It's raining. Let's make summer dresses!

While the weather has been wild outside, it's been a perfect excuse to hide indoors with my sewing machine!

This is a lovely light cotton fabric that I really enjoyed working with.  I picked it up while I was on holiday in Cornwall last year.  It's sized for a 6 - 9 month old baby, and it has a couple of features I haven't tried before.  The gathering for the skirt was a lot harder than I expected!  I also used top stitch around the bodice and I'm really pleased with it!

I was so pleased with it, I made it in this fabric too! 

I need to finish them both, they need a good press, and also some buttons and button holes.  Any excuse to shop for buttons!  Before I do that, I'm going to make the same dress in this fabric

I think the fabric is so cute!

We've also been making really brightly coloured suntops and coordinating shorts ready for summer - when it arrives!

These are in larger sizes, this particular one is for a two year old.

Never Sew Distracted!

Even though it's damp and windy, I've been thinking about summer.  I'm starting to look at dresses and to try to design some myself.  I'm actually half way through making one, but I had a bit of a disaster yesterday - I got distracted and didn't position the material properly and finished up sewing through all layers - front and back! I need to unpick it today and see if I can redo it neatly.  If not, it will become another practice run!

This is my finished rectangle doily from before christmas.  I started off in a circle, and then squared it off as I went round.  One finished, I blocked it out, and here it is!

A Break from the Norm

I've been doing a few different things since I finished my quilt.

A friend asked me for some mug cosies, which I'd been meaning to try out for ages, but just hadn't got around to it.  I was quite pleased with how they came out.

The one on the left, around the red mug, was just a strip of crochet with a button hole at one end and a button on the other. Buoyed by my success, I was a little more adventurous with the second.  I made it as one piece joined over the handle with a loop button hole and button.

The other project I'm still working on, but I can show you a picture of my first attempt.

I was asked to make two doilies.  The only experience I have with doilies is seeing them at my great nan's when I was a small child.  I conferred with my mother in law about it as she is a brilliant crocheter, and she pointed me in the right direction.  After quite a lot of faffing around, this is the first one all blocked out on my ironing board:

I'm pleased with it, as it was very fiddly and it took me ages!  Ill post a picture when I'm finished with the second one.  I've designed this one myself, so this will be interesting!

Finished!

I'm very pleased to say I've finished the quilt!

It's too big to get a better picture of at the moment, it's final finished measurements are 1.2m x 1.1m!

I changed my design a bit as I went along.  I had originally planned to quilt each elephant on the centre panel as I backed it, but it was too large by then to maneuver to get a pleasing result.  Next time, Ill remember to back it and quilt it before I joining the sides! I had a similar problem in the reverse, I had designed a chevron pattern to quilt it using white cotton fabric and coloured threads, but I couldn't handle the fabric well enough to get a nice finish, so instead I used a nice, soft cotton.

As you can see I learned a lot as this is my first quilt. We are doing a craft fair on Saturday, so Ill take it along and see if people like it!

My First Quilt!

It's taken me a week, but I've finally finished the front of my quilt:

It was a bit difficult to get a picture at 1 x 1.1m it's bigger than my kitchen table!

I had the elephant fabric as a fat quarter and I wanted to use it as the main feature of a quilt.  I wanted to give it some borders and corner squares to bring out the colours in the elephants, so I opted for white border pieces and yellow and green corners.

I found inserting the corners was the difficult bit.  I'd read quite a lot before I started and books suggested sewing the long border to the quilt, then sewing the corner pieces to the short borders and attaching the whole piece to the quilt:

Once I'd sewn them, I realised I'd taken the seam allowance into account twice, and the corners weren't in the right place.  I unpicked them and resewed them, and I'm much happier with them now :

Phew!

So now the front is finished, and I need to quilt it, then work on the back and think about the binding colours.

Back soon with a progress report!

3,2,1 - Quilt!

Well, I've finished the special request, and they were very pleased with it, so that was great!  I can't post a picture yet as it's a surprise gift for a new addition to the family, but Ill post one soon.

Today, I'm going to start my quilted cot throw.  Im going to start by drawing out the templates I need and double checking my design measurements and calculations are correct!  I'm hoping to get it finished ready to display at our next craft fair on 23rd November.

Finish What You Start

Well, I've finished to hoodie!  I'm really pleased with it, I really like the colour combination.

I've been designing a quilted cot throw using a panel of bright motif fabric with plain borders, and colourful squares on the corner.  For now though, that will wait because I've just had a new special request come through.  And that means an excuse to visit the wool shop!