Sewing the simple stuff + competition

Morning ladies.  I wanted to post yesterday but my internet connection was playing up.  It's Wifi and for some reason doesn't seem to like the washing machine being on!  So, I've got up very late on this sunny bank holiday Monday - unheard of in this country! - tortured poor Colin and now I'm getting a post written.

I feel I should explain.  For those that don't know, poor Colin is one of my rabbits.  This one:

Poor Colin has had a bit of a dodgy tummy so I took him to the vets where he had a couple of injections.  He's now on antibiotics which I have to give him twice a day.  They're in liquid form and I put them in a type of syringe without the needle, get it into the side of his mouth (to avoid the teeth) and squirt.  He does not like it.  He hates it and fights me every step of the way.  This is why I call it torturing him.  For the record, I do not want to torture him or any of my rabbits - I'd never do anything to harm any of my lovely buns, but I have to do it for his own good. If only he understood!

So, anyway, I have another thrifty project to show you today.

Placemats from curtain off cuts.  My mum got some new curtains in her dining room and had to shorten them to fit.  Co-incidentally, the offcuts she gave me were exactly enough fabric for 4 placemats! 

I considered doing some quilting on them, but she likes them plain so I didn't.

I was a bit shocked at just how crap my topstitching is!  I should really have used the twin needle to make it look a bit better, though it would still be wonky, but I just couldn't be doing with the hassle of figuring it out!  How lazy and un-crafter's-apprenticy of me!

Speaking of which, a few posts ago I mentioned a little challenge, and I wanted to clarify a few things. 

 - It'll be a competition with a prize

 - There'll be about a month from when I properly announce it to the dead line

 - You have to use something you already own, NOT STASH.  Old clothes, curtains, something you bought from a thrift shop...

 - To this you add approx £10 worth of "new" goods.  You do not have to buy them specifically, you can use approx £10 worth of your stash!

 - It doesn't have to be sewn, it can be any kind of craft

 - You can make anything

 - The only rules are that it consists of something old and something new.  Your stash is NEW, even if you bought it 3 years ago!

I'll announce the competition soon and I'll be asking for you to help me spread the word, so get your thinking caps on!!

LANT 1 - success!

I got started on my LANT challenge at the beginning of last week.  If you don't know about my LANT challenge, basically I challenge you to learn something new in the world of craft - anything!  A new technique, a new craft, whatever.

I had been challenged by Susan to try binding.  So I did!  Now, I've shown you process photos along the way, so I wont go into the piecing and quilting.  I'll start with the binding.  I wanted it to match the grey I'd used so I decided to make my own.  Easy I thought, I've got a binding maker... 

Hmm.  Not quite what I was after!  I abandoned the gadget and just decided to sew the edges on and fold them over, much easier than trying to sew along a pre-set line.  I'd bookmarked loads of tutorials, but in the end I just wung it!

So here we are with the binding sewn on the front by machine.

And folded over and pinned to the back.  Hours and hours and hours of slip stitching later...

Ta da!!  Here's a close up of one of them...

The binding is far from perfect, but pretty good for a first attempt if I do say so myself!

And here's the back.  The quilting doesn't show up so well but I really love the effect of all those rainbow lines - each thread matched the fabric on the front.

You can see it better here...

I don't like the other one so much.  I think I should have stitched in the ditch along the seams.

See what I mean?

But we're talking about binding, so here it is close up!

And a view of the back... again the quilting isn't so successful on this one.

So there we have it.  I did another LANT yesterday which wasn't a success!  I'll blog about it in the week but for now, I'm off to a party.

Serenity quilts blocks and wip

Serenity Quilts is having an appeal for quilt blocks.  She wants to make a charity quilt and auction it in aid of Cancer Research.  The request was for 8 inch blocks on cream on cream or white on white fabric with some form of heart.

I made scrappy hearts by sewing scraps of fabric together, then cutting out the heart shape on my Sizzix with a big die.  I forgot to put the Bondaweb on before I cut the hearts, so I pinned them in place before using a satin stitch to machine them on. Unfortunately, I had once again misplaced my brain (have I misplaced it permanently?) and I've sewn them on the wrong side of the fabric!  I'm hoping this will be OK as the right side is quite orangy...

I'm hoping my blocks have been recieved by now as I kept forgetting to put them in the post box!  Is anyone interesting in seeing how my rainbow placemats are coming along?  And how I've messed up every step of the way?

Here they are all basted. 

Cock up number one - the pins I bought weren't curved as I thought when I ordered them. 

Cock up number two - I didn't iron my seams properly, even though I ironed them to one side, I didn't pull them enough and there are little folds on the front.

Cock up number three - I cut my backing fabric to the exact size of the finished placemats.

I'm quilting squares inside this placemat.  I've done the five middle rows so far, but only one on this photo.

Cock up number four - I've done the blue ones wrong, I used the wrong side of my presser foot to measure the distance to sew at.

Cock up number five - I sewed all around and over my first few stitches to secure them.  When I cut off the threads, quite a few of these have come undone and will need unpicking and re quilting.

Here's the quilting from the back.

Cock up number 6 - I've caught some folds of fabric on the back because I didn't baste properly.

Cock up number 7 - It just doesn't look like I expected!

The two stripy placemats are being quilted with lines.  Irregular lines.  Not by design, though it is now!

Cock up number 8 - I've stitched in the ditch on the wrong side of some of the stripes.

Cock up number 9 - I've stitched in the ditch.  As in my stitching in the ditch is rubbish.

And a rear view with only the green quilting done.

Cock up number 10 - see cock up number 6.

Well, I've still got 8 more colours to quilt, then the binding to do, so I reckon I can get this list to at least 20 cock ups!

Colour...

I've got a work in progress to show you today.  A friend recently got married quite unexpectedly (to me and her other friends, her and the groom knew it was going to happen!).  She said she didn't want any wedding presents but requested some placemats from me.  She lives abroad so I haven't seen her yet or met her husband, but I'll be seeing them next month.

My friend is quite unconventional and does not go for anything pastel, floral or girly so I knew I had to go for some kind of rainbow design.

I purchased a Roll-Up of Kona solids in Bright and picked out some colours from the rainbow.  I laid them out on the desk whilst wondering what kind of pattern to go for - I was thinking of little squares forming a frame round a grey panel.  Once I'd laid them out, I knew that was what I wanted!  I got to work cutting and stitching, then matching some colours for some quilting - oh yes, I'm now addicted to quilting!

The little scraps are for me to take to Hobbycraft to match the remaining thread.  Because of the design I've chosen, I only had enough of those colours to do two placemats, but there is enough left over for another design and I thought that 2 of each would look quite nice, I don't always go for matchy-matchy.

A couple of pieces of graph paper and some felt tips later...  I'm going for the one on the right.

Check out these beautiful scraps!  I had to throw them away as they're only about 1/2 wide... I didn't enjoy throwing them away!  So far I've got all the pieces for the second set of mats cut out and ready to piece, but then I started working on something else...  Not only have I been bitten by the quilting bug, I've also been bitten by the WIP monster!

Coasters and placemats

Good morning.

I'm afraid this is likely to be a bit of a boring post as it's basically about 5 sets of coasters and a set of placemats.  Feel free to doze a bit as you scroll through at high speed.

I recently tried to make some coasters from Quick and Easy Patchwork Gifts.  I blogged about how I'd had trouble with the pattern and didn't think it was done in the best way.  Lots of you agreed.  I decided to make more coasters, but to do them my own way.

 

I cut 40 5inch squares of fabric from some layer cakes I had, then I cut 20 4.75 inch squares of wadding.  I put the fabrics right sides together, put the wadding on the back and sewed them up leaving a turning gap on one side.  after clipping the corners, they turned beautiful, no messy seam like before. 

I then quilted them using my wonderful walking foot.  I really do enjoy this process, despite having to unpick 3 of them as I hadn't noticed it was messy on the back from skipped stitches - time for a new needle apparently!

I didn't do matching fabrics, all four the same on each side, I mixed and matched for a more interesting effect.

I love these blue ones, I love those birds.  I think it's Moda Freebird?

And these pink ones are Moda Boutique. 

One thing I noticed was that the coasters were very wrinkled after I'd turned them right side out.  I think I might have left too small of a gap.  On some of them, you couldn't tell they were wrinkled after I'd quilted them, but on others I think you can see the wrinkles but I can't iron them, can I?  Will it flatted the wadding?

Picture of a wrinkly coaster under my walking foot above, and the whole stack below.

Check me out being all artistic!!

Mum had requested more placemats. She likes them large (12 x 18 inches) and plain, just one fabric on the front, one on the back and a double row of top stitching.

I had made a note of the fabrics she chose, but can't find it.  I think the brown one is Moda whimsy.  Can't remember what the other one is at all!

This time I did contrasting top stitching instead of matching.  I really should get some top stitching thread for this, but I didn't know it existed until Nancy told me about it!

I think I'm going to take a break from placemats and coasters for a while, though I do need to do some placemats for a friend who's requested them - they'll be pieced though and I might even experiment with FMQ.  Does anyone know if I should use my darning/free motion foot or my walking foot for FMQ?

Soul Blossoms place mats

My mum is a big fan of place mats.  She usually buys them in John Lewis and has several sets.  One set is getting old and tatty (though they have lasted years - John Lewis is quality) so she decided she wanted some more.  Doing a bit of on-line shopping she came across some bargain Amy Butler Soul Blossoms prints and asked me if I'd make her the placemats.  She bought a metre of each and I get to keep the offcuts!

This is the lovely fabric, cut to placemat size:

I'd measured mum's placemats, then lost the scrap of paper I'd written the dimensions on.  I came to cut the fabric and thought I could remember so I cut one out.  It was huge!  I had to wait til I went round again to measure them so these have been a long time coming.  This is also the first time I've pre-washed fabric, but as they'll be in the washer a lot, I thought I'd better do it.

So here we go, side one:

And side two:

Some puckering, but you're going to pretend you didn't see that, aren't you?

I did a double layer of top stitching and I used orange for the main thread and brown in the bobbin.

I'm not the straightest of stitchers, so I used a little gadget I got for Christmas.  I hadn't used it before as the first time I tried to use this magnetic seam guide, I had a metal bobbin in my top loading bobbin holder.  How stupid?  Plastic bobbin, job done.

Thank you little magnetic thing.