the taming of the stash

I've always said I don't have much of a stash.   

Turns out that's not true. I've got a 4-drawer unit full of fat quarters.  This is how the contents of those drawers looked:

I did some ironing, some folding and some colour arranging and now the pink/red/orange and black/white/grey/brown drawers are nice and neat like this!

I removed anything that was less than a fat 1/8, folded all the FQs, then folded the fat 1/8s nicely too.  Anything smaller is to be a scrap.  Want to see my scrap cupboard?

Yeah, I know.  Just call me Mrs Organised.  Actually, that's only some of my scraps.  The rest live in this linen basket:

As you can see, I've started sorting them by colour.  At the time of writing I've sorted all the scraps in the linen basket, but none in the cupboard.

I decided something needed to be done.  These scraps had to be tamed and organised.  Cue a lot of ironing and some quilting as you go.  Wow QAYG takes FOREVER.

I'd think I was going great guns when I'd find a bit of raw edge hanging out or a spot I'd missed!  I resorted to folding the edges of a scrap and stitching it down.  Eventually, after a LOT of sewing and one and a half spools of thread, I had enough...

... to make this basket.  It measured 33" x 14" when it was a flat piece.  I QAYGed (can I say that, or should it be QAIW?) onto a piece of wadding with part of an old sheet behind it.  I then applied firm interfacing to that and it stands up really well.  As I couldn't be bothered with binding, I made a lining from an old pillow case.  It's a simple tote construction with boxed bottoms, no pattern.

It has a large hanging loop as I'd like to fix a rail up somewhere to hang them all on, but so I can take them off.  It requires some more thought.  I didn't interface the loop which may be a mistake.

I intend to make one for each colour of prints, then I'll think about solids.  I don't have so many scraps so I'm thinking I might do divided baskets to hold 2 colours - possibly à la Vera as I LOVE her basket.  I doubt I'll do them all as QAYG as it's so time consuming.  I think I'll also use it as a way to make blocks that I like and then practice my FMQ.

I put some ironed scraps in.  I've now added all the ironed scraps from the linen basket, I think it will be full when I've done!  Maybe it's time to start on the Tula Pink's City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks quilt! *

*affiliate link.  If you click over and buy something, I get a few pennies towards a voucher.

p.s. my craft room is an absolute tip!

New Year's Eve - some presents, some projects and lots of germs!

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!  I'm back with another post as I actually did some crafting yesterday.

But first - I have to show you this photo of the two beautiful scarves my mum made me for Christmas:

The gorgeous blue one on the left is crocheted, but it's crocheted the opposite way to usual, starting with several hundred chain and dc'ing into it!  It's actually a beautiful variegated wool in gorgeous shades of blue (my favourite colour) but the photo doesn't do it justice.  The red on is knitted, a fan stitch which does go up and down - again, it's gorgeous in real life, and it's finished with a pom-pom fringe!!

So what did I get up to yesterday?  Well the husband had to go to work, so I went upstairs and finally made up the crochet/knitting bag that I bought the Amy Butler fabric for ages ago!  I made the small version for mum for Christmas (at her request, not because I'm mean!) and made the tall one for myself yesterday.  What do you think?

As ever, the cutting took ages but it sewed up really quite quickly.  I changed the pattern for the cuff as I didn't quite understand the instructions, this time there's much less bulk in that top seam so it sits neater.

I also finally finished the bag/bed for the wierd little teddy I made.  This project has been the bane of my life the last few weeks.  It should have been really quick but took forever!  Far too much sewing up required.  Here it is in all its "glory":

As a bag...

... and as a bed.

Hm, don't think I'll be knitting this one again!!

Whilst I was upstairs sewing yesterday, my husband came home for work with presents for me!  He'd had them delivered to work and they hadn't arrived in time so he'd bought me other presents (I'd told him not to!) so here were my original presents.  And what a treat they were... more books!  (All book images from Amazon)

Around the Corner Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman

I (heart) Patchwork by Rashida Coleman-Hale



Sew Darn Cute by Jenny Ryan



Free & Easy Stitch Style by Poppy Treffry

This last one goes wonderfully with my new darning foot which was the other present!!

I was going to get started on this today but guess what?  The lurgy has got me.  I feel awful so I'm going to sit here in blogland until I feel better (or fall asleep as I barely slept last night).

I've already mentioned in previous posts that I am challenging myself to make things from my craft books, well it's been a bit unstructured so far.  My First Bambina is doing a Use Your Books Challenge for 2011, well I'm joining in but my rules are a bit different.  I already have more than enough books to last me forever, so I'm going to make something from a book each month.  After the second quarter, if I have 6 completed projects, I'll treat myself to some new fabric/materials to embark on more projects from the books.  If I've completed 6 projects after the first quarter, well then I get my treat early!  Sorry Bambina, I can't put your button in as I've never figured out how to do it!  Hope over to her blog (link above) and join in!

Happy New Year to you all!

A fruitless week so far...

So, last week was a crafting failure where I managed to get pretty much nothing done.  This week hasn't faired much better.  On Friday and Saturday nights I worked on my embroidered angels, but got no other chance to craft.  I went out with my mum on Saturday and we visited a craft shop we've never been to - Pear Tree Yard - if you live in the Nottingham area, it's well worth a visit.  It was like an Aladdin's cave!  Stuff everywhere and really good value.

Sunday was spent in domestic slavery, cleaning the house and doing the washing.  At the end of the day I only had the energy for thread winding (more on that later!).

I settled down on Monday and Tuesday after work to carry on with my stitched angel friends.  I decided they DID need a border and so sewed a stem stitch wavy border, with purple lazy daisy flowers in the corners.  I'm now adding other flowers around the stem.  It's still not finished!  I am such a slow stitcher.  Here's how it looks now:

And here's a close up:

I'm pretty happy with it.  The only problem is the size.  I was intending to turn it into a little cushion to hang on a door or something, an ornament, but it now measures about 18cm wide x 16cm high!  I think I'm going to make it into a real cushion.  When my boyfriend-that-was (now husband) moved in, he had a whole stack of cushion pads - I have no idea why!  They are quite small and are about 10cm bigger all round than this embroidery.  I had cut the linen before I started and it's not too much bigger than the edge of the border, so I think I'll "reverse applique" the embroidery into the front of the cushion, if that makes sense!  I've never made a cushion before so this could be a disaster!  Watch this space...

Back to the always exciting topic of thread winding!  I bought a thread holder box at the craft shop on Saturday and was full of excitement about having lovely neat thread.  So I sat and wound bobbins on Sunday night and put them in my holder.  It's now full and I've still got all my purples, browns, blacks, creams and whites to wind!  I'm going to need another one:

As you can see, it was all lovely and colour coordinated, until I put the one purple and 5 grey bobbins I'd wound in! 

I'm babysitting tonight, for the very person the stitching angels cushion-to-be is for, so I've had to bring along my knitting to take with me.  I'll be making some more hats for the Big Knit.  That leaves me just tomorrow night to finish the stitching if I'm to enter it for Finished for Friday.  Can I enter that if technically it isn't finished, just the stitching part is??  I don't want to miss another week and somehow I don't think a mini hat cuts it!

A few hats and some thread

When I last posted about the Big Knit, I had done 2 and a half hats, well by Tuesday night I had done 9 in total.  I knew that my husband was working on site Wednesday night and wouldn't be home so I had big plans (I always have plans) to get another 5 hats knitted and also do the embroidery panel for the colouring caddy I still haven't touched (my plans are always unrealistic too).  So I settled down on the sofa with Eastenders to knit a few hats before dinner.  I made one, then I thought I'd start the embroidery. 

The background:  I'm embroidering the little girl's name (Evie) across a panel so I'd written it out in a water soluble pen, then I'd tried to do a lattice stitch so had drawn a grid.  I then decided I didn't like the lattice stitch and unpicked it, so I was left with the grid in blue on the material.  I started doing a long and short stitch in bright pink in one corner with the idea of going through shades of pink to a very pale one in the right hand corner of the last "e".  I then discovered I only had a measley 4 shades of pink!  Well that wasn't enough, cue a trip to the shop, the purchase of most of the pink DMCs they had and some bobbin cards. 

So, back to last night.  I decided to wet the piece to get rid of the blue lines which were ruining my vision of the embroidery, so whilst I waited for it to dry, I thought I'd carry on with winding threads onto bobbins.  Before I knew it it was 10pm and I had done nothing except that one little hat. 

Here his is with his brothers:

And I can't even claim that I now have a lovely neat box of embroidery threads as I've still got a long way to go.  I inherited a lot of my embroidery threads from my mum who's been stitching for years, she gave me a load of off cuts and bits from kits she'd finished to use in my card making.  Add to this a pack of mixed threads I bought to get me going and specific colours I've bought since and it makes for a mess of skeins of thread mixed with strands of thread:

I've wound the longer threads and the skeins onto bobbins which now look like this (well the blues, greens and pinks do, but not the other colours yet):

Which looks lovely and very easy to find the right colour, but it still means I've got a tangled mess of threads in another box!  How do other stitchers out there deal with their threads - the ones you've cut but only used 3 strands of, or the end of skein for example?  Maybe I need a special stitching project to use them all up?