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Beautiful things for you and your home!

Lots of homely thoughts on sewing, baking, papercrafts, gardening and all the things that go towards making your house a home

Sunday 26 February 2012

Patchwork

I am the first to admit that I am not the most patient of crafters. I like to see things come together quite quickly. Instant gratification is pleasing to me :)

It is with the utmost respect then that I look at those who do intricate cross stitch and patchwork and know that I am unlikely to ever have either the skills or patience to do either, and make sure a wonderful job of it as they do. With that in mind, please don't judge me too harshly on my latest endeavour.

A little while ago I got a new sewing machine, but to date I've not had the chance to use it much thanks to catching pretty much every bug going since the New Year. It's a little more techy than my previous model and not generally being all that good with technology, I have to say I'm a little intimidated. I do know that the best way to learn and lose that fear is just to plunge in.

So, with this in mind, I went rummaging when I had some spare time and found a bunch of pre cut patchwork squares I'd got off Ebay a couple of years ago. I fiddled about, laying them out into a pleasing arrangement and started sewing.


I did my best to keep the edges together but it seems that some still went a bit askew. I think this is due to a bit of fraying having taken place on some of the squares which made them a bit smaller, but I'm sure a little is also down to me too.



All, in all though, I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I like the pattern certainly. I haven't decided exactly what to do with it yet. There is a possibility of building on it with other fabric, and making it into a quilt or something, but I'm not sure where I'd put it right now, or perhaps a cushion front. The other idea that came to me this morning was making it into some oven gloves by cutting the shapes out of the made up fabric but I'm not sure there's going to be enough, certainly not for both sides but I could do one side plain. That would give me a chance to do some freehand quilting (bearing in mind my lines are straight enough to do plain quilting!). I'm not sure yet.

If anyone else has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!


Sunday 12 February 2012

I haven't forgotten you!

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. It's just been (and is) one of those times lately. I haven't even got to crafting at all, unless you count sorting out my sewing patterns which I have pretty much done. I've photographed all the covers now and have printed some out. But now we're out of ink so I can't do the rest yet. Then I'll have my own little catalogue. Ideally, I'd like to make a list of the pattern numbers I have too but whether I'll actually get to that, I'm not sure.

I have picked out what I'm hoping to make next, which is from this book


It's call the 'Flouncy Bag'. I was looking at the instructions last night and I noticed that it asks for fabric that's non directional. The piece of stash I had in mind is an Amy Butler bit I got on sale ages ago but looking at it this morning, it does have a direction really. I'm wondering if anyone else has made this bag, and if so, how important the direction statement is in this case. From the cutting layout, it didn't really look like it would matter too much.

I'd love to hear your feedback if you've made it, and what you thought.

Thanks and look forward to hearing from you!