In the interests of transparency: quilt festival haul

Despite my feelings about spending lots of ££ on fabric, I did come home from the Quilt Festival with a few fat quarters in my bag. 

Most are destined for some Christmas projects, and were all reasonably priced at £1 per FQ. Dontcha just love those penguins?

Then there were a few fillers/neutrals (also £1 per FQ)

And finally, I splashed out on some half-metre cuts from Kaleidoscope Fabrics for a special project I am planning. These cost a bit more...

They go perfectly (as I hoped) with these jelly roll strips. The project will be for our bedroom. One day. 

Snip, snip

Hello!

We've been on holiday and come back again. And we've been to help a cousin get married, so now Normal Life can be Resumed. As if there was such a thing.

There are projects a go-go here, and in the midst of allotment clearing/tidying, washing, cleaning, working, playing, making jam/cake/jelly/supper, delivering children to summer camp and all that stuff I am trying to polish off a few UFOs and clear the mending pile, and generally, you know Tidy UP.

So, to get back to the previous post, I have decided. I have thunk and thunk and then I worked it out. Best thing to do: trim and square.

I was a bit loathe to size my squares down and lose overall size in the quilt top, but as a newbie quilter I figured I ought to learn how to do it right, rather than learn how to do it badly. So, I am downsizing my squares, but they will be much easier to piece together and the overall result will be better (I hope). 

My parents will be visiting later in August, so again - I have an eye on the clock and wonder if I can turn this thing round this time? 

In which I realise I might have bitten off more than I can chew

Sometimes deadlines are just impossible. Was it Douglas Adams who said he like the sound of them whooshing past?  

Knowing that my parents visit was fast approaching, I spent a couple of evenings last week diligently cutting fabric into pieces and then stitching it back together again - trying to get the quilt top for my mum into some sort of order. 

I chain pieced and I pressed, and I now have 100 finished blocks. I ought to be ready to stitch these together into rows, but eeek. The blocks aren't quite perfect.

Some of them are a bit smaller. Some are a bit bigger.
Some are (gasp) a bit wonky. Turns out, my cutting wasn't always as accurate as I thought. And, um, neither was my sewing. 

#alwayslearning

So, I'm sort of stuck. I don't know whether to embrace the wonkiness and just sew the darned thing together, or spend time fiddling and trimming and trying to square things up before sewing the darned thing together. 

My parents are here now too, and as my mother doesn't Know about The Quilt, I'm not going to spoil the surprise. 

Sigh. 

A half plan is forming in my head, but it'll have to wait. 

Enjoy the bank holiday if you have one. I'm at work, the kids are at school, so it's not a holiday here #justsaying.

Sew

Howdy chaps.

Just back to report on last week's sewing adventures. In the midst of the rain, I got an annoying sewing job done - involving replacing a zip on my husband's hi-viz bike jacket (I broke the zip, so I really had to fix it!) It is a major cobble - I broke two needles in the process, unpicked a lot of very wonky stitching but managed in the end to return the jacket to him with a functional zip. And, he was happy with that. Phew.

Once that was out of the way, I moved onto other things. I refashioned one of my old hoodies into a sweatshirt/hoodie for the bean. He's got lots of sweaters that are almost too small, so I hacked apart one of my sweaters to make something for him. I cut the sleeves off, the hood off and cut along the side and shoulder seams. Then I narrowed the back and the front by several inches (taking things in at the sides) and lopped a chunk off the top of the sleeve, using one of his other sweaters as a guide. After rejoining the shoulder seams, I set in the sleeves and joined the new side seams. The neck was very wide  - much too wide for my 8 yr old, and I couldn't find an easy way of reducing this because of the logo on the back and the kangaroo pocket on the front. [Note to self: these features make refashioning much more tricky!] I opted to reattach the original hood - just tucking a wee pleat in the centre back to make everything line up. The neckline is still super wide, but with the hood attached it's not very noticeable. 

The best bit. He loves it. A photo will follow at some point - but each time I try and take one he has covered the sweater in milk, or mud, or something splattery.

Just so you have something to look at, here is a stack of freshly stitched squares that I am making into a quilt top for my mum. The fabrics all came from my grandma, and a duvet cover she made for me when I was a teenager. 

The duvet cover was made from vintage fabric scraps from clothes and other household textiles in my nana's house. The duvet cover disintegrated a long time ago, and I've been trying to decide how to make the remnants into a quilt top for some time. Last week I finalised my design/approach, cut the squares to the right size and started to stitch. There are 100 patterned squares, and I chain pieced the lot while the children ate their supper the other night. Wowzers that was fast! Who knew?

There might just be a deadline with this one. My mum's birthday is at the end of the month, and they are coming to visit. Maybe I can get it done before then?

New beginnings...

Today the bean started school. A momentous moment for every parent. Our first born, at school. It is hard to take in. 

He's there for a gentle morning in a small group to get started. Then another gentle morning with the whole class on Monday, and then 4 more weeks(!) of gentle mornings getting to grips with this new environment and new routine. 

I'm taking some annual leave next week, to be on hand for the bean's first week at school, and in anticipation of an hour or two of me time time for housework and gardening and crafting, I am making a list.

It goes like this:

1. Finish Dolly (baby cardigan), block, assemble and send to recipient.
2. before sending Dolly in the post, check that recipient is still small enough to wear 3-6 month size. If not, pass onto smaller baby and start knitting a bigger Dolly for first recipient. Do Not Swear.
3. make some cloth nappies for jelly bean's dolls
4. make some more doll blankets/quilts for jelly bean/gift stash
5. make birthday crown for jelly bean
6. make birthday cake(s) for jelly bean
7. dye some (old) clothes
8. tackle UFO pile: ripple blanket; man socks; sewing pile
9. make a large pile of gift bags 
10. do some gardening (back garden: veggie plot)
11. do some more gardening (front garden: flower plot)
12. take books back to library
13. ride my bike
14. drink coffee
15. eat cake.

That is all. I'll let you know how I get on....

Making Monday: Christmas is coming...

Winter vomiting disease has been and - hopefully - gone in our house now, so normal service is resumed. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say the washing machine got quite a work out....

Despite it all, there has been plenty of Christmas crafting this year. I don't know why I've started so early, or been so organised about it. Who knows? But - without wishing to boast - the christmas basket is starting to brim with handcrafted goodies all made from stuff I was hoarding  the stash. So far I have made:

• three pairs of socks (one adult; two child);
• two men's hankies (upcycled from an old shirt);
• three quilts for a dolls bed (also upcycled from various shirts and sheets);
• and one pair of handwarmers.

Here are a few shots of these projects...



In the midst of all this I have also made a pair of socks for my brother's birthday (happy birthday boy!), a cowboy/Woody style waistcoat for a 5 yr old's birthday (happy birthday Digby!) and a baby hat for a newly hatched sister belonging to one of the bean's friends.

Here are the birthday socks...

pattern: generic top down

yarn: German sock yarn, bought at Peebles show in 2010.

You'll have to wait for pics of the other things. The baby hat and socks for the jelly bean will be worth waiting for - they are knit in that fab Berocco sock yarn I had for my birthday. It's gorgeous stuff and I'm just hoping there will be enough left to make some socks for me!

But, now all that's finished, I'm not quite sure what to do next. Someone at work is expecting twins in the new year and I was thinking about making some weeny jackets for them; I've got a Clothkits dress for the jelly bean languishing somewhere, and various plans for dressing up clothes to add to our dressing up basket, plus a friend that I owe a hat .... Any suggestions? Perhaps a glass of sloe gin will help? It can't hurt, can it?

Something old, something new (FO)

Some French friends of ours were married over the summer; announcing the nuptials only after the event. We saw them recently, and thought we should give them a little something to mark their new life together.

We looked in a local craft gallery for a suitable present, but nothing was quite right. So, I set to with my sewing machine instead, and made two placemats, two coasters and two napkins.

I used linen (a charity shop bargain) plus some scraps of vintage fabric from my grandmothers house. Since both bride and groom are tree geneticists, the leafy motifs of the fabric seemed to fit perfectly. In addition, I quilted a leaf motif onto the back of the placemats,which you can just see here ...

You never quite know how such gifts will be received - (I have a relative who never acknowledges the handmade things I send) - but I am pleased to report that the happy couple were happy, and so was I! Another gift gifted, and made entirely from the stash.