My Brothers Birthday....

Ok this sounds a similar post to the previous one...

I fell in love with this fabric at the Knitting and Stitching show back in October, I've not seen this fabric since then (until today on someone's blog).

I wanted to go really simple for him, didn't want to make it look too girly if you know what I mean.
It was going to be single until he decided that he wanted to live with his girlfriend, figured it should be double bed sized.

As this was also partically for his graduation I always really wanted to applique a cartoon doctor on the back (this is what he has just graduated for...) However, I didn't think his girlfriend would be very impressed with this.

Sorry the photographs weren't much better, they were taken at 8am the morning that I was giving him them, yes as usual I was sewing the binding on the night before...

My Boss'es birthday

OK this possibly sounds a little bit late. My boss Sally's birthday was in March (I think) I made her a small collection of things for her newly furnished sewing room she had just finished before her birthday (and yes I am very Jealous!!!)

This was the small collection of bits, including a scrap fabric bin (only for the table top, please remember any quilter has a massive amount of scrap fabrics)

The Purple thing you can see is a shop brought letter S (for Sally or Sewing) to put up on the wall in her sewing room.

Two very cute "elf" houses, in red and white, very clean looking. And they look amazing on her black fire place!!!Here is an up close of the fabrics used for the scrap basket, she loves cats!!!

I also made her a tissue holder for her handbag from the fabrics left over from the basic, would you believe I must see it every week she carries it everywhere!! (for some reason I can't get Blogger to put these pictures on)

All these patterns have been taken from the sewing calendar 2010, I love so many things in there, had to spent about 48 hours trying to decide what I wanted to make.

Later I will show you another birthday present that I made. This time my brothers and my Dad's...

Finishes so far this year...

OK I can't believe that we are already into May!!!(well tomorrow we are away)

Was discussing with one of my students the other that that I should probably write down somewhere everything that I have finished this year...

In no particular order (as much as I can remember now)

• Linda's 50th Table runner
• Nan's birthday present
• Draw string bag(from the sewing class)
• Cushion cover (from the sewing class)
• Dad's birthday quilt
• Mum's mothers day present
• 4 table mats (for charity)
• 2 wall hangings (identical - one for me one for charity)
• 3 swap blocks

WIP List!

Ok this one is likely to be just as long....

• Mothers day gift for a friend
• Red and white quilt
• hexagon quilt (started over 7 years ago)
• Brothers graduation present(and birthday prsesent)
• Blouse

I will be back in the very near future to give some more information about the finished projects and hopefully to show you some more things that I will have got off the WIP's list at some point.

I can't believe how much I have made this month! Its been a mamoth sewing month and I believe my hands had enough of sewing bindings on for charity on Sunday (11 hours straight hand sewing, only stopping for the loo and food)

All the best everyone

Long time no post... (Mothers Day gifts)

OK guys I know that it has been absolutely ages since my last post. I need to start getting a bit more up to speed with blogging.

Since my last post the UK has had Mothers Day racking my brains to come up with something a little different I thought about a table runner (they have a octagonal dining table and its been bugging me for years that they have a mat in the middle of the table that is Oval, it never did go at all)

This is what I came up with, fastest table runner I think I have ever made, as soon as I saw the fabric I knew this was the fabric that mum needed.

Not sure if you can see the stitch I used for applique-ing the Dresden plate blocks onto the top, but I found it on a machine at my local quilt shop that I attend. Its tiny little M's Thought this was perfect considering its a mothers day present (and yes I did fall in love with a machine that night)

Quilting it was a real challenge for me, I have never done free hand embroidery like this before, I wanted to make this a little different from a table runner that I gave my gran for her birthday (you might get an opportunity to see that another night) so I highly quilted the middle circle leaving the edges raw, I love the texture and feeling that this has given!

Vermicelli quilting was needed for the rest of the quilt, and I even managed to quilt the word MUM into it somewhere...

Later I will blog about my Dad's birthday present but for now, I thought I wouldn't give anyone a heart attack by showing them EVERYTHING I have been working on since I last blogged.

What do you think about the runner? Anyone else love the fabrics as much as I do??

Linda's 50th

Ok, I'm sorry its taken me soo long to get back on my blog again. I know I have been very quiet for over 2 months! Begining of December I had an operation and since then I haven't been as good as I have been expecting, Although I have been doing quite a bit of sewing as and when I can.

Here is one of my newest completed projects for Linda, who I work withs 50th birthday. I totally forgot to take finished photographs of the table runner before giving it to her. But these were the photographs from her birthday meal (taking in our staff room at work hence the dish washer etc behind her)

On the back of the table runner I managed to get "Happy 50th Birthday Linda, Love Louise printed" I think this is what she is admiring in the first photograph.

The quilt was made with dresden plate blocks (made totally circular and appliqued onto a backing fabric)

It was the first time I EVER attempted to do free hand quilting and I absolutely LOVE the way it turned out, I soon realised that the only way to get the quilting to go right was to sew faster than slower.

Another birthday coming up on Wednesday, have finished the presents for this one last night, will put the photographs for this up soon, and will have a load more updates for you soon.

Sorry if anyone missed me too much.

XX

Finished Baby quilt

As you have all previously read, this was my first ever attempt at a baby quilt. I made a couple of close relationships with my unpicker while completing the top itself. But not as much as I thought I would do. I loved the finished top, the yellow really makes the top pop.

I included the next photograph, this is one of TWO only "I love Daddy" on the whole quilt, the fabric on the rest of the blocks were always conviently over the cutting line. I Love how the "I love Mummy" is right next to this.

I felt this very lucky and special little lady deserved something very personal to her. Which led me to painstakingly applique-ing her name on the back, the red fabric matched the small red spots on the front perfectly. I will admit I had several practices on applique letters before I started (I have two "e" letters appliqued somewhere in my room now, not that it bothers me, I'm tempted to make the rest of my name in different techniques to make something for myself)

The quilting is gorgous, I borrowed a machine from school for a weekend to be able to do this (I have brought my own machine, which will be arriving tomorrow!!!WHOOP WHOOP) this created a couple of problems in the backing fabrics (creases)after unpicking the worst, the small remaining ones became "Love wrinkles" I feel everything should be totally loved for what it is!

Here is the finished quilt with the very cute pink binding (with the same print as the red fabric for "Leah" but in the pink version that the company produce) And to finish it all off, a very cute awwwwww moment, the lovely lady Leah with her brand new quilt (looks a little big but she will grow to it)

Sorry to Mum and Dad for the lateness of the quilt, but the little lady joined our world much earlier than planned. Now she is home she will always be snuggled up tight.

So ladies and Gentlemen what do you think??

Look what I've done!!

Ever since I saw this baby changing bag on the Moda Bake shop I decided I wanted to have it!! I brought the fabrics back in July, and was convinced by one of my students last week to get my bum into gear and get it made.
Thought this would be ideal for my trip to the knitting and stitching show tomorrow with my colleagues from work.

I love the fact it has plenty of storage in it (never mind its massive) There are "hidden" pockets on each end and 6 pockets on the inside with elasticated tops.
The fabric is Arcadia by Moda, And covers everything I absolutely love, bright colours and great shapes and styles. Perfect.

I adore the lining in all the pockets adding extra colour to the bag, only thing I wish I could change would be making sure that the bag was totally reversable so these amazing fabrics seen inside could also be on the outside at some point.

I have included the divider in the bag, but for some reason I have a crease in this, and I might remove this as I'm not sure how useful this will be.

Thanks once again to Moda Bake shop and to Melissa of Polkadot chair who gave us this amazing tutorial on this bag. Made totally out of a layer cake and a charm pack, I have loads left over to create accessories for this bag as well!!

Christmas Stocking Swap

I'm sooooooo excited!!! Pop on over to Indigo Blue, she is arranging a christmas stocking swap. Would be lovely to see some of you lovely ladies there, joining in.


I have loads of ideas, can't wait to see what other people have for ideas as well. Hope you pop over quickly. don't want to see too many people dissapointed!

Click the picture to add yourself, (takes you to Indigo Blue's website where you can add yourself in her Comment box)

Hurry up and get yourself joined!!!!!!!!!!! You know you want to!!!

Update

I know I promised this sooner, I can only apologise for the delay with everything. The world seems to be travelling 20 times faster than I can handle right now. I have been poorly for the past few days, hence why this Thanks has taken its time to get out there into the blog-o-sphere.

Thank you ever so much Angela from Land of No Cooking. I won a giveaway over at hers, and by chance was visiting my parents (who don't live that far away from Angela when she delivered my prize)

Hope you don't mind Angela, I had to borrow your photograph as I have already started creating with these amazing fabrics before I had a chance to find the camera. She has got me perfectly, I have been admiring these fabrics from a far for a very long time! Very proud to say I am now an owner of some!! and the note cards and post-it notes are equally as gorgeous! Thank you!

The baby quilt is coming along really well, this was the last photograph I managed to take of it this evening before the light totally dissapeared. Trust me its alot less pink than it appears at the moment.

The pink fabric that the blocks are on is going to be the backing fabric, it's not actually creased its that the only fabric I could find that was big enough and the right colour was a Sainsbury's single fitted sheet, so the elastic is pulling it in a bit at the moment.

This is only half of the quilt, I aim to make another 6 patches to make it a little bit bigger, and the very lucky girl is going to have her name embroidered on the back of the quilt, in a way so that mummy and daddy could fold the top of the quilt over in the cot and see her name written. (Fingers crossed it works)

Thats all for now. Hope everything else is going well in the blogging world.

Ooo and keep your eyes open for a play it forward that's happening soon, I just got one but I must sleep now, will tell all you lovely people about it soon.

xx

AWOL

Sorry people I know I haven't posted in a wee while.

Its been mega manic around here recently. New job, commitments, moving house.

Last night my school had an open evening, and I feel like I've not sat down for a week.


More details of WIP's later.

My First Baby Quilt

Family friends have just had their first baby girl. Unfortunately they were expecting twins but I heard this girl is doing really well. Just a little bit early.

I decided I would make a quilt for the gorgeous little girl. As normal I thought it would be best to create a sample block before I actually plow my way into the real thing.

What do you think? I decided to try fabrics that would really stand out as different fabrics. The girl is going to be soo lucky in that her first hand made quilt will be made with moda fabrics in shades of white green blue and yellow.

What do you think? Wish me luck with my first ever baby quilt. Will give you an update when I get it finished hopefully in a few days time!xx

Evenings Entertainment.

My Brother came home from a shopping trip yesterday afternoon with this basket from a garden center meant for flowers but he wanted it making for his girlfriend to be able to make a picnic and take it out in central London for an afternoon.

Well this is what I came up with, he brought the gingham fabric himself and allowed me to have the freedom to do what I wanted with it.

I decided to fully line the inside of the basket including the lid. I just love the frills around the outside, I think it finishes it off quite nicely. very kitch and I hope that she likes it.

Im sure I am the same as most of you, once you start you just cant stop. So after creating the lining for the basket I then went on to create napkins to match. (Still not quite sure why my brother thought he would need 2 meters of fabric to line this little basket but never mind!!)

What do you think? It has made me think about items I can create with the rest of the gingham fabric to go with the basket. I am jealous myself, wish I had something like it, Im contimplating going back and seeing if there are any more. Think this would be brilliant on my sewing table fully of fabrics or threads. Having two seperate compartments would allow two totally different sides, maybe even different fabrics lining each side.

Next time more about the Halloween quilt block swap

xx

Current Creations

Well not that much has actually been going on in my world related to quilting etc.

Other than my mums birthday presents which I will post in the near future.

Got a friends wedding coming up soon and was finding it near impossible to get a card that was like the bride (as she is our friend) after buying the present and trying to buy wrapping paper, thats where my mind ran for a card. The sweet wrapping paper has butterflies and dragonflies on it, so I thought I would carry that theme with this on the card, and who could resist a matching gift card for the present while I was at it??

I have also been working on Jane's Halloween swap, These are doing really well so far. My 9 patch, are nearly there, ran out of purple fabric so had to find something similar, so 4 will be of slightly different fabrics.

The themed blocks of ghosts are great, I was hoping to get these all finished before I go away on holiday this weekend, but doesn't look like I will manage that, it takes me nearly a whole day to sew a whole block. So I will be taking the unfinished ones with me on holiday.

I am yet to sew the faces on, will be taking threads with me to complete once I have sewn all the bodies.

How is everyone else's blocks coming on? I love seeing peoples while I pop around the internet.

Unclaimed prize

Well I'm finding this really hard.

Yet again the winner of the lanyard hasn't come forward to claim their prize.

The first person to comment on this blog and email me will win it. The first person to complete both of these will have the prize in the post first thing on Friday.

You must email little_missoakden(AT)hotmail(DOT)co(DOT)uk.

Lots of you are well in chance of winning these. Please don't bicker over winning it.

If two lucky people email close together I will send out to both of you.

xx

A first and learning on the job

Well, I was aiming to create a couple of quilts as gifts during the summer holiday. So thought what better way of finding out if I can do this by creating one first. I have never created a complete quilt before.

I purchased some vintage fat quarters from a woman in America, which worked really well together (sorry I was so eager to start this quilt I didn't take any photographs before I cut it all up)

I worked on the principle of the wonky 9 patch. Not sure where I read about this but on someone’s blog they mentioned taking large squares piling them and simply cutting where you feel comfortable and reordering the pile and sewing them back together again.

I must admit I really enjoyed creating this top, except for the brief problems I had with my rotary cutter which soon sorted itself out when I cleaned all the fibres out of the blade.

I wanted to carry on this vintage feel with the back and the binding and remembered the fabrics I brought HERE. I wanted the orange floral print on the back, but wanted to create something that could also be used as a top if I wanted something different on the bed.

So using the remainder from the fat quarter I decided to create bricks, I feel this works really well.

The next challenge for me was the quilting itself, I have never tried this and have read so many people’s blogs saying how much they hated the quilting process or how often it had gone wrong!! this petrified me!

A family friend lovingly had lent me an embroidery machine for the weekend from the school she worked out. I really wanted to get my hands into this and have a real play. This was a real experiment trying this, being unsure if it was able to take such a thick fabric. But I’m really pleased I have. These little hearts are in the middle of every 9 square. and the bottom right one also has a button embroidered on it. So pleased with this. That was until...

I came to binding this, I realised that when binding I hadn’t quite smoothed the backing out on the quilt before I started basting it. Thankfully because of those bricks I was able to take the edge of those apart and fix the worst of bits. The back still isn’t perfect but it’s good enough for my first attempt and I have learnt plenty of lessons for next time.

Again I managed to find a vintage piece of fabric that worked really well with the rest of the quilt for the outside.

Unfortunately I didn’t have any vintage wadding, so this is the only thing that was new, But this was selvedged from left over’s so really still an eco/green quilt.

To finish it all off, I thought I should sign this, also wanted to remember finishing my teaching qualification this week. Luckily the machine I was leant was also able to write and after a couple of scribbles on scrap fabric came up with this.

All in all I think my first practice of creating a quilt went really well. and the whole experience took me less than 24 hours (although I know it will take me longer if I have to do this by hand!!!

What do you think???