I cant seem to find a pic on the laptop - remind me to take a pic of that tomorrow and post it up!

When we came back home on Saturday from our holiday, I flew upstairs to my sewing room, possibly even barricading the door behind me, in case small whiny children appeared. Managed to crank out a couple of cushion fronts which are in the process of being quilted.

This log cabin came about from the centre square - couldnt find a place for a wee charm square and thought it would make a perfect centre. Looks like eyes peering out to me :) Photography shocking, colours bright and orange-yellow in real life.

this was taken in good light. Camera phone not liking, it must be a summer palette :)

Colours even more washed out in this one, but it looks fab really. Or at least it did until l tried grid quilting it. It seems that the walking foot is pressing down too heavily on the fabrics so they bunch up and pucker as you stitch towards the end of the squares where they join the next square. Short of getting a new machine, any hints or ideas as to how to stop this happening? Any and every comment gratefully received!

Hope you are all having a lovely crafty summer - and in fact you are, blogland is, as usual, filled with lovely things :D

XXX

Friday Finish - only 2 days late! :D

I know, I know, bit of a cheek really :D but I have been looking after a sick almost 6-year old, so couldn't really get anything done before now. She's a lot better, started arguing back today after a day of being sick (Friday) and a day of lying on the couch shattered (Saturday). Poor wee soul. Kids are at their most forlorn when they're ill.

Anyway.

I've been a busy bee today - the long weekend has been a fantastic aid to sewing. And the sun has meant a request for a sun hat for said almost 6 year old.
Thanks to Riley Blake and April Cobb, I have a fantastic pattern to work from. Kt chose the colours, and off I went...

First I fused interfacing to the fabric, and then cut out some shapes:

Two fabrics, as the hat is reversible. Three pieces for the brim, three for the sides and one piece for the crown from each fabric, and interfacing ironed behind each bit.

Quarter inch seams used to sew the pieces together, then topsewn with an eighth seam to secure. You can see that on the back of the red spot. Then comes the hard part - sewing the round shapes together. Not v good at this, but got better with practice - black one is better than the red one I did first :)

Spot the deliberate mistake? Yes, I had to unpin this one ... Just as well my hubby spotted this!

I put the two hat pieces together WS out and sewed them round the brim. All the curved seams and the brim were 1/2 inch, cut down to 1/4 to reduce bulk with notches cut into them to ease the curves.
Leave a 3" gap, turn right sides out, and topstitch around the edge. Et Voila!

One reversible hat. It's a teeny bit big, but better that than the alternative! Took me a few hours over the day but I am really pleased with how it turned out. I love the colours she chose too, they look amazing together. I'd like to say she gets it from me, but I reckon the wee smasher has her own style. I'd love to show you her modelling prowess but she was in a foul mood by the time I'd finished so this is the best shot I have:

 Hehehe :D

Irony

I've been busy in these days of radio silence. Clearing out the midden that was my sewing room, and finding some pleasant and some unpleasant surprises there, but glad to have done it. I will take some pictures of my deluxe attic pad when the light is better, and show off the new ironing board cover I made too.

I hate ironing. Surely one of the more tedious of all household chores. Standing there over a board sweating buckets and trying to find hangers to put the freshly flattened shirts on only to find them squashed into the wardrobe minutes later. All you have to show for it is a sore wrist and backache (or maybe I'm doing it wrong).

Quilting, on the other hand, requires much ironing, and I will happily spend a day running between sewing machine and iron, noting with great satisfaction the smoothed fabric and perfectly tucked away seams.

Wierd.

And while I was ironing my stash from the washing machine pile (it's only been sitting in a heap for 3 months, hardly any time at all, really) I found the perfect fabric to replace my grotty old unloved and unlovable ironing board cover. So I replaced it. Heh.

I love it; I love looking at it; it fits in perfectly with my tidy gorgeous sewing room, and it will not make ironing a shirt one iota more pleasant at all.

I am looking forward to pressing a few seams though...

Finish-it Friday and a First for me

Very alliterative :)

I made a cushion today! Well, finished one really. I'd made most of the top up before with some tweeds that my folks had sent me, and needed to finish it off. My cousin is looking for autumn-coloured cushions to go with her living room, and I thought this one would fit the bill perfectly.

And I got to do something new on my sewing machine today - Buttonholes!
I know, I know, I should have practiced them before, but somehow never got around to it. Today was the day :) I had a couple of practice runs and launched myself onto the main back. And it worked! Yay me!

Have some photos:

 The finished size is 20" square. The front is pieced with 1/2 " seams because the wool tweed frays like mad, and it is quite bulky. The green is less in your face in real life :)

 I made the back from two pieces of corduroy fabric I found on ebay. Love it! Love the seams too, look at that baby. Nothing showing, nothing squint! Excellent to cut too, you just go along the lines :)

Because the wool was a bit frayish and a looser weave than I'm used to, I hand-quilted the seam again, sewing parallel to the machine-sewed lines, just to catch it at the back and make a feature. I also cut the corners where the seams meet, to reduce bulk on the inside. To finish the front, I ironed on interfacing to the back and cut it to the shape of the top. All three layers (front, interfacing and corduroy back) were sewn together on my wee Brother (which sounds funny when you read it out loud!) XL5700.

Luckily I found three matching buttons in my stash. You can see that the middle buttonhole is slightly lower, but for a first attempt I am pretty chuffed. Have a close up :)

 I used hemming web in the fold to give it a bit more stability and because I'd never tried it before. It held pretty well, but it might have been ok anyway. It's a sturdy fabric and nice to use. How clever are sewing machines to make a buttonhole in one go!

I filled it with two IKEA pillow forms, cos one looked a bit weedy.
And voila! If I can tell you anything else, please ask!
Linking to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom x