Thursday 27 June 2013

Arts and Crafts


Project Two - Lavender Bags

I thought for a second project we could make lavender bags, always useful, and as we have so much embroidery thread already for the friendship bracelets, it doesn't involve tons of extra stuff.


I'm trying to keep it simple as ideally they aught to be able to make it with a low skill level, and in one session. Most of the girls aught to be able to do french knots, I learnt when I was nine, and they're fifteen and up.


The colours on this are a wee bit pink in shade for lavender, by I just grabbed my thread box as I went out babysitting, and so had to make do with what I had.


I have an unreasonable level of affection for this material, I absolutely love the colour. I wish I had more of it. I never even had that much to start with, as I acquired when I was cleaning out the holiday club supplies room at church, and we decided to get rid of a whole load of scraps, most yucky browns, but not this. Now its sadly dwindling.

I always refer to this as Milly-molly-mandy fabric after the books by Joyce Lance Green, as it reminds me of her dress. There is a lovely story where she goes to the haberdashery with her mother to get fabric for her new dress, and she picks a lovely floral, alas it is not to be, as there is only enough for one, and she is too kind for her own good and lets another girl have it, and ends up with her usual fabric for the new dress. 



I sewed little patches round the sides to make it a wee bit more interesting.


Then I sandwiched it with lace and the back, to get this lovely edging. Never do you feel the lack of the sewing machine as much as when your doing a running stitch, but I needed to keep reminding myself I won't have one there. I had to do this when I was babysitting, away from home, in order not to give into the temptation. 


And here it is stuffed with lavender and finished off. It's not stuffed plumply, as it's lavender, and I may have made it a tad big, but that' s why I'm trailing these things so I can make corrections.


I also added the ribbon loop, so it can be hung around hangers, so it can go in wardrobes as well as chests of drawers.


So what do you think? A success?
love Eggs xxx

Scrappieness


Its a bad habit to start moving on to the next thing when you're working on another quilt. But I was having so much fun trying to match (or rather unmatch) colours and patterns on my Rose Trellis quilt that I felt the urge to do something that takes scrappieness seriously, and doesn't just pretend, so I didn't have to think so much. So I started making four patches with some of my Lario material. I like it but the colours aren't completely to my taste, so I think I shall probs end up giving this away.


I always think when one is chain piecing through the machine that it always ends up looking like really weird bunting.


I used the Missouri Star Quilt Co's scrappy four patch tutorial to make these and it turned out rather well.


Only nice easy cutting, two and a half inches, right down the middle.


Then you iron them out.


Then sew them together. I have to say as this is my entirely scrappy creation I was less concerned about the same fabrics being in a four patch block, as long as the same patterns and colours were opposite rather then touching. I love the long row of these above, it would make rather a nice border. This is the point were you don't iron the seams before you cut.


Voila, lots of lovely four patches, ready to be made into something, but first back to my Rose Trellis quilt. The wadding came yesterday, so I'm already to go as soon as I get the top together.

Love Eggs xxx

Sunday 23 June 2013

Lovely Fabric

Lovely New Fabric

I thought I would show you some lovely fabric that I have bought recently. It was rather a spree. But you just sort of get into a habit, and once you've bought something it's easy to continue.

 These lovely prints are called Shakespeare's Flowers  and I bought them on ebay for a song, from a lovely lady who is auctioning off her stash.


This is part of the botanical range by Makower, if I haven't mentioned it before I love flowers, and there are lots of pretty little, "postcardy" bits to cut out and use for things. 


Look at the lovely panels, roses, butterflies and handwriting.


Here I'm displaying my weakness for Paris flea market, by 3 sisters, for moda, I just love alot, and feel like its going to all sell out, and I'm never going to get a chance to buy it again, as everyone seems to love it. Maybe that's unreasonable?


These following are all bought from a lovely little shop Nerybeth Fabric, mainly on ebay, although she does have a website too, which has different things.


I really love this collection Mill book series by Howard Marcus, for Moda. Again its pretty, old fashioned and floral, and a lovely purple.


And more 3 sisters fabric, this time Lario, I don't like it quite as much as Paris Flea Market, as the colours are rather bright, but I think with a lot of cream in a quilt, its going to look lovely.


Then finally these fat quarters, no idea what I'm going to do with them, probs some sort of small project like a tea cosy?


I also found this lovely bed sheet in one of my favourite charity shops, Hospice in the Weald, for only two pounds, plus a fitted sheet, which is sort of immaterial and surplus. I'm going to be using this for backing for one of my quilts.


So now you've seen my excess, what do you think good choices? I promise they were all really good prices.

Love Eggs xxx

Saturday 22 June 2013

Arts and Crafts

Project One

Every year I go on an absolutely lovely Christian youth camp at the end of August, I used to go as a youth, and then a student helping out, and now as a leader. Last year one of my jobs was to be in charge of Arts and Crafts, the activity option in the morning, for those who don't like sports, and so didn't particularly feel like, Ultimate Frisbee, Ragger or Danish Longball. It tends to be quite a girly activity.
Well I'll probably be in charge again, and so ideally need to come up with something to do every day. As its me, arts and crafts tends to involve lots of sewing. But alas not my lovely Bernina. 
So over the next few weeks I need to test run all my potential crafts, some will be old favorites from last year, and some will be new, so lets see how we go...

I was thinking it would be fun to make pin cushions, and to do some paper piecing, so lets see how that goes. I'm going to be lovely and cut out all the pieces of paper for them.

A lovely little pile of hexagons, they're pretty small because we're having problems with our printer at the mo, so I may have just traced them directly from my laptop, Daddy would hate that.


I think I'll make these into a needle book, pin cushion to come later when I make slightly bigger ones.





I have to say I'm still rather confused about how you finish the edges, how do I get it so that I can pull those final pieces of paper out? Any words of wisdom? I think I've come up with a solution for this one, but I can't imagine its the easiest way of doing it.


More on this turns out later.



Friday 21 June 2013

Rocking Horse Disaster

Rocking Horse Saddle Blanket

A couple of years ago, when the Wee One (my smallest brother), was even smaller then he is now, he was given this beautiful rocking horse for Christmas.


 Unfortunately for him it was only on loan, ie it will stay in the 'rents house until they die, then he would get first dibs on it.

It is beautiful, the 'rents have always loved beautiful rocking horses, and so to finally own a proper one was deffs a check off their list. I used to have a gorgeous dapple grey one in my Nursery Class at school, which got moved out into a main hall way after we moved up. Lets just say I was genuinely not involved in the hair cut that some girls thought it needed. They were only three at the time.

It used to have this saddle blanket.

Which used to go extremely well with this sofa, which was in the room next door.


But now we have this new Sofa, and it doesn't go anymore. O dear.

As you can also see it is rather sun bleached, the only area that escaped were covered by the saddle.

In fact you can see that even the wood has suffered rather, which is the problem with have light filled orangeries. 

So I've been commissioned to make another one.

Not too bad for something that took all of about ten mins.


Now it tones in well with our sofa. Not that you can ever look at them at the same time.... they are after all in different rooms. But then that's my mother, the whole house blends seamlessly from one room to the next. Except for my room, wrong colour scheme. 

Love Eggs xxx 

Thursday 20 June 2013

A Phone Case

A New Case for a New Phone

Resently I upgraded my phone, not such a big deal you think, but I upgraded from a Nokia 3210, to a Samsung galaxy y. Rather a big jump. My new phone is great, just simple enough for me to understand, and to treat as if it isn't a smart phone, but one thing worries me.

One of the best features of the old Nokias were that they were almost indestructible. I think over the course of its life (and its not dead yet, just retired in my drawer), it got dropped in the pool twice, and fell on the floor millions. No worries, you pick it up, pop the case back together and you're away. 

Not so my new touch screen phone. I'm terrified of dropping it. So I made it a nice quilted case in the hopes of absorbing the impact when the inevitable happens.




Its just some squares sewn together, with a strip down the side then quilted. Then another strip on the top binding that and the lining together.


I think my lining began life as a tea towel.


Well what do you think? I'm rather pleased with it. Best of all I was being completely slap dash about dimensions and just made them up, and it fits perfectly.

Love Eggs xxx

My First Post

My First Post

Hello, lots of lovely people out there who might ever see fit to glance at this blog. I really hope this goes well. I've decided that I might try and give this a go and see whether I can keep it up. I'm not the most techno minded person in the world, so lots of the elements of making a blog are a wee bit foreign to me, so a lot of this is temporary while I figure out how to do it better.

I make lots of lovely things and so I thought I might have a wee go at this sharing them lark. Above you can see my work space. Once upon a time it was supposed to be a desk, but I like to work on the floor. Then it was re imagined as a dressing table, but my radiator seems to do more then a good enough job of that, so it was excepted as a permanent residence for my Sewing machine. 

I have a Bernina 1008, which is brilliant. I have grown up around berninas, both my grandmothers and mother have always had them, so for me there is no other way.


So I shall now share current projects.
At the mo I am making a quilt using the Three Sisters' Paris Flea market collection which I love. it is my fabric tastes almost to a tee. I would describe them as muted and floral generally, very Laura Ashley.

I am hoping to make a quilt for a single bed, which I have renamed "Rose Trellis". I love this kind of quilt, but it's name has always been a huge bug bear for me, and it is irritatingly grammatically incorrect, with all it's apostrophes in the wrong places. Also as mine will be more random in arrangement, there won't be any visible Xs or Os, but rather a nice lattice structure. Hence my new name.

I think this is one of my favorite prints from the line, (sorry about the darkness of these pics, I took them at night).


Here are all my half square triangle that I cut off. I go back and sew them as I go before I trim, so that I can use them for something else at some point. Maybe baby pinwheels?


If you look closely you'll see the reading for this last week. I'm going through a bit of a phrase.

Love Eggs xxx