Meet Beatrice

Beatrice joined the ranks of handmade teddies in our house today. Poor baby R was the only child in the house without a teddy made by her mum, and, really, that situation needed to be rectified. Isn't she cute?

Like her brother and sister monsters, Beatrice's pattern came from this book, "Make a Monster" by Fiona Goble. I bought it on a complete whim 3 or 4 years ago and I love it. I've made 5 or 6 of the monsters in it - probably more than any quilting book I own! It's well written, the patterns are very quick and straightforward to make with an easy construction method, and they have a big impact with the kids. The monsters are all sewn with polar fleece which is nice and easy to work with, and soft and hard wearing for the kids.

I posted a few picture on Instagram of my progress, and, in the way that you do with sewing photos, only spotted a mistake when I looked at it - the seam on the arm was not lined up properly originally, and it was bugging me, so I redid it.

She joins Martha and Leo who have lived in the 2 older kids' beds since they were toddlers. They're small, and funny looking but it never ceases to amaze me how the kids love these little guys. I tell them I've sewn loads of kisses inside their monsters so that they can make kids feel better in the night if they're feeling scared or have a bad dream and they totally believe in the power of that. Martha and Leo are looking pretty "well-loved" after hundreds of nights of cuddling, and both have had a few repairs over the years but they've plenty of life in them still.

Beatrice has taken up residence in Rachel's cot alongside another little handmade beauty which Geraldine sent her when she was born.

I think they'll do a pretty good job of minding her :-) And I need to make a few other bits to decorate her room now that her new furniture has been fitted and I've almost finished de-cluttering. Poor baba is in her room almost 3 months and it still hasn't been decorated for her; bad mum!!

Woohoo! First quilt finish of 2013 :-)))))

 

Those noises you're hearing and wondering what they are? They're the sound of me doing a happy dance that I have finally - almost 3 months into the year - managed a quilt finish. Yippee!

It's a very small quilt - a baby size pram quilt - but a big milestone. Finished this morning as my baba hit the 10 week mark - can you believe how fast the weeks are flying by?  (A hell of a lot faster than the last 10 weeks of pregnancy which were pure torture!) After she was born, I bought a couple of Posy charm packs and when they arrived, I stroked them for a couple of weeks while I was deciding what to do with them. I've wanted to try a tumbler quilt for a little while now, and as the charms lent themselves so easily to cutting into tumbler shapes, I made quick progress once I jumped in and started cutting. I used about 1.5 charm packs - or slightly less - on this, primarily picking the brightest fabrics from the packs.

Back in the Black Friday sale, I bought a yard of Happy Ever After fabric from The Intrepid Thread just because I thought it was lovely - it was one of a few boys and girls fabrics I bought to make sure I had some lovely fabrics in my stash when baby arrived. I really like how it works against the quilt top - totally different, but sweet and girlie also and able to stand on its own enough to make this functional as a double sided quilt.

I quilted it in a random stipple using Aurifil 50wt thread in a light pink, adding in lots of hearts for my gorgeous baby who has truly stolen our hearts! I like how the quilting shows up on this picture I took in the sunlight this morning before washing it:

After that, all that remained was to bind it. I auditioned a few binding choices over on Instagram,  but wasn't really happy with any of them. So I popped off to the local fabric shop and while I was looking at fabrics, noticed they had a premade bias binding in precisely the colour I had been searching for in the fabrics.

I really am happy with the deep purple binding, it works well with the Posy colours and kind of grounds the colours and frames the quilt. (I also might be in love with the premade binding, this was the nicest I've found and super easy and quick to work with. Anything that makes the process easier at the moment!)

And ta-dah, it's done!! I hope you'll forgive me the number of photos for such a small quilt (25 x 36"), but as you can see, I'm very excited to finally have a finish to show you. And here's the lady herself, kicking around happily on it this evening!

I'm working on a few other things - don't forget to pop over and follow me on Instagram where I am posting regular pictures of my work in progress and enjoying looking at what everyone else is working on.
 

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story:

Naptime Sewing

 
It's been a busy 6 weeks here, but I've managed to squeeze some sewing into R's nap time in the last week or so, and its amazing how great it makes me feel. I didn't realise how much I had missed the process of making things - it does my sanity good! It might seem like its impossible to sew with a new baby, but I am finding 15 minutes here and there and making progress steadily working in bite size chunks, so to speak!

When I was browsing around looking for cute tutorials to make things for R, I found a great tutorial to restyle a little girl's tshirt into a dress and decided to try it on a tshirt E has had in her wardrobe, unworn for months now. I haven't done any garment sewing in a long time, so it was fun to tackle a different project.

Ooops - of course, I discovered the reason she hasn't worn it when I started sewing - its more than a full size too big for her, but by the time she fits it, the Moshi Monsters will no doubt be last year's fad. So I kept going and added some ruffles. I used a knit, a cotton and a seersucker to give some different textures.

 

When I pinned this, I thought it would be a simple enough project, but I found sewing the ruffles on in layers a bit tricky. But I got there in the end and I think it turned out pretty cute.

Next I moved on to making something for my baby girl. When I saw the peasant dresses that Toni sewed for her baby girl last summer, I made a mental note to make some myself if I had a baby girl. So I ran up one in the last few days, using a pretty cotton print I found in the local fabric shop, and a little bit of one of my stash fabrics (Hope Valley I think?).

 

I used this free tute, although I might buy the pattern so I can size it up as its very pretty. I even added the ric rac edging!

The pattern is great and easy to make. The only thing I realised - at the very end - is that the sizing is quite small. I only noticed that even though its 0-3 months, its up to 12lbs - most of the 0-3 month clothing here in Ireland goes up to 13.5lbs at a minimum, even 14lbs sometimes.  Some my chubby little lady is already nearly at the weight limit and I'd say she'll get only a couple of wears out of it.... I'll just have to make another in a bigger size! :-)

The last project I've been working on is a tumbler quilt with my Posy charm packs. Here's a sneak peek...I have the tumblers all pieced and just need to add some borders to have a finished quilt top. I'm loving working on this and aiming to get it finished maybe next weekend, it will only be a small pram sized quilt but very pretty.

Getting the time to write posts and upload pics is still a bit of an effort, as is commenting on other blogs. But as I have my phone on me most of the time, I am snapping what I'm working on and posting it on Instagram (sewfairyface) and my FB page, and following others on the same apps that I can browse easily while cuddling or feeding a baby so if you want to keep up with me, you might like to follow me there. And if you leave your Instagram name or link to your FB page in the comments I'll be able to keep up easier with you too :-)

Better Late than Never

Ok, so I didn't manage to do my Friday Night Sew In on Friday night. My parents were visiting and I could hardly disappear out to the kitchen and sew for hours as I planned! I did it today instead. But that still counts, doesn't it?? Maybe I should clarify: - my plans for the FNSI when I signed up were to finish the inner and outer circle of my Dresden circle for the Lily's Quilts quiltalong.

I was a little nervous about piecing the circle but thanks to Lynne's great instructions, it was pretty straightforward. I had been procrastinating on doing this and now I know why - I wasn't happy with the blue background I had originally chosen.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, it works really nicely, it just didn't feel as.... well, as "fresh" as I wanted. So I went with with some Ivory white Kona cotton instead. I do love it and can't wait to quilt it now! And I'm pretty pleased that I've caught up with the QAL too, so I'm all proud of myself :-)

Even though I didn't manage to sew the Dresden on Friday night, I still did some hand-sewing while I sat on the sofa watching the new Harry Potter DVD. I had the bones of this tag comforter sewn up ages ago but it had gone into a pile of stuff waiting for me to do some hand embroidery on it to complete it. I finished off the seams and some decorative embroidery, including the name on the back and it turned out to be a cutey!

With no work this week I'm hoping to get seriously productive on the sewing front, children and life permitting...so watch this space!  I'm linking this up to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory and some other great blogs - check out the links in my sidebar!

More baby gifts....

I finished this cool baby comforter last night and I love it, I think its my favourite so far! Its so cheerful and colourful. The back is baby blue minky and the front is really soft apple green fleece.






The rocket is appliqued on, mainly in fleece with decorative red stitching and some fabric features from the Riley Blake "Wheels" collection which I think work really well.










Hopefully the lovely little baby boy I made it for will get lots of fun from it, with all the different ribbons and textures to enjoy. It measures approx 33 x 33 cm without the ribbons, so is a really nice size for a blankie.


I'm now working on some baby blankets with the lovely fabric I got from American Etsy stores this week. I've now just got too much choice and its hard to pick something to start with. For the boy's baby blanket I'm going with this lovely funky owl fabric backed with minky:





But I still can't decide on which fabric to use for the baby girl's blanket. I'll figure it out later on but now its time for a nice cup of tea!

Baby Buggy Blanket

So it's finally finished!!! My first attempt at a patchwork blanket worked out really well and I'm very happy with it. It's been a learning process and there's a few things I'd do differently to make it absolutely perfect but overall I think my idea worked out as I hoped.

It's made of 100% cotton backed with beautiful, soft minky.






The cotton and minky gives it a lovely weight.

It would make a lovely blanket for a baby girl for a buggy/car seat or in a crib, soft and snuggly on the inside and bright and cheery on the outside. It measures approx 100cm by 74cm. I could easily size up to cot size too.





I'm very excited that it's finally done and the whole process of designing it was really exciting!! One of the things I am loving most about my new venture is that it's challenging me to come up with ideas and there's great satisfaction in that. There's a world of difference between following a pattern and generating the idea yourself. It's the getting from idea to finished product that's most challenging for me, particularly as I am mostly self taught. But I really (really!!) love when it comes together as this did. All that's left now is to parcel it up and send off to my beautiful niece and god-daughter L to enjoy!!

Loveys all around

I couldn't wait any longer to make something with the gorgeous minky so I got out my things last night and put together a brand new fish comforter yesterday evening. It is bright blue fleece, backed with baby blue minky, and has a fish applique in a contrasting fleece. I used some heavy cotton spotty fabric to applique the fins, tail and eye, and some thin blue ric rac for a wavy affect. Some soft blue fleece bubbles and lots of ribbon around the edges finished it off. There are lots of interesting contrasting textures for a baby's little fingers, not to mention bright colours.





It joins the 2 star loveys I made as baby presents, entirely of fleece and embroidered on the back with baby's name. I love making these, they are so soft and tactile and it's fun picking ribbon and deciding where to place it. Every single ribbon is different with a mixture of colours, widths, lengths and textures for greater exploration by little fingers!