Snow plans

My car is under there somewhere!  The white stuff is falling fast and looks like it has no plans to let up tomorrow.  Could be a day or two before we can venture forth. Good job I have plenty of fabric to play with!

A snowy afternoon made me face my fears and finish off those long neglected baby taggy feelies for the craft sale (deferred for a while anyway).  

With those out of the way, I felt that maybe I could justifiably consider a wee new fun project ....

Lots of paper pieces in a whole range of sizes from that irregular hexagon to the teeny sliver beside it and everything in between.   We are not going to talk about how it might be possible to baste a sliver of paper - I didn't think it through, but I'm going to blunder on regardless.

I've been saving my precious remaining Ruby scraps for this wee project - happy dance!! I can't wait to get some of this stitched up so I can show you!

Hope you all have great plans for the weekend!

Baby Taggy Comforter Tutorial

If you've been a visitor to these here parts in the last few months you'll know that I have been making some of these Baby Taggy Comforters, stockpiling a few for future fundraising sales and making a couple of others for personal gifting.

Anyway, there's really not much to these little comforters and I'm sure most of you could work it out for yourselves, but just in case someone might find it helpful not to have to do any calculations for themselves, here's a wee tutorial for whipping one up.

BABY TAGGY COMFORTER TUTORIAL

You will need:

• 10" square of fleece or flannel
• Four 5.25" squares of cotton
• Twelve 5" lengths of ribbons
• Co-ordinating thread

Cut a 10" square of fleece or flannel for the taggy backing.

Cut 4 squares measuring 5.25" x 5.25" and stitch these into a four patch block to create the top of the taggy.  (Of course, you can design another style of pieced top for the taggy, just make sure that it makes up to an unfinished size the same as your backing piece.)

Cut twelve 5" lengths of varying ribbons.  Fold in half and pin the raw edge of the ribbons to the edge of your four patch top at intervals all the way around.

Tack the ribbons at less than 0.25" from the edge to hold in place.  Double stitching over each ribbon will provide extra stability.

Now place the top piece right side up on your table.  Lay the backing piece right side down on top of this so that rights sides are together.  Pin well around the edges and using your walking foot (to help with the stretchy nature of the fleece) stitch 0.25" around all four sides leaving an 2" gap on one side for turning.

Snip the corners and turn right side out through the gap.

Press well (but carefully so as not to melt your fleece)  and then top stitch around all four sides at less than 0.25" closing up the gap as you go.

Finally, quilt the top as desired to hold the layers together.  I quilted on either side of the seams both horizontally and vertically.   Sew in thread ends and gift it to be loved!

There you have it - hope someone finds it helpful.

Special Little Ladies

I've really been looking forward to being able to show you these little ladies who were stitched in December for a very special new arrival, but I waited until the gift was delivered before the big reveal.

I just loved the opportunity to stitch up these little Russian dolls from Aimee Ray's great Doodle Stitching book.   I think they are the perfect stitch design for this project and I was so glad to find Aimee Ray had included them in her book, as my efforts to draw these freehand would have made for much less successful embroidery!

I did consider making a cushion panel from the stitchery, but as the stitching progressed, I thought it would be fun to turn them into a bright and cheery wallhanging fit for the nursery of a treasured first daughter.  So a little bit of England Swings by Rebekah Merkle and a few heart buttons and cuteness reigns.  Although this cuteness is absolutlely no match for the cuteness of its adorable new owner, I promise you!

And, just as a wee extra I passed on two little taggy comforters like these as well - one to cuddle while one is in the wash!

I may have relished making these baby girl pressies rather a lot!

Struggling with the simple

I finally finished up those baby boy taggy/feely thingies that I've been struggling with.

It's such a strange thing really that I've taken so long to sort these out.  There's nothing complicated about them at all, I just couldn't find the love for making them and allowed that to put me off picking them up to finish them off.

It seemed a shame to leave them incomplete much longer so I took them all with me to one of my poolside vigils and sewed in all those loose ends - there were over 100!

Here's the weird thing - I spend five and a half hours a week at various poolside sessions and hardly anyone ever speaks to me (seriously).  But the day I sat sewing the ends in these taggies I had mums and dads comment on what I was doing, people actually got up and walked across the aisles to come and have a look and ask questions!  I just hope that's a sign that someone will want to buy some when they go to the craft sale!

Cute and Fun

or so I thought!

Back in August I ordered some lovely baby pink and baby blue fleece with the intention of having a go at making a batch of little Baby Taggies/Feelies for a variety of purposes (gifts, craft sale makes etc).

For some reason I thought that making these cute little items would be fun, but sadly I haven't really been feeling that in this process.

I deliberately kept the fabric top a very simple four patch (a batch of which I actually made up on my summer holidays).  Earlier this week I picked up the four patches and decide to move them on.  Tons of ribbon later (these babies eat about 1.5m of ribbon each!) and some swift lessons in the fidgetty nature of fleece, I have a little production line going to finish up this batch of taggies for boys.

Although none of the fabrics in this project are expensive in themselves, I worked out that these cost just under £2 each in materials to make up.  At approx 9.5" square finished, I'm wondering if people would pay more than this so that they make even a little profit if I decided to sell them?

Not sure if it's the item itself I'm not loving making, or if I'm just not a production line type girl.  Hope I can find the love to get around to the girls' batch one day!

Just telling it like it is, so you know I don't always love everything I embark on.


PS - Remember the Slouch Bag I made at Judith's summer workshop?  (Which I do love!)

Well, now you can make one for yourself because Judith has just added the Slouch bag pattern to her Etsy site.  This is a mega versatile bag, loved by kids, teens and proper grown ups too, so if you are beginning to mull over potential Christmas present makes (can't believe I mentioned that word) this would be a fabulous pattern to get you on your crafty way.  Go on, check it out!