Sunday makings

 On Sunday, I carried on with more sewing.  I did do some studying beforehand for two hours and in between sewing I also did a bit of gardening.  Sunday was a lovely day down here.

This was from this tutorial:   happy hostess gift boxes  from sew mama sew          I have had these two fabics for ever and finally decided to cut in to them.  Sunflowers are my favourite flower and I have loads of them in my garden in the summer.  In fact when I was gardening, I pulled out an old one from last year and all the seeds had dropped in to a pot - so this year, I will have even more!

This is something I made up myself using the same fabrics, it looked a bit dull on its own so I had a rummage and found the ric rac and middle flower, both of which were made for this coaster!

the back of the coaster is made from some dress material, that I have had left over since I made Jenny and Beccy some summer dresses, about 13 years ago - just goes to show, never throw away any scraps....

 And then another box, this one is for my mum, as part of her mothers day present (she doesn't read my blog so I am safe to show it!)

She has a border collie, Cato, so we thought she wold appreciate this fabric!

I think my laptop is on its last legs - the screen keeps flickering violently and I have to sit and stare at it until it calms down, but then I start tryping again and it start flickering again..... :-(

lunch bag

 

 I have made this lunch bag today, although it is slightly bigger than I envisaged it being.  The tutorial was from the blog, the long thread : http://thelongthread.com/?p=6217

The instructions were really good and clear.  However, I have definately made an error in the materials that I used.  For the inside, I used an oilcloth, thought this would be great, in case my drink leaks in there, but I think this was an error, because it made it very hard to work with. The outer material is great, its a kind of nylony sponge bag material (do you like my technical terms!!)  I wish I had used the same material, although different patterns, for the inside and out.

Still, my lunch fits in and I think the bag looks great, a lot nicer than some that I have seen sitting on the shelves in the shops!

My girls have gone away this weekend, so I am hoping to do a lot more sewing.....

Sunday afternoon

 This weekend my brother and his family came to stay.  They live in Lincolnshire, about a 3 hour drive away, so we don't see each other an awful lot.  His kids are roughly the same age as mine and they get on famously.  My sister in law is a quilter and she has recently started making clothes too.

Anyway, after they left on Sunday, and my girls were at a rehersal, I felt the need to make something, so perused the internet and came up with these two items:

1st off a pot holder:

This was very easy to make, and used up some more scraps, including all those little bits of batting that I had left over.  And, it works - I tested it out on a hot bowl this evening and all was fine.

This is the link to the tutorial: http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2010/06/quilted-potholder-tutorial.html.  Elizabeth has an amazing blog and some fabulous tutorials.  My pot holder does not look nearly as proffesional as hers, but it looks great in my kitchen, and will probably never get used, because I don't want to mark it!

 And then I made this as well, what a brilliant idea, I don't know how I have managed without it for so long!  The tutorial is here: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=765.  It is another of Elizabeths tutorials, but over on sew mama sew.  I decided not to do the attached scrap bag, for no other reason than I didn't have a lot of time!

It really was so easy to make and such a clever idea!  It is weighted with some rice in the pincushion, under the wadding.  And if you have never checked out sew mama sew before either, there are loads of ideas on there.

Hope you all had a productive weekend too

Cathedral windows finished

 Well, I finally finished it, and after being disheartened as to how it looked halfway through, I now officially love my cushion.  Unfortunately, some of my edges didn't meet very well, as I said previously, so this is how I remedied that: with some little white bows

 I think they work really well.  And this is my friends wedding present, which I am now hand quilting.  I laid it all out on the floor at the weekend and pinned it all together - what a back breaking job!  I know she is going to love it, and can't wait for it to be finished. 

 And this is what I should be doing instead of sewing - on to my final year of my AAT studies.  But it is too hard at the moment.  I work in school finance and it is budgeting time and coming up to year end, and after I have been number crunching all day, I come home shattered and can't bear to look at any more numbers!!

This weekend, my brother and his family are coming down - 7 of us squeeze in to this little two bedroomed house, but it is lots of fun.  And it is super saturday for the 6 nations, and England just could get the grand slam - and it's my brothers birthday Saturday too, so guess what we will be doing!

Giveaway

There is a lovely giveaway going on at Vignette in stiches :http://vignetteinstitches.blogspot.com/2011/03/guess-what.html

There is a lovely bundle of fabric sitting there waiting to be given away. Go on over and have a look. You never know......

Applique

This is probably the second quilt that I made.  Its not very big, about 50cm x 50cm.  For some reason, I chose another quilt with lots of little triangles!  I love the reds in this pattern. 

 

The four wreaths were appliqued on.  The pattern itself was done with freezer paper, which was quite a time consuming thing and something that I don't think I have done since.  I seem to have found quicker ways of doing things.

And this is where I am at with the cathedral windows.  Anyone who has made a whole quilt out of these has my utmost admiration.  It has taken me all week to do this and boy is it fiddly.

My sewing/ironing was obviously not that great, as some of my points did not all meet nice and tidily in the middle.  So, to get over the problem, I have sewn on little white bows, which look really cute and hide the mess underneath!

There are still a few more bows to sew on.  One thing that I didn't realise was the need to sew the white edges down.  I had sewn my edges really neatly with 'invisible' stiches, so that the stiching wasn't showing, but when i finished, it just didn't look right.  So, I had a look at all those lovely pictures out there and quickly realised that every one sewed on the top.  I remedied mine this afternoon, with some machine stitching and it looks great now.  But what a waste of time, doing it all so neatly!



I will definately do these again, maybe black with really bright colours