Stalled....

Despite having a pinched nerve in my neck, I have been trying to manage a little sewing in the last couple of weeks.

I have been making the Sew Together Bag, which I first saw Kati's version of on Instagram and instantly fell in love with.

So far, its been going together really nicely. My zips were an inch too short so I used tabs, and in fact, I think I would do this in any case if I was making it again, easier sewing all round.

But now that I'm ready to put the exterior on, I am totally stalled. I can't make a decision what fabric to use, whether to piece it or not, and if I piece it, what design. I originally intended to use the nice sewing-themed navy fabric that I used for the exterior of the side panels. But then I thought it would be too dark. And I think I really want to piece it.

Help please, inspire me!

May Craft Club at Seamstar

Did you know my lovely sponsors Seamstar run a monthly Craft Club? Such a great idea.

Each month, a Craft Club box is sent out to subscribers with a Monthly Makeable kit which includes all the supplies you need to make the featured project. I love this idea! We all know how hard it can be to build up supplies to make projects, particularly if you are a relatively new crafter - you see something you love, but have to trek around online or on foot to pull together the various things you need from different suppliers - it can be a total pain.Not to mention that sometimes you only need small quantities of fabrics or other materials which can be very hard to source at a reasonable price. So its lovely to get everything you need in one package through your postbox every month! A little present - to you, from you! I know lots of people buy crafting magazines regularly - honestly (and I don't say this lightly) I think a lovely kit like this is a fab alternative investment of your spending money each month. You get a proper supplies kit with quality materials, plus you learn a practical skill each month.

You can find all the information plus samples of previous Monthly boxes here.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, the Seamstar Craft Club is celebrating its Birthday! They have sent special Birthday gifts to all existing members and are giving away over £200 in prizes. They are giving away 16 Craft Club boxes during May. Each box is worth £12.98 & contains our extra special Patchwork Cushion. A nice little number of those will be given away by me in the coming weeks! For this week's chance, pop over to my Instagram feed (I am @sewfairyface on IG) where you will find details of how to enter - but hurry, the giveaway closes tomorrow!! You might also want to keep an eye on my Facebook page in coming weeks ;-)

 And if you can't wait till then, my followers and Seamstar followers can buy a box for half price during May - just £5 (plus p&p). To redeem this offer, visit http://www.seamstar.co.uk/craft_club.php  or phone (0044) (0)1829 770733. The code you need at checkout is: ssCraftClub50

The small print: New customers only. Your Craft Club membership starts with a 1 box half price offer. Cancel at any time during Month 1 and you will not be charged for Month 2 onwards. P&P on box 1 is payable. Offer can be ended at any time.

April Scrappy Finishes - Rainbow Star Cushion & Link Up

How was April for your scrap busting? Mine was not so good, but I did manage one small project this week so not a total loss.

Going back a few years ago, I used a few rainbow charms to make this scrappy star using the diamond die on my Accuquilt Go! Baby. But I didn't really think it through and once it was made I realised doing anything with it required y seams, which I wasn't in the humour to tackle at that stage. It went in my scrap basket and remained there until the start of this year when I found it again.

I pieced the y seams the other night - not perfect, but fine for a cushion where it is going to be squished and squashed and no one will notice.

 

Then I echo quilted it using rainbow coloured thread. And hey presto, I have a lovely little cushion. This is a small little cushion - only 15" square, and I have it ear marked for my office chair which has been killing my back lately, whatever way it is set up.

I made an envelope back for it with some large leftover scraps from my Made to Measure quilt back - Ikeas nummer fabric.

 

All done and ready to bring to work tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to seeing what scrappy projects you've been working on this month - link up below!

Feeling inspired...

Today I took a little trip (by myself, a rare treat) to a fabric shop near my mums. One of those shops I'd heard lots about but never visited. Bricks and mortar fabric stores tend to be a bit disappointing in Ireland (with a couple of exceptions) in my experience - the fabric selection is not always to my taste and they tend to be very expensive. But I was pleasantly surprised in The Crafty Fox (in Drogheda) - beautiful fabrics, good selection of quilting rulers, lovely ribbons and other bits and all laid out so prettily. I could have browsed for a long time.

In the end I was restrained. I picked some lovely Tilda reds, a LV Aneela Hoey grey, and a lovely Northcott black and grey that will be perfect for binding.
Then on the way back to mums, I stopped off in the local convenience store looking for a comic for the small girl and to my utter surprise found this on the shelf:

I've been unable to get this in the big "national" newsagent chain so to turn up in a little village shop was unexpected to say the least.

I had a leaf through it and saw some lovely projects. I'm not a big fan of craft magazines in general but was glad I picked this up - lots of inspiration here that ties into my new thing for garment making. I see trying my hand at some dress making in my near future. Where would you recommend for easy patterns for myself?

Stretching {Baby Leggings}

Today I decided to try a project I've been meaning to do for a long time. I have had the cutest Patty Young knit fabric in my stash for - oh - about 5 years now and it was time to use it.

Baby leggings were what I had in mind. I'd read a few tutes for them and they seemed like they should be ok.

I tried to get a twin needle for my machine but the local craft shop where I know they stock them was closed today, and the other fabric shop had an assistant who did not know what a twin needle was. (She offered me knitting needles first, then size 16 machine needles, then, unsurprisingly, I left.)

So I just jumped in with what I had on my machine. Turns out my machine has a lot of fancy stitches well capable of dealing with stretch fabric. (Not that I knew what any of them were.)

I used a pair of leggings Rachel already owned to make the pattern following this tutorial. Then I tried out some of the overcast stitches on my machine. I still don't really know the difference between some of them, they seem pretty similar, but I used one for stretch knit fabric and it seemed to work ok. (It was number 21 on the picture below)

 

The machine told me to use this fancyblind hem foot when I picked the stitch (no idea why though). I like how it looks and it seems nicely finished though.

These were really straightforward to make. I liked the finish I got using this stitch on the main leg and front and back seams. However, I didn't really finish the raw edges on the hem turn-under as nicely as I would like - I was trying to overlock them before sewing the hems on the bottom of the legs and it stretched the fabric a little. I know they won't fray and it won't be noticed, so it's not a big deal but I'd like to figure out how to finish them a bit more professionally. I also was a little messy sewing up the casing for the elastic at the top. But overall, they're details only I would notice.

Miss Rachel tried them on and seemed very comfortable in them. I think I'd go a couple of inches longer next time but they fit pretty well now. I had fun making these and I'll definitely be trying some more dress making in future, I haven't done it for a long time and forgot how nice it is to make something for someone to wear.

Pillow Popping....

Yesterday I decided it time that my tired, old, grubby sofa cushions got a makeover. For the most part prompted by how tired and old they look beside the lovely new cushion I made with my blogger bundle. So I got cutting and sewing. Love how quick making cushion covers is.

I really love the plus pillow....much more than I thought I would. The pattern was by Katy and in the notes she suggested a monochromatic version with different values and I immediately knew what I wanted to try. Monochromatic is not totally me, but the pop of aqua works so well to lift all the red.

This pattern is called Crimson Stones by Joan. The original in the book was made with Innocent Crush against Kona Coal and was a bit more dramatic than this version as you can imagine. But I made this with my blogger bundle fabrics and added some red centre squares, as my living room has a lot of red and I'm pretty sure it is going to work really nicely on my sofa alongside this cushion:

Both patterns are from the Pillow Pop book which is one of the few quilting books I own that I would like to make more than 2 or 3 items from. I really love this little book. There'll be a few more patterns made from it before I'm done.

Now to decide how to quilt them.

I am pretty sure I am going to machine quilt the plus pillow cross-hatch style.

But I'm not sure about the other one. I could do dense machine quilting. Or I could hand quilt it. My other blogger bundle pillow is hand quilted so the two would work well together if I did that. Opinions anyone?

And have a lovely, chocolatey Easter :-)

Stitching the Made to Measure

The last few evenings have been spent very pleasantly on the sofa stitching up a storm.

I table basted this massive quilt top on Saturday and am glad to have that part behind me. I have a few weeks of hand quilting to look forward to now - I love having a big project to work on in bits and pieces. This is the first proper big quilt that I will have entirely hand quilted - usually I do a little bit of machine stitching in the ditch to secure the layers. But I could not face wrestling it through the machine, and I'm interested to see how it turns out done entirely by hand.

It is slow, but very enjoyable.

I outlined all the seams in the central star block with pink perle cotton. I didn't mark any quilt lines at this stage, but may need to for some of the other borders...will wait and decide when I get to that point.  Need to pick another thread now for the next border.

On the home front, only more day at work and I'm off for a whole 11 days....cannot wait!!