In Rememberance

Last year's poppy was looking a bit worse for wear, so it was time for a new one. Just in time Kandipandi published a tutorial for a crochet poppy so I set to.

It didn't take long to make at all.  It's made from DK yarn with the stamens embroidered in black stranded cotton and a button in the centre.

I neated up the back with a couple of circles of felt.  Thanks for the pattern Lisa.  And yes, I did make a donation to the Poppy Appeal, I'd just rather not wear those paper poppies that fall off and are lost after about 10 minutes!

More bum coverings.

Still on a newborn photo prop kick!  I have seen really cute ruffle bum nappy covers around, but no tutorials other than those using a special ruffle fabric. I decided to wing it.  I started off with this tutorial at Made which is fabulous.  I thought I knew what I was doing with the ruffles but it all ended up a tangled mess with ruffles stuck in leg seams and stitches everywhere.  I started again, first with a simple cover, no ruffles.

Perfect for a little boy.  Then, with a better idea of how it all worked, I moved on to the ruffle one.

This is the front, it looks very odd! The fabric was from a craft fair, perhaps at the NEC and was a very bad choice as those little white flowers melt when you iron them.  Lesson learned.

Here is the back, showing the three rows of ruffles.  You can't really make it out, can you?  I need a model... Mr Hefalump!

Poor Mr Hefalump, no wonder he looks so sad.  This does show the finished effect better though!

And it co-ordinates with his blanket!  I'm sorry Mr Hefalump.  I won't ask you to model baby stuff again (I will). 

Oh, and I won an award!  I came second in Homecrafts Blog Awards.  Go check me out and the other winners.

Happy birthday mum

santa hat and nappy cover

I've still got more newborn photo props for you I'm afraid!  I just hope my friend remembers all this when she's a rich and famous photographer (she will).  She'd asked for a Santa hat to take photos of her little one.  Although she's now almost 8 months, she's a tiny little thing who wears clothes for 1-3 month olds, so this would probably fit some newborns anyway!

In case you can't guess, this is a Santa hat and a nappy cover.  A nappy is a diaper to you North Americans.  I used this free Santa hat pattern, but I used a chunky yarn and didn't add the rows in white, instead I sewed on a maribou trim.  It was a nightmare.  Not only did the feathers get everywhere, the thread didn't like it and got caught up with most stitches.

You can imagine how much I enjoyed sewing it to the nappy cover, for which I used this free nappy cover pattern.  The front tabs fold in to encircle the baby's waist and are fixed with buttons through the rows of trebles (US - so UK double trebles).

I think I prefer the back view!

I was rummaging through my button jar for the perfect white buttons, but couldn't find any big enough, then I remembered my self-cover buttons. 

I used a scrap of Christmas fabric, not that you can tell!  I think white might have been a better choice, but then everyone will be looking at the cute baby, not the method of closure!

Right, I'm off to lint roll myself, the sofa and floor.  Again. 

Texturing Metal - craft class

Good morning ladies, I hope you are all well this Bonfire Night morning.  Not really sure if Bonfire Night morning makes sense.  All the fireworks seemed to happen round our way at the weekend.  When they started I went rushing out to see if the buns were OK.  They just looked bored with it!

On Saturday me and my wonderful mum went to another class at The Bead Shop, Nottingham.  It's a good thing they keep adding classes or we'd have to find something else to do!  This class was texturing metal.  It was an experimental class rather than a class where you go away with a finished piece.  This has been on my WIP list all year since I got some hammers for Christmas, but it was good to get some advice and tips.

We started off making some coils.  The silver one is 1.5mm wire and the copper one is 0.8mm, though we used 1mm too.  Once we'd made some coils, we had a good old bash.  We used a chasing hammer and there was also a Beadsmith hammer with interchangeable heads to give patterns.  I wasn't keen on that on the wire, I think it'd be better on sheet metal.  Above the silver one has been bashed flat at the top, then textured.  The bronze one is also hammered flat.

I used two different heads on each side, this one gives it a bit of a shimmer.

Next we moved on to colouring the copper with a heat gun.  I always thought you needed a torch for this so it was good to know I can use my trusty heat gun.  Heating for different lengths of time gives a different colour finish.

Here I was experimenting with heart shapes - the one on the left is a clear winner.  All were hammered flat.  The left one hasn't been heated at all, the middle one heated to an amber colour and the one on the right to a purple/blue colour.

The class was really interesting and now I need to get my hammers out and have a bit of a go!  Better get the dining room sorted out so I have a table to work on...

So I accidentally made a quilt...

I'm pretty sure you all know I've been joining in with the And Sew On BOM hosted and designed by the lovely Kristy at Quiet Play as I've been banging on about it all year.  Well now is the time to link up finished projects.  I knew I was going to finish my 9 blocks off and I knew what I wanted, a wall hanging for my craft room.  It didn't quite work out...

After adding the sashing, I added rows of 2" finished squares (a mixture of Marmalade, Bliss and Ruby as those fabrics were used throughout the blocks), measured it and it was massive!  Far to big for a wall hanging. Ah well, in for a penny and all that.  I added some red spotty borders and made some spool cornerstones (I've just realised I didn't take any photos of them!) and called it a lap quilt.  

I am so unbelievably proud of myself.  Yep, the patchwork is appalling - very few matched points in the few junctions where they should match, but I love it.  The picture above is of the flimsy/quilt top.

With fabric being so expensive over here, I never buy over a metre so I had nothing suitable.  In the end I made a block using the tape measure print from the Measure Twice block, sashed it with the binding fabrics and then pieced together the 1/2 yard pieces of some gorgeous fabric I won ages ago ... I think it's called Sugar and Spice?  At the top and two the left are pieces of Perfectly Perched sent to me by my wonderful friend Sandra. 

I pin basted it on the dining room floor then took a day off work to quilt it.  I did a straight line spiral in the red sashing of each block, then I did some random FMQ in the red dotty borders.  I was beginning to panic at that stage as I knew I needed to add quilting to the blocks and the patchwork but had no idea what to do.  I want to hand quilt them but didn't know if I could then enter the quilt in the linky.  Luckily Kristy said last week we can submit a quilt top, so although this quilt isn't completely completed, it qualifies.

before I quilted it or even made the pieced backing, I thought about binding.  I didn't seem to have anything suitable in my stash and a scrappy binding would be a nightmare as I mainly have charms and the odd layer cake of the fabrics, perhaps a bit too scrappy?  The quilt is mainly red, but my other favourite colour is blue, perhaps why I love these Bonnie and Camilla fabrics so much.  I decided a blue binding would work well.

I didn't seem to have anything suitable, so I got online thinking I could buy something.  I came across the perfect colour in one shop - it was a Summersville print. Then I remember I have some Summersville and yes, I have that print!  I only had a fat 1/8th, but another fat 1/8th in the same colour of the same line helped out and I threw in some DS to round it out.  I can't believe I didn't take a photo of the binding either!  I'm so crap at this whole quilting business - including the photo shoot!

Maybe if you enlarge the photos you'll see the binding?  I alternated lengths of the three fabrics, then added some more of the tape measure down one side.  You can see the spool block above, I had a quick look on line to see how to make it.  There's a tutorial at the Moda Bake shop, but I just had a look how it was pieced, then made up my own dimensions to get a 5" finished block.

See my rubbish quilting?  and there's a great example of rubbish patchwork in the photo above!  Not that I give a monkey's.  

Above you can see the strip of tape measure binding.  I machine sewed the binding to the front, then ladder stitched it in place on the back by hand.  I also worked out for the first time how to do a proper mitre at the back, I can't believe I've been doing it such a hard way up until now.  Photo?  Nope, doesn't look like it!

Here you can see the quilting on the back.  That big block of red is actually a tone on tone print, the two thin red lines are the same as the red sashing and were added to make up the size a little.  I can't believe I also didn't take pictures of the puckers.  I deliberately added some rather large puckers in the back as a design decision.  All quilts should have puckers or they're not real quilts.

My excuse for the lack of decent photos was that today was the only chance I had to photograph it and it rained all morning.  Just before Mr CA had to go to work to load a van, the sun came out so I needed to get the photos quickly.  As the sun was out I couldn't see the screen on my camera.  My excuse.  Sticking to it.  

Maybe I'll get some better photos of the good bits and the disaster spots when I've hand quilted it.  And with that, I need your help.  How oh how oh how do I quilt those blocks???  I'm thinking I need to use something thinner than Perle 8 and I have a lot of embroidery floss - can I use that?  What design??  Please help as this is my baby and I don't know what to do!

I'm linking up at the linky - go HERE, and see what everyone else made!


Related posts

block 1 - Measure Twice
block 2 - disaster
block 2 - You little ripper

block 3 - Spoolin' Around
block 4 - Snip It Real Good
block 5 - All About The Iron
block 6 - A Stitch in Time
Block 7 - Rotary Cutter
Block 8 - I Like Big Stash

Block 9 - Sewing Sanctuary
The red sashing

more bonnets

Yep, I'm still living in 1800s England...  I bet my mum wished bonnets were in fashion in the 70s when I was a baby.  I was bald until I was 2.  I can just imagine the looks I got.

I used this tutorial at Mousse Mouse Creations again, but this time used a pink yarn.  It was Sirdar Snuggly baby yarn again, but I can't remember what the next bit was.  It has little white slubs in which look nice but are an absolute *%$&*$ to sew in at the end.

This is a back view, the back is quite flat.  I think newborns have quite flat heads at the back, though I don't really know as NOT ONE OF YOU volunteered to lend me a newborn.  Yeah, thanks ladies.

A matching nappy cover was in order.  A nappy is what those across the pond call a diaper.  I do prefer the word nappy so I'm not going to Americanise it!  I made this from this free pattern and used both the white and pink yarns.  It looks impossibly small.  Now I also need a baby bum to add to my baby head...

The nappy cover goes with all the bonnets.  I don't know why these pictures are this way up.  I rotated them in the folder before I uploaded to photobucket.  They were still this way up in photobucket so I rotated them there.  Blogger didn't like that.  Blogger has decided you all have to look at it sideways on, so do as Blogger tells you.

I think I'm done with bonnets for a while (until my friend tells me they're too small and I have to start again...), on to something else.  Something else to put on baby's heads and bums so if anyone does want to lend me their newborn...  I'll only borrow it for a few days and I promise not to call it "it".