This is not my creative space today but has been for the past few weeks as I picked it up and put it down again - good job it is one of those kind of projects!
It's a quilt for a little boy who turns one today. To say I am thrilled with how this has turned out would be an understatement - I am overjoyed with it. Yes it is slightly wonky but it has given much more confidence to have a go and take a few risks. It is only my second quilt* (not including the
cheat quilt) and as I
may have mentioned before I am thrilled with how it turned out! The
fabric strips are the ones I got from the
scrapstore in Leeds, the wadding is a vintage wool blanket (gives it such a nice weight) and the backing fabric is an old curtain which was made of Laura Ashley fabric. I hand quilted the circles as a) I didn't take my sewing machine on holiday to France with me, b) I like quilting by hand c) quilting on a machine scares the crap out of me and d) I don't think my machine could cope with it anyway!
I have a question about binding though. I bought some ready made binding from a shop and it was about an inch wide which gives for about half an inch on either side of the quilt. My question is, how on earth do you line it up so they the binding is equal on both sides? I tried and then tried again and then gave up trying to sew it on the machine (not possible due to binding not being the same width on both sides) and sewed the binding by hand. This took a very long time as you might imagine! Also, my local craft shop said that they didn't stock binding wider than 1 inch (rough size) Does anyone in the UK know of any stockists that have binding in wider widths than that? I used thick ribbon for my first quilt but it was a pain to sew.
Result - T and his family loved it! I gave it to them in the park and T nearly toppled out of the swing trying to grab hold of it. I think that makes it a resounding success!
*My first quilt
is here if you fancy a look.
** Don't forget to go and visit the queen of the
Creative Space.
I'm making good progress so far and hope to have them completed by the weekend. Although saying that, there are a lot of cigarette card tags to be made and lets say that the cards do not like to be stuck to the cardboard backs without a nice pile of books on top of them, which slows the whole process down somewhat!
Can you guess who was mentioned?? Can you?? I'll bet you can't!
And I'm mentioned first :D :D :D The mention is in the Do It Yourself section and is the tutorial for my padded envelopes which you can find on Craftsville here. If you click on the photograph you can see the text better. And apologies for the awful photographs - they were taken late last night!
L-R Top to bottom
As you may have guessed Tara started school today. I may be a little biased but doesn't she look cute in this photograph?
Big sister had to get in on the action too :) You wouldn't think that there is two and a half years between them would you?
Apparently I had to take a photograph of them with their new lunchboxes too. Can you guess where we got them from?
And isn't my friend Ruth lovely as she made and sent Tara the card on the right. Tara was, quite rightly, thrilled with it and carried it around with her for most of Saturday morning!
Here it is drying on the line in the gorgeous late summer weather we have been having recently. I got 3 lines full from their scrap pack section* for £8! Yep all this Liberty loveliness for £8!!! Most of the fabrics are seconds although on some of the fabric you can't tell at all (although my dodgy photographs don't help!) I'll show you some of the fabrics I got.
In all the fabrics above there are only slight flaws (and in some cases none at all) but in the ones below you can see the flaws a lot more.
I'm thinking a quilt made of all this fabric would either a) look fantastic if the fabric was placed properly or b) a huge mess! I'm thinking a small square patchwork although hexagons have been leaping toward the front of my mind. The dodgy fabric would become the binding. What do you think? Recipe for disaster or the potential to be fabulous? For £8 I'm willing to try!
I was heading out of the door yesterday when I read a tweet from Mooosh saying that today was Stitch in Public Day** and that I should read Mr X Stitch for more details. I duly did and then took my embroidery to Ikea with me to do while Tara was playing after lunch. Notice the cakes in the background and where I am up to on the elephants ear?
What can I say? Stitching is hungry work!!
They had taken the flowers off a hydrangea bush we have growing in the garden and used to leaves to add decoration. Anya told me it was to say congratulations for being a gorgeous and wonderful Mummy! Aaaaaaaaaaah :)
Remind me of this aaaaaah moment next week when I am besieged by hungry, tired, grumpy girls after school won't you? I am not looking forward to dealing with a grumpy Tara! She gets tired easily at the best of times but goodness knows what a full day at school is going to do to her!
It's a quilt for a little boy who turns one today. To say I am thrilled with how this has turned out would be an understatement - I am overjoyed with it. Yes it is slightly wonky but it has given much more confidence to have a go and take a few risks. It is only my second quilt* (not including the cheat quilt) and as I may have mentioned before I am thrilled with how it turned out! The fabric strips are the ones I got from the scrapstore in Leeds, the wadding is a vintage wool blanket (gives it such a nice weight) and the backing fabric is an old curtain which was made of Laura Ashley fabric. I hand quilted the circles as a) I didn't take my sewing machine on holiday to France with me, b) I like quilting by hand c) quilting on a machine scares the crap out of me and d) I don't think my machine could cope with it anyway!
Full pictures tomorrow once it has been given away to the recipient!
