2020 calls for DOUBLE stockings!

Hanging hopefully on Jessica's wardrobe this evening are a pair of stockings that tell one of the many tales of 2020. This is a story of plans made, excitement built and then everything changing at the eleventh hour. 

Jessica and I were supposed to be in Wales with Dad for Christmas this year and so we had prepared for a double Christmas – one with Grandad and then another with Daddy. Two Christmas mornings surely must mean two stockings, right?!

I had made Jessica’s crocheted stocking for her first Christmas. I’m proud of it and I could never replace it but I do wish I’d chosen my wool to be Christmassy and that I’d actually thought about how I wanted it to look. So, one idle evening (yes, I do occasionally get one) I thought I’d break out the Christmas fabric and make a new patchwork stocking especially for this year at Grandad’s.

Fast forward to Christmas movement being restricted and Wales going back into lockdown and we’re back to a single Christmas at home but we’ve still got two stockings! We were also let loose with pompom makers this evening, so each stocking is now fully accessorised and ready for anything that the Christmas of 2020 can stuff inside!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Quilted Blanket

This one was my first ever patchwork blanket. I've made a couple of playmats before but never a full blown blanket. It was my first time using cotton wadding and bias binding on a large project too. I used a disappearing nine square technique for the patchwork which is created from 81 11x11cm squares. I am so thrilled with the result and Jessica is so envious that I've promised her I'll make her one too. This blanket took just over 12 hours to complete and it was worth every single second...

Twin Blankets

Having met the gorgeous and utterly enchanting twins, Alex and Josh, yesterday I can finally share the blankets that I made for them. This post is just a sneak peek; I'll post about each blanket separately during the week since I'm pretty proud of them both and I think the time and effort that each one took definitely warrants three posts in total! Keep your eyes peeled for a closer look in the next few days.

Woodland Quilted Playmat

I don't get the sewing machine out as often as I'd like these days but I love using it to make baby gifts. Here's a woodland themed patchwork playmat I finished a few weeks ago...

I used thick wadding from Dunelm and wasn't totally convinced that I could maneuver it through my machine for quilting so I decided to secure the wadding the old-fashioned way and hand-stitched some crosses in some of the patchwork joins...

The ribbon pulls can be used to attach toys to for tummy-time or just to be played with by little fingers. Here's the whole piece...

Batik Quilt

I decided to make a patchwork quilt from our batik printed pieces. It's only big enough for Jessica's toys but she is thrilled with it. This is only my second attempt at quilting and I used the offcuts of wadding from my first project, which made it slightly more challenging than it needed to be. There are four pieces inside and they don't quite cover the whole area of the quilt. 

I need to admit that I didn't measure anything and so there definitely are plenty of flaws in it but it's just for play and I'm quite proud of it. Here's a look at the unconventional quilting on the reverse and a closer look at the quilted details on some of the batik pieces.

Having said it's only big enough for her toys, here is Jessica trying it out. It seems it's just perfect to playing Sleeping Bunnies...

First Ever Quilting Project

I bought my quilters edition sewing machine way back in 2012 with ever intention of adding quilting to my repertoire of crafts. It has taken until now for me to even attempt to acquire the skill. I decided that a good first project would be a quilted playmat and chose a striking tessellated design featuring 42 separate pieces. Once the pieces were cut the pinning, sewing, pressing and quilting (along the seams) took about 4 hours. It’s certainly not perfect (there is one piece in particular that’s not even close to right) but I’m happy with it and I think the recipients of the gift were quite pleased too. My quilting career has begun!

  

Number Cushion

The inspiration behind this cushion came from an A-Z quilt in one of my mother-in-law’s crafting books. I’ve still never made a quilt and have not used blanket stitch before either so I thought I’d practise on a number cushion first. If I was going to do it again I think I would make the panels slightly smaller and border the lot before backing it but in general I’m really happy with the result.

Here are the steps I took to create the piece:

1. My cushion was 18 inch square so I cut each individual square for the patchwork to 7 inches allowing for a half an inch seam on all four sides.

2. I traced the letters back to front onto bondaweb and fused it to my fabrics with an iron.

3. Each number was cut out, placed in the centre of the individual squares and fused in place with an iron.

4. I blanket stitched each letter in place for decoration and security using two strands of embroidery silk in various colours.

5. I machined the patchwork doing a row at a time then stitching the rows together making sure that I ironed the seams open each time.

6. I cut a piece of yellow fabric 19 by 22 inches and split it somewhere along the longest side to create two rectangles each with a 19 inch side for the back panel.

7. I pinned the two rectangles to the front of the numbers, one to the top and the other to the bottom. Then folded the inside edges back to make the edges tidy but leaving an overlap for fastening.

8. I machined all four edges then turned the cushion cover the right way out.

9. I attached three poppers to the overlapped edges on the back to create a secure fastening to the cushion case after putting the cushion inside to ensure that they sit right when the cover is all plumped up.

Here’s a closer look at some of the parts:

     

Quilted Playmat

We had dinner with Alex last night when she gave Jessica a stunning handmade quilted playmat. It really is beautiful. I love the choice of fabrics and the ribbon pulls are a great idea too. This has come at a perfect time as Jess spends most of her awake time gurgling and stretching away flat on her back on the floor at the moment with the occasional period of tummy-time thrown in for good measure. She loves being down there and as you can see, she already adores her new mat – thank you Auntie Al, you’re very clever! xx

    

Patchwork Bedspread (and an explanation)

My life has been without crafting for some time now – has it reached ten weeks yet? It’s no secret that September is always busy for me, as a sixth form tutor with UCAS references to battle with, but this autumn half term has been exceptional. Upon returning from South Africa I managed two days at work before Mum was taken into hospital. I fetched her out this Saturday after travelling between North Wales and London every weekend for seven weeks. No time for crafting in that schedule – sorry!

Nan turned 88 last week (don’t tell her that I publicised that fact) so I did manage to squeeze one small project in during the week before. Dad chose the fabrics from my collection and I made this patchwork bedspread for her. She tells me that she is not intending to use it as a bedspread though; this piece is destined to keep her knees warm this winter!

Day Eight in The Making of the 2012 WCHS Banner

Wow, that was a long day. I’ve finished the patchwork, beaded the crown, backed everything, attached the national emblems and added the 2012 and WCHS lettering but the banner is now officially finished.

This is the finished beaded Elizabeth II panel…

... and this is the final banner. I’m really pleased with it…

Day Seven in The Making of the 2012 WCHS Banner

Day Seven sees me break out the sewing machine and start the patchwork. That’s right folks, the main part of the new 2012 WCHS banner is The Union Jack – surprised?! I thought the shapes of the embroidered pieces were a bit of a giveaway myself but I had the diagram all along.

 

I had lots of other things to do as well today so I only managed to get the bottom half done but I hope you’ll agree that I made a good start. I think that one more long day should just about do it. Half the time of the Olympics themselves, that seems appropriate somehow.

Ok, so I have to say that I am VERY annoyed with one aspect of this banner that hasn’t quite gone to plan. There is an unforeseen problem with the patchwork. I don’t think my lengths of fabric were ever long enough for me to have avoided this happening but with longer pieces I could have got it spot on. Now I have the added complication of having to make the error consistent on the top half too! My challenge to you all is to spot the issue (which will, undoubtedly, irritate me forever…)

Paper Patchwork Card

As England headed out of Euro 2012 and our flat slowly flooded from the bathroom I have sat and created a paper patchwork card this evening. This leaving card is for the other Maths teacher who is leaving Woodford this year. We’re going to be a very different Maths department next year and I wish her all the very best for the new challenges she will face.

Upcycled Bag

Ok, so only parts of this bag for Preet are upcycled but we all have to start somewhere! I made this birthday present on my new sewing machine, which I am definitely getting better with but there is still significant room for improvement with my patchwork. My flash has made the colours look slightly more lurid than they actually.

I started by forming the lining of the bag, which also forms the top trim that you can see on the photo above. This is made from a pillow, meaning I only needed to sew one side saving me time and enabling me to legitimately claim that this is an upcycled bag.

To form the patchwork front I used my  patchwork templates for the first time. They did speed things up but I found it hard to stop them slipping on the shiny fabrics that I was using. I started from the centre and worked out. I used some of the fabulous fabrics that Preet has given me over the past few months so I’m hoping she’s going to love getting them back in this format.

I managed to sew some of the pieces together perfectly…

Other pieces not so well…

12 squares and 8 triangles later I had a patchwork front completed. I then cut a single piece of fabric for the back and stitched them together before inserting the lining. Turning the lining over a couple of times at the top gave a neat finish to the top of the bag. I decided to use one of my fancy stitches along the top.

The other part of the bag that is upcycled is the handles, which are made from my sister’s old curtains again. I take a strip of material and iron it in half lengthways. Open out the fabric again and then fold both sides into the middle and close up to make a long thin piece that is four layers thick. I iron this firmly and then secure on the sewing machine. I tried another new stitch on these.

Finally, given that the visible stitching is all in purple I decided to add a crocheted flower for added interest and personality.

That Tuesday Feeling

This Tuesday was actually not that bad as Tuesdays go but I still felt like doing a little crafting when I got home. Today I decided to make myself a patchwork pencil case using some of the fabrics featured in my blog post this weekend.

It took me just a couple of hours to make and other than one little wrinkle I’m pretty happy with it. I could have chosen some better matching fabrics I suppose but it wouldn’t be proper patchwork then!

  

Christmas cushion

After the weekend’s failures I felt I needed to get back on the horse and get back into my comfort zone making a cushion. However, I am an ambitious person so I thought I’d have a go at beading onto my fabric before making it into a dinky little cushion…

I used a beaded snowflake design from Stitching Cards which I pinned to my fabric before beginning the beading by hand. This took a couple of hours or so but the worst job was yet to come…

Unfortunately I had not thought this through thoroughly enough. My paper was fairly thick and tearing it off the fabric proved very tricky. In the end I had to wet the paper to make any progress and did split one thread in the process of removing the paper. After patching it up and pulling the damp fabric tight the piece looked like this:

The following day I chose another fabric with which to border and back my little cushion. I’m really pleased with the end result although it is probably quite fragile. It’s roughly 16cm square and makes the perfect present for someone special.

Note to self: learn to walk before you attempt to run!

Today has been a big fat FAIL!!! However, I live and learn…

This morning I set about creating a (vaguely Christmassy) hanging which I had carefully planned last night whilst David was out a Christmas party. I know I shouldn’t but I do love nights in alone when I can do as I please. Anyway, I digress. I had taken inspiration from a lovely book that I have on Embroidery on Paper (click the title for link to the book). The design that I liked was a hanging of three hearts embellished with embroidery and beads. I decided to make a similar piece but creating three patchwork hearts and embellishing them with seasonal things such as bells and snow flakes.

So, after an early start (couldn’t sleep) and a lot of cleaning in the kitchen I set about making it. David didn’t surface until after one this afternoon and I’d just about finished it by then but this had been an ambitious project and I can’t say that I’m thrilled with the result. It turns out that getting the hearts perfect is not very easy at all. I’m quite tempted to have a go at Kirstie Allsopp’s way of creating fabric hearts using the much much simpler method of using some kind of wonderweb type material. I shall investigate further at a later date. Here’s a closer look at the three separate hearts below…

Disappointment number one!

Then, this evening I attempted to make a Christmas patchwork star. I carefully designed it, making sure that the angles were all exactly 45 degrees and thinking about the order in which I was going to stitch the eight pieces together.

It was all going very well. I cut out the pieces from some great fabric (from Ikea of course) and made the patchwork star before attaching it to my cream fabric to create the back of the star that I intended to stuff.

This is where the story ends. After stitching it together and trying to turn it right side out it became obvious that the points were almost impossible to turn because I’d stitched them too tightly. The pattern was just too small and fiddly. It went in the bin! Walk before you can run, Suzanne!! Next time I’ll try another cushion I think!