I joined in the Friday Night Sew In last night. I didn't get too much done as my husband had been working away and came home on Friday so I wanted to spend some time with him.
Earlier in the week I'd come across this post over at I make Stuff. She'd made one of the gorgeous Buttercup Bags designed by Made by Rae (free pattern here). It only takes 2 fat quarters of fabric and I'd wanted to make a bag for my mother-in-law. I generally buy fat quarters so I had plenty available, including 10 from the Moda range Hushabye which I'd bought for £10! Bargain.
So I got to work. This is how far I got.
But I'm not happy. See the seam at the top?
Very messy. I also hadn't caught the seam at the side so I've just unpicked it this morning and am going to try and sew it up again. I'll post about it when I'm done!
The pattern calls for two buttons. I'd gone to HobbyCraft to buy a magnetic snap (I'd only just ordered some from the internet when I realised I needed one for this pattern, so I had to spend £4 on one!! I think I ordered 6 for a pound or two from ebay) when I saw these self-cover buttons. I was amazed, I've seen self-covered buttons mentioned but thought you needed a special tool, I was going to look into it when I had a bit of spare cash. Well, for £1.69 I snapped them up. The two I've made match the lining on the bag above. They were easy to make, though I had to fussy cut and fussy sew (is that a real term or have I made that up?) so the motif was centred, they'd be quick to whip up if it didn't matter about centering the pattern.
Last night I also finished off a work in progress from before Christmas. I'd started to embroider a bookmark using the gorgeous designs from Big B. I'd abandonned it half way through the first motif when I realised I was going to have to get working quickly on my presents to get them finished in time. I had left it languishing in my sewing box so I got it out and finished the embroidery. Last night I sewed it up. I am RUBBISH at sewing up bookmarks, despite the fact they're the easiest thing you could sew!
It's backed with this sweet scrap of Moda fabric from a layer cake.
Some close ups of my embroidery.
I've used stem stitch for the icing, satin stitch for the cherry and back stitch for the rest.
Here I've done the doily in satin stitch (that was hard going round the corners!), stem stitch again for the icing and back stitch elsewhere.
I'm adding this to my Christmas stash.
Right, I'm off to sew that bag up again!
