Some fun little finishes

It may not seem like it, as my blogging is a little bit slow at the moment, but I'm actually getting quite a bit of sewing done lately. We're full swing in the summer holidays and the whole family is at home all day every day. Finding time in between the constant demands for food (seriously, how often do children need to eat, because it feels like my older 2 are hungry every hour!) and baby care can be a bit challenging at times, but short bursts of sewing are perfect when you're working on small projects.

(Don't forget that my giveaway for a $25 gift certificate for Fat Quarter Shop closes tomorrow, so if you haven't entered already, make sure to do it here)

My friend asked me a while ago if I would make a few things for her, and of course I was happy to oblige.
 

First up, she wanted some placemats for her kitchen table. She had seen the ones I made for my brother, but wanted a more regular shape than triangles. I settled on rectangular mats measuring approx 12" x 10", and made 2 contrasting patterns, 3 of each. I loved her colour palette of pink against a neutral and really enjoyed making these. The neutral is Kona Champagne, which I've had in my stash forever, and is such a lovely warm colour. These are a very easy make, and would be a perfect project for those new little mini charm packs so I'll post a quick tute later in the week with the measurements.

 I straight line quilted these using Aurifil 50wt thread, they are quilted approx 1/4" apart in dense lines which I hope will help them to stand up to frequent washing. I really love the stitch definition I got with it.

I found the perfect pink binding for them, with tiny stars, and they are backed with a Tanya Whelan Grand Revival print which I can't remember the name of. I machine bound these (again, to help them withstand frequent washing) after reading a few different tutorials for the technique, I like how they turned out on the front  but could probably make the back a little neater with more practice.

My friend also wanted some bunting for her little nephew. I forgot how fun it is to make bunting and how pretty it looks! Must make some for baby R's room too.

Lastly, after seeing my friend Fiona's piano cover over on her Facebook page, my friend asked me to make something similar for her daughter (my goddaughter) for her keyboard.

 

We decided a rainbow of colour would work nicely for this one, and once I had pulled out some prints, I put this together very quickly. I think this is one of my favourite things I've made this year - so simple, but I just love how it works.

 

I used a candy stripe pink for the backing and a black poplin to bind it. I quilted the white space similarly to how I did the placemats, leaving the coloured "keys" unquilted so they popped that bit more. This measures about 32.5" x 6"

I'm heading off to visit my friend next week, so I have lots of goodness to bring with me and I know she's dying to get her hands on it, which is great.

WIP Wednesday

It doesn't feel like a whole week has gone by since my last WIP post. I think with all the Blogger problems and the buzz from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, plus a mega busy weekend involving 3 separate parties for the kids (and me :-)) its just been a bit of a blur really. I don't feel like I got a lot achieved this week - a few small bits but in the overall scheme of things, very little. That's not just the busy week - its also a little of the burnout I always seem to struggle with in the week or two after a quilt finish. But I was thrilled to bits with all the lovely comments I received on my Hoot quilt, so thank you to everyone for taking the time to look and comment, I was made up by your reaction!

Completed this week:

I made two sets of this bunting for a friend's nephews - I like the blues and greens together.

I also ran up this little mug rug. I've seen quite a few circle quilts and mini quilts on blogs and have been wanting to try doing circles for a while now. I found the piecing a little tricky and its not the best piece of work I've ever done, particularly the binding which I rushed and am not too happy with;  but overall I do quite like the circles and the circular quilting effect, not to mention the fabric.  And cups of tea and biccies will no doubt cover the little flaws :-))

In Progress:

The Pinwheel Pips quilt top is coming along. I've decided on the layout and am waiting on some extra fabric to arrive for sashing.

My embroidery is almost done too - lots of people were interested in it last week after seeing the pattern picture, so here it is - my progress so far on it. Another night or two on the sofa should see it done. I've seen this pattern in a similar vein for sale in Aimee's Etsy shop and think I will buy it so I can put the two up together wherever I decide to hang them.

 Finally, I have set up a Flickr Group for the Summer Sewing project, for those of you who have joined up. You can find it here. Please post pics of your finished items so that we can keep track and encourage each other, and let us know when you have another one done! I am leaving the linky open for another week or two as I know a lot of people are still in Spring mode so please feel free to join up over the next week or two. (Is it just an Irish thing that 1st May is the first day of summer? I did wonder about this when I saw the Bloggers Quilt Festival called the Spring festival as May is definitely Summer here, in theory if not in weather!)

Ok, that's it for the week. I don't have the energy to list all the projects that are stalled (Crazy Scrappy QAL, Bottled Rainbows QAL) or waiting to be started, except to say that my little notebook is filling up rapidly with ideas and I have no clue where I am going to get the time to do them.

Happy Wednesday everyone and hop over to Lee's blog Freshly Pieced to check out what everyone else is up to!

WIP Wedesday #7

I've spent a lot of the last week in the car! Visiting my parents, away at a work conference, its been all go here. I still found some sewing time however, so here is my little progress report for the week.

Completed this week:

Actually, its been a pretty good week, in terms of finishes. I sewed like a woman possessed on Thursday night to get gifts finished for my little niece for her birthday:

  

 

I also managed to get a few small scappy pincushions done - this one with my Its a Hoot scraps:

 

 And this one with some nice Amy Butler scraps I had in my stash, both for some friends:

I also finished this cute little mug rug, after being inspired by all the lovely tutorials for Mug Rug Madness over at the lovely blog Two More Seconds.

 

Its not dissimilar to the wonky stripes one I made a few weeks ago, but I kept the strips quite straight and wonked up the quilting after seeing Jeni's tutorial. I'm really pleased with how it turned out apart from my mitred corners which did not go well (I might pick them back and redo, or I might just leave them!). I've had this fabric in my stash for a while now and it works really nicely as the backing.

  

I have another identical set of strips pieced that I might cut back a little in size and make a complimentary smaller one. I'm thinking that these might work nicely as a Mother's Day present for one of the kids' nanas!

Work in Progress:

I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment. I'm still at fabric layout stage for my Its A Hoot quilt blocks. Nothing to show you yet there, its packed up at the moment but I'm hoping to do more work on it tonight and get piecing the blocks.

I have some baby girl patchwork pram blankets to get done for some friends who had babies in the last few weeks - hopefully will get to finish them this weekend.

I'm working (slowly) at my Dresden plate block for the Lily's Quilts quiltalong. I have the blades pieced and pressed.

I read Lynne's post on piecing the inner circle yesterday and want to do this later in the week. But I want to add an additional inner circle in the brown fabric (like this)

and am not sure how I'm going to do it. I could piece it. But I'm more inclined to applique it on using a nice small zigzag stitch. Much easier and less work. Will it work nicely though or just look weird against the rest of it? I'd love some opinions on this one as I'm really not sure what to do. If its not going to look good, I will (maybe not very enthusiastically) go ahead and piece it - I'll have to do a bit of tutorial searching as piecing circles is not something I've done at all. But I do want it to have a nice finish so I'd appreciate advice from all of you experienced quilters out there :-)

On Hold:

The curtains have gone back in the box to my dismay. Must, must get them moving again!

The Cosmo bag is on a little break, I intend picking it up in a week or 2 again.

Thinking about:

I can't get the Bottled Rainbows QAL out of my head this last two weeks. Really, I so want to do this one but I don't have a) the time or b) the fabric to do it, and I can't justify going buying another FQ bundle for it. Any ideas? Maybe I could size up the blocks and do a few single blocks as placemats / mug rugs in the colours that I do have in my stash? What do you think?

I'm linking this up to Work In Progress Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced, go check out the great projects linked up there, I love seeing what everyone is working on each week! I'm also linking it to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day:

Handmade gifts for big and small girls

 

My charming little niece turned one this weekend, a perfect excuse for a visit home to my parents & a fab afternoon in my sister's house celebrating with family! I've made quite a few little gifts for her in her first year as she's my goddaughter - so I wanted to continue the trend. But I've already made her 2 blankets and lots more so I didn't want to repeat anything I'd done before. I bought this lovely book last year and I've used it to make quite a few fleece monsters for my own kids.

So I took it out last week after entering the One Thing, One Week Challenge over at Amy's Creative Side and flicked through it for a little while and decided, with the help of the kids opinions, to make Dilly. I have gorgeous, high quality fleece that I use for my baby blankets and used this to make Dilly - and she's fabulously soft and will be lovely to hold. She's actually one of the simplest and fastest patterns to make in the book which was a bonus too as I had very little time last week with work demands.

 

I think she was a hit too with the little lady! I would definitely recommend this book - the patterns are very straightforward to make and very, very cute - plus, a little quirky, which I really like! My kids adore the monsters I've made for them - they bring them to bed every night and the fleece has held up very well.

I also made some bunting to decorate her room using some lovely fresh, colourful fabric:

 

As well as my niece's birthday presents, I had some little gifts I wanted to make for bigger girls - my own friends! So I ran up some pincushions in the last few weeks for them. After cutting all the strips and squares for my Its A Hoot quilt, I had lots of lovely scraps left over, many of them conveniently already in small strips. So I pulled out a small piece of coton batting and quilted the strips on as I went.

 

I just love the colour palette in these fabrics. I had some lovely bigger scraps left over and used one of them for the back:

 

 I also made this scrappy pincushion from some Amy Butler scraps I had. Like the first, its quilted onto a scrap of cotton batting in a very simple style, and the blue, orange, brown and cream colours work really nicely together.

 After our lovely weekend, we stopped off in Kildare Village outlet centre on the way back and I popped into the Cath Kidston outlet store and found this lovely sewing basket. I've been looking for a nice sewing box for a long time but so many of them are just hideously old-fashioned! I love the fabric print on this one and have already moved my sewing supplies from the horrible old functional "craft" box I had from a few years back to this pretty one - a perfect gift for me!!

p.s. - I just wish I had a garden like my mum's for taking photos in - I could have such wonderful backdrops!

Festive cheer & my Christmas gifts revealed!

I just love the few days between Christmas and New Year. The Christmas mania is over and there's lots of down time, with opportunities to meet friends, laze around the house in PJs and spend some fun time with the kids. We just got back from my mum's today after a lovely few days with my parents, my sister and her husband and my brothers and sister in law. Also, maybe most importantly, my niece and nephew who are 8 and 9 months old. It was really great seeing my kids with their baby cousins - they got such a kick from making them laugh and playing with them. We still have lots of people to see in the coming days so I'm glad I have another whole week before I am back to work, not least because of the piles of laundry and the general tidy up that is needed in the house at this stage. At least our water came back this afternoon!

 

Yesterday morning, I met one of my oldest friends and her two girls for our annual Christmas meet up. This year, I made the girls' Christmas presents - bunting for both their rooms, and a cute drawstring bag for Fiona who is my goddaughter.

 

I'm hoping she will get lots of use out of it for her PE classes, or swimming lessons or similar. The "right side" of the bag is made from 3 main fabrics, and an edging strip at the top for the drawstring which is made from a soft pink cord.

  

I used a pink ribbon with a heart pattern to make the loops for the cord at the bottom.

 

I made the bunting for Niamh similar to Fiona's but with some differences. I used the pinking shears to give them a decorative edge and used a slightly different, but complimentary, fabric selection.

Finally, I brought some crochet with me to do in the evenings when watching some films in my mum's and she loved the yarn, so I gave her the finished scarf for her birthday next week.  I bought the yarn last year in Kenmare and can no longer find the ball band, but it is a ribbon texture and is in a beautiful colourway. After trying a couple of different patterns which didn't do it justice, I decided to do a simple, fine, treble crochet scarf to show it off in its beauty.

I did a simple, loose picot edging to finish it off. I love the sea colours in this scarf - teals, moss greens, pinks, pale blues. It will look lovely on my Mum.

Funky boys' bunting: the finished item!

The bunting is finished, hooray! I'm glad I left it till tonight to do, as soon as I looked at it with fresh eyes I realised it needed another solid, dark coloured triangle to balance it and the spacing was a little too wide. I was able to remedy that pretty quickly and a little careful sewing later, it was done. I love the combination of colours and patterns so much I'm tempted to do one for D's room; he would love the Wheels fabric and the hedgehogs too. So here's hoping the recipient loves it as much as I do!

Funky boys bunting

Tonight I got started on some bunting which my sister asked me to make for a friend's little boy. I have been planning the combination of fabric with great anticipation for days but when it was time to start actually cutting it I almost didn't want to, it's so lovely!!! But I did and soon ended up with a lovely pile of triangles:






I got the machine out but quickly ran into problems which resulted in a frustrating half hour sorting out a problem with the tension :-( But happily I eventually got going and it was all plain sailing from there.






I had it all pinned to the tape ready to sew up but decided at the last minute to wait until I have a fresh pair of eyes tomorrow before deciding finally on the spacing and combination! Can't wait till tomorrow evening :-)