For your pressie list

Hello Peeps!

Just a quick one today (and no pic, sorry) to drop you a link to a potential gift idea for you if you are a Melody Miller fan.  I hopped over to Alice's blog earlier and today she is showing a pretty bag made in one of the original Ruby Star Rising prints, AND her co-ordinating laptop!  Go on over to Alice's post and see the bag and the laptop for yourself.

Gelaskins is apparently what the customisation product is called and I popped in to that site to find laptop skins, ipod skins etc in some of the best Melody Miller designs (including viewfinder).  So, if these are up your street, maybe you can surreptitiously leave you laptop open at the appropriate page while playing festive CDs in the background for your other half to take the hint.

Be Free Little Birdies!

I know I've shown you my Birdie Stitches quilt before, but since finally finishing it in June those wee birdies have been all folded up beneath my sewing table because I haven't got around to hanging it. Shame on me!

But thanks to a nifty new power drill and my son's helpfulness cutting my bamboo hanging pole, we managed to hang it yesterday afternoon and I now have something to fill this boring, blank space above my sewing station.

And those wee birdies have come out to play!

Little Things

I've been fiddling about with little things over the past week or so.

Another Crazy Scrappy Block for Bee Blessed  (I am really looking forward to seeing this quilt when we get the blocks all gathered and together)

with another one "by the way" for my own collection.  A couple of little crumb blocks, too.

I've been stitching up some squares from the Bee Blessed donated stash to bring together a small baby quilt top for the group to finish.

Oh yes, and one of these little beauties has come my way too!

Shhh, don't tell!

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!

First Finish of October

All ready and waiting to head Down Under later this month.  This gift quilt began life as the hopscotch quilt and then somewhere along the line became this Joel Dewberry concoction which I think will be much more suited for its purpose.

I wasn't sure I was making the right choice on the binding for this one, but I'm glad I chose the argyle print in the end.  It finishes the quilt off nicely without demanding attention to itself which kind of lets the quilt top do the talking.

At least that's one under the belt for my Sew Many Plans.

Great Big Kiss - quick tutorial

If you've checked in to find a tutorial on puckering up - I'm sorry to disappoint!  That's a whole other blogsite!  It's just a block tute I'm afraid, and I've called it the Great Big Kiss block because this block just reminds me of the big XXs that we add to the bottom of our greetings cards.

If you know the real name of this block, could you please share it with me?  It reminds me of a bow tie variation, but I cannot find the pattern in any of my books or online resources and I know I first saw a picture of blocks like this on a blog somewhere about 18mths ago but cannot remember where.

Anyway, as some of you may remember I made up loads of these blocks for this quilt which I made my son last Christmas.  This was such a simple but fun block and so I thought I'd write up a wee tutorial so I don't forget how I made them.  Thought some of you might be interested in it too.  So, with apologies for some of the pics being a little out of focus, here goes:

Cut 4: 4.5" squares solid fabric
Cut 5: 4.5" squares patterned fabric
Cut 8: 2" squares patterned fabric

Use scant 0.25" seams throughout.

1.  Take all 8 of your 2" squares and draw a diagonal line across the wrong side of the fabric. This will be your stitching line.  Top tip: as the fabric can shift under the pull of the pencil, I start my line from the centre of the square and draw out to one corner and then go back to the centre and draw the other half of the line out to the other corner - it really does help. Please note that for directional fabric it will matter which way you draw the diagonal, so you may need to figure out which way that needs to happen first.

If you look carefully you can see how I didn't pay attention to the
directional fabrics in this test block I made last year.  All of the full
squares are running with stripe vertical, but my little corners are a
mixture of vertical and horizontal.

2.  Now take 1 of your 2" squares and align it, right side together, to a corner of a solid square.  The diagonal line should cut across the corner not through it.

The square on the right is positioned correctly with the diagonal
cutting across the corner, not through it like the one on the left.

Stitch on the diagonal line.  Trim off the corner 0.25" from the stitching line and press seam open towards the patterned fabric.

3.  On the same solid square repeat step 2 adding another corner adjacent to the first.

4.  Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the remaining 3 solid squares.  You now have four white squares with little patterned corners.

5.  Now you have 9 4.5" squares ready to be stitched together in the usual nine-patch way.  Lay out your 9 patches as shown below.

6.  Sew the blocks into rows, pressing the seams of the top and bottom rows towards the patterned outer squares and the seams of the middle row towards the patterned centre square.

7.  Placing rows 1 and 2 right sides together, butt the seams and pin in place to hold while you stitch the row together.  Repeat to join rows 2 and 3.

8.  Now press the seams of the fully joined rows open to give you a nice flatter finish.

9.  Trim your block to 12.5" square and smile at the Great Big Kiss you just made!

Hope it works for you!

Sew Many Plans - October 2012

Time to review September's progress with my plans.

1. "Ruby" Wedding Quilt, 2. Wonky Braid for Judith, 3. Stargazing Block for Jan, 4. Bee Blessed Blocks - Sept 2012, 5. Antique Tile Quilt Top, 6. Cutting complete, 7. Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow quilt top, 8. Zippy Pouch for Mum, 9. 5" crumb blocks

• Ruby Wedding Quilt - completed, gifted and received with big smiles!
• HipBees Block - Judith's Funky Chicken Braid was heaps of fun to make and Jan was ultra organised and sent her block details early so I stitched up that one ahead of time too!
• Bee Blessed - I got a little carried away and made a few more blocks than intended. Pieced together one set of donated blocks for the Antique tiles quilt and prepared some scrappy binding and a label for it too.
• Strips and Squares Bed Quilt - cutting completed.
• Hopscotch Quilt - I did make a decision not to proceed with this as the gift it was initially intended for.  So, it will take a back seat for a while as I finish up the Joel Dewberry quilt that I have decided will be its replacement.
• Unexpected extras included a zippy pouch for mum and the 12.5" crazy scrappy blocks and the little 5" crumb blocks both of which I am hoping to make more of from time to time to deplete building scraps and help me overcome my fear of scrappiness.

September didn't afford much sewing time at all really and so I'm quite surprised I actually managed as much as I did.  I desperately want to believe that October might be a little more kind time-wise.  So here's what I'd love to get stuck into this month:

Bee Blessed - We have lots of projects on the go at Bee Blessed just now, so I'll be pitching in to see where I can help with those that need to be progressed.

Class Project - I am so chuffed to be going back to class again this month (oh how I have missed my Thursday nights), and am really looking forward to the applique techniques that Judith will be teaching.  I did well to get my place on this one because the spaces sold out in double quick time!  There won't be a finished cushion until next month, but maybe some of the little projects along the way will get finished up so I can share with you.

Joel Dewberry quilt - This quilt has to be ready before the last week of the month to be on time for packing up to send Down Under.

Not So Gross Quilt - I'd like to add borders to this quilt and prepare the binding so that it's ready for basting and quilting in November.

Squares and Strips Quilt (recycled shirts) - Try to piece 11 blocks for this quilt.

Sounds like I'd better get stitching!