Nov 28, 2010

The Sewing Circle - scrappy wreath tutorial

This wreath is a variation of one my Mum made when we were kids - out of green plastic garbage bags!


Take an ordinary wire coat hanger and bend it into a circle shape.  It does not matter if it's not exact.  The hook of the hanger will be what you hang your wreath up by - makes it easy to hang on the front door.


Now raid your bin, scrap basket, Mum/Aunty/Sister/Friend's bin and scrap basket.  Any piece of fabric is useful.  If it's long enough for you to make a knot with it - then it's long enough.  I used pieces of selvage, cut offs from the edge of quilts, left over binding - everything.


Working your way around the circle of your wreath, knot your pieces of fabric and squeeze them up tight together.  I use a single knot and just pull it very tight.  


Some of the pieces I trimmed with pinking shears, most pieces were rectangluar but towards the end I snuck a few weirdly shaped bits in there.  Varying the lengths of your pieces also looks good.


Once your wreath is full (really squeeze them up tight to make it very full, this will help them not to come undone) wrap some more fabric or binding around the hook.


You can now 'fluff' your fabrics and turn them around to create the look you like.


 Et voila - you have created a beautiful wreath out of all your scraps - and it will remind you of all the projects you worked on throughout the year!

Nov 27, 2010

the Warwick quilt - finished!

Just in the nick of time - or with 5 days to spare - depending on which way you want to look at it.  The Warwick quilt is finished and ready to be packed up and transported over to my brother in London by my Aunty on Thursday.




 I picked up the grey spot for the binding yesterday, without having the quilt or the measurements or anything with me.  But I knew when I saw it that it would look good, especially against the back of the quilt.

So here are a whole lot of gratuitous shots of the quilt hanging from my clothes line.  I love my new binding technique and I've finally worked out how to mitre the corners correctly.



I hope my little bro likes the quilt and understands how much love and effort went into creating it.

Nov 24, 2010

Mya's baby quilt - finished!


I thought today I'd better crack on and finish Mya's quilt.  Mya and her Mum are coming over tomorrow and rather than wait and do some fancy quilting I thought I'd just bind it up and finish it today.





I used a scrappy binding.  All the left over bits from the log cabins and even the backing were cut into strips and sewn together.  I had just enough to do the binding and I felt very good that I didn't have to go and buy more fabric and that I don't have these little bits of fabric floating around in my stash.

I also tried a different technique for machine sewing the binding onto the quilt, a technique suggested to me by Christine.  When you sew the raw edges of your binding to the quilt, attach it to the back of the quilt.  Fold the binding over then using a nice zig zag or perhaps a blanket stitch, sew the binding down on the front of the quilt.  This worked a treat for me and wound up much neater than my previous attempts at stitching in the ditch and trying to 'catch' the binding from the opposite side.  This method probably isn't for everyone as you wind up with a noticeable zig zag stitch on your binding, which didn't bother me as this is a child's quilt.  Obviously too if you chose a neutral thread it would blend in more.


And as the sun is bright here for the first time in days, I headed outside for the finished photos.  I will definately do that more often I think.  (It also helped that our mower man has just been and the yard looks nice!).

Nov 23, 2010

Christmas bunting

I finally found the time to have a go at making some bunting.  It is the easiest process and quite soothing too!


I have quite a collection going of cute Christmas prints so this was the perfect time to use some more.  


And some scrap pieces of red fabric were quickly sewn together for the binding.  You could of course use ribbon or pre made binding or some cotton/twill tape.

Nov 22, 2010

Christmas placemats

I finished the first batch of Christmas placemats in time for the first of our family Christmas celebrations.  Aunty is going to the UK to visit her daughter and son-in-law (and my bro) so we had a pre-Christmas with her, her son and his partner.  

You can see here how bright and lovely the placemats made the table look. 


I will take a close up of some of the finished ones, once I get them back from my Mum.


I've been sewing madly lately, trying to get my Warwick quilt finished so that Aunty can take it with her and deliver it to my bro personally.  More pics to come shortly.

Nov 9, 2010

Mya's baby quilt

I've nearly finished Mya's baby quilt.  I was hoping to have it done by this Thursday but I've run out of cotton!  I can't believe it, I always keep a good stash of white cotton but some how I used all my reels up.  Never mind.


 It's all pinned and some of the 'in the ditch' quilting has been done.  


I added this green stripe fabric in between the blocks to make it a tiny bit bigger.  I think the pale green breaks up all the pink nicely too.


And this cute lady bug is the backing fabric.  Apparently Mya's room is lady bug themed so I was really pleased when I found this piece of fabric, it's called Daisy Bugs by Michael Miller. 

 

Nov 1, 2010

what I've been up to (this one's for you Fran!)

Hello everyone, yes I'm still alive!  Had a few things on my mind and on my plate - you know how it goes.  But don't worry I've not been totally idle.

Firstly Mum, Aunty and I went to the craft show a couple of weeks ago.  Had a fab couple of hours and bought this lovely fabric panel which when cut up with a little border added will make great Christmas placemats.

I also managed to make up the bag and post off the prizes for the winners of my giveaway.  Hopefully they should be arriving in the next few days so here is a little look at the bag I made for first place winner Bonnie.  I hope she likes these colours as much as I do.

Kate Spain for moda has this great range of Christmas fabrics out including this beautiful panel of the 12 days of Christmas.  Backed it up the other day and voila - a cute wall hanging.

And lastly Aunty and I attended an awesome screen printing workshop last weekend hosted by the beautiful Ellie of red seed studio.  Ellie was so generous with her time, knowledge and supplies.  I chose this little design as it reminded my of a wine caraf.  The white tea towel is printed in a deep red colour (although it looks almost black here).


 And then I printed 4 pieces of this maroon hemp/linen with the same design in a dark grey/charcoal colour.  These will hopefully be making an appearance on our dinner table soon as placemats.  The course was really fun and we'll definately be trying some more printing in the future.  Ellie has just written the most beautiful post over at her blog.

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