The stitches that bind

How this post has not happened til now I don't really know - as I've spent many a winter evening of late snuggled under this lovely quilt.

Those who know me or have read my blog for a while would know (as I have said on many occasions), that I don't quilt.

I am, however, lucky enough to have a lovely friend who does.

She noticed once the size of the 'scraps' I was donating to kinder and I realised that what is a scrap to a garment maker is more than enough for a quilter to work with.

So I started keeping scraps and giving them to her to look at to see if there was any treasure amongst my trash.

At Christmas, she presented me with this amazing quilt, made with many of my scraps and with her own special pieces added in.

She has that gift of colour combination. 

She just gets it right when it comes to colour - things that I would never think to try she just does; it's inherent, I don't believe it can be learned, at least not in the intrinsic way she can do this.

It's quilted with a combination of hand and machine stitching and as a fellow 'hand-maker ' I know it has been made with time, care, consideration and love as a reflection on our friendship.

Every time I look at it, it reminds me of so many things; the many different garments that each scrap represents, the enjoyment I get from seeing hand-skills so well executed and of course the wonderful friendship I enjoy with my very dear friend, who was introduced to me through a mutual love of sewing.

A belated but ever so sincere, thank you for caring enough to make this for me.

Grandma love!

If you are a regular reader you'd know I am not a quilter, I refer to it as "The Dark Side", not because I don't like quilts, I do, particularly those with a modern bent to them.

It's just that becoming a quilter means adding a whole lot of new fabric to my stash - a quilting stash, and I don't think that would be a good idea, for the capacity of the cupboards in my sewing room or my marriage!

Three little quilts featuring teddies are now used daily for assorted dolls and 'babies'.

Miss A saw a simple doll quilt at a market one day and wanted me to buy it for her.

It was squares joined together and bound, I am pretty confident I could have made it so I found it hard to consider parting with $25 (x 3 of course!) for it.

What I actually said to her was "I am sure if you asked Grandma she would make one for you".

Perfect passing of the buck, don't you think?

I knew Mum would happily make something for them - but I never expected her to go to so much effort!

Wishing on a star (a little fuzzy sorry!)

Mum made these up over a series of weeks, hand-stitching all the applique down as always and she let them have a little say in the patterns for each.

Some of the fabric scraps are from things I have made the girls 

Mum has, of course, tackled things far bigger than these, having made each of the girls a single bed-sized quilt as well as a baby cot quilt in the past.

And this one, of course, for the ducky lover!

I love that my girls are so delighted with these quilts - they are always either on their bed or tucked up around one of their animals on their beds.

Their appreciation of handmade is wonderful and I hope as they learn the techniques involved in the 'making' of things, this continues into the future.

Framed and hung

It was very exciting to get along to The Playful Market today and see all the fabulous Full Circle pieces on display, including our own works.

I'm hoping the rain didn't affect the takings for the day as there was a huge amount of work done by many to get this event up and running, particularly by this lovely lady.

Here is my piece - that I titled "My joy". 

Enough said really.

Obviously it's my three little chicks in their bathers.

It is stitched from a photo taken near Coffs Harbour in September/October of 2010 and evokes memories of a wonderful family holiday.

This is one of my all-time favourite photos.

Three little 'beach bums'

Here is Miss L with her work - quite hard to photograph as she did a series of needle feltings that she called "Everybody is different".

She's a very wise little girl this one and went about creating this piece all by herself - making each of the faces with different coloured skin, hair or eyes and the top one has freckles (not a bad case of measles..!).

I particularly loved her attention to detail - that she wanted the 'red dot' on the forehead of the "brown skinned lady".

She's a thinker.

I suspect the one second from the bottom is her rendition of herself.

Miss A is a more literal girl, much like her mother!

She stuck with the 'circle' theme and created a bear made of circles - that she called "Circle Bear".

It was stencilled onto the fabric over a few days using different colours and the details she drew on by hand.

Sheridan  you may have helped create a stencilling monster here!

Miss G went with her mixed media collage - also known as 'stick down anything sparkly or pretty that you can find with copious amounts of craft glue'!!

Boy did she have fun making it.

The cleaning up - not so much fun...

She titled her piece "Pizza with a spider".

That's the spider on the left in case you weren't sure.

A reluctant photo from the little miss with her dad.

There were some really lovely pieces of work on display in a huge array of formats including painting, ceramics, organic pieces, sculptural items, live pieces with plants, photography and of course lots of lovely stitched items.

I wasn't fast enough to get my hands on Bron's work of art but I am very pleased it has gone to a lovely new home in NSW!

Well done Wendy - I hope you are putting your feet up now for some well earned rest!

PS - Cam has opened the sign-ups for her Choose Your Own Bag Adventure next month so head on over and put your name down to join in.

Apples and oranges

Crafty friends often lament the lack of 'appreciation' or understanding of time and effort involved, when they give someone a handmade gift.

Which is why it's nothing but a pleasure to make something for someone you know will appreciate it, being a crafty type themselves.

Anna Maria Horner fabrics - good enough to eat

As anyone who reads my blog regularly would know, I am a fan of Leisl Gibson patterns (Oliver+s; Sew Lisette) and this pattern is from her most recent range - Straight Stitch Society.

Perhaps this is a Pink Lady apple...

As soon as I saw this pattern I knew who I had to make it for.

And with a 'significant' birthday happening in July I had the perfect occasion to get it done.

What lies within...

Given that her blog is Apple and Tangerine - I decided to make a slight adjustment and while it is an apple on the outside - I have gone with the orange or tangerine segments on the inside and used the apple pattern for the (optional) needle pad.

Mixed fruit!

Inside I have stashed some little scissors, a thimble, some pins and a needle threader as well as lots of needles on the needle pad.

For a small fruit it holds a lot!

I'm hoping she likes it and it proves to be a handy addition to her stash of sewing goodies.

Happy birthday Tan, I am very thankful to Sheridan for arranging SIT Melbourne and thus introducing me to you.
Here's to many more crafty weekends together in years to come. xx

Gifts for the teachers

Let's get you up to speed on what's been going on over here.

Up today we have the finished kindergarten teachers' gifts.

Drawings done by the girls, scanned, reversed, printed onto iron-on paper,ironed onto white fabric, cut and sewn into little zippered purses.

I sized them to use Nikki's Make-up Purse pattern - but forgot to factor in the cute boxed corners, which of course would then have 'eaten' into the design.

So I used the same size but just did regular straight sides, not as nice as the boxed result you get using the pattern, but the teachers didn't seem to mind.

These are the lining fabric - not sure why one looks much larger as they really were the same size!

Then I used patterns from the very cute Fa la la la Felt book that was released just before Christmas last year.

I had to get it as soon as I had seen Cathy Gaubert's mushroom pattern - seriously, how cute are these guys.

I didn't take a pic of the back, but on it I embriodered each child's name and the year.

So by the time all my three kids finish kindergarten the teachers will each have six handmade decorations to remember them by.

Carried away

Sorry this took a little longer than expected but here I am with a house wrap-up for you.

Firstly let it be said that this is not a difficult project - just a fiddly one as the house is quite small.

I should have taken a shot that shows perspective but I forgot!

Anyway it measures 18 cm tall to the peak of the roof and the width is about 15cm. Yeah, see, it's small.

I'm just going to put down a bunch of random thoughts and if there's anything I forget or you have further questions please feel free to ask them, happy to help.

Pattern - I used the pattern from the book One Yard Wonders - though I think it is exactly the same as the one that is online here.

The thing I didn't like about the pattern is it does not give the dimensions very clearly, so when you want to make the roof one colour and the walls another it is a little fiddly - worth it though for the effect.

Inspiration - Before you start you should definitely visit the Flickr group for inspiration.

There are beach houses, garages, barns, farm houses, country cottages and all sorts of cute little houses to get you thinking about how you want yours to look.

Buttons - I used self-covered buttons to secure the house but if I were to make it again I would use velcro as it is too hard for my two-year-old to get it open by herself.
I'm going to move a couple of the buttons in more toward the centre of the roof, just so it will be more secure - it's gaping a little at the front and that annoys me.

Elastic - I used hat elastic and if you choose to use elastic then don't use this as it's a little stiff and brittle. Go for hair elastics instead I think.

If you use elastic make sure the loops are being placed so they are positioned to secure the front of the house, not so that they are on the back walls - which are sewn in place and don't need buttons.

Walls - The wall structure is provided using plastic canvas as per the instructions.

This works quite well and I padded it with quilt batting.

To secure the batting, I sewed it on with my machine. I was not sure how this would go but it worked really well and was quick and easy to do.

The walls bow a little so you could use something stronger if you wanted - but then it might not be so easy to secure the padding - this is worth thinking about before you decide on what to use for your walls.

Decorating the house - I secured all the interior 'furnishings' before I sewed the house together as they were easier to iron on this way.

I drew the items, cut them from felt then secured them to the walls using Heat 'n Bond Ultra (you can buy it on a roll from Spotlight).

The button flowers were just glued on with fabric glue.

Photo and painting - For my own amusement I included a photo of our family and also a copy of Van Gogh's 'Starry, starry night" painting over the fireplace.

To do these I shrunk the files on my computer, put them in reverse (so flipped them horizontally) and then printed onto Ausinc light T-shirt transfer paper (from Officeworks).

Then I ironed some of the Heat 'n Bond onto plain white fabric and ironed the images on the transfer paper onto this fabric.

Lastly I ironed the finished result onto the house.

Animals - were all from Shelley's shop - The Little Sparrow Shop I was rapt to find a duck that fitted so perfectly! And how cute and fat is the pig.

Furniture and 'baby with a bowl-cut' - This set came from Windmill Toys but you could pick them up at any good toy shop.

My little one is very into babies at the moment so I knew she'd love having the nursery furniture in her house.

Also this means it can be changed over with any of the items in our doll house without doubling up.

It's a bit bigger than I would have liked - but I can live with it!

Seriously though - how bad is that baby's hair!

Outdoors - I've only shown you the outside front but on the sides I cut out a couple of pictures from some Maisy Mouse fabric and put them on with Heat 'n Bond too.

There's a butterfly, duck, watering can and then on the front is little black cat.
I thought if I wanted to I could always do more external detail later - but the internal detail was best done before sewing it all up.

Thread - One of the last things you do is put the wall structure (the supports) into the fabric and then sew it closed and I did this using invisible thread.
This way, the line that runs straight through the middle of my pond was not made too obvious.

So that's about it.

It was a fun project to do and I am delighted to tell you that all three girls and their friends are playing with it all the time.

It's small enough for Miss 2 to carry around by herself without effort so she has really taken ownership of it and the night we gave it to her she took it to straight out to dinner and had a lovely time with it.

My Creative Space : finished goods!

I've missed My Creative Space for a couple of weeks as I have been busy sewing!

It was the smallest child's birthday yesterday, she turned two.
More on that another time though.

I decided to make most of her gifts, only buying the furniture and animals for her new carry-along house and a Maisy Mouse dinner set (to match those her sisters have and she always wants the same).

So here's what she got:

Finished Miss Mouse bag made from a Melly and Me pattern, made largely with fabric from the Patty Young Mezzanine line.

Claire guessed right that it was our friend Jemima from the kids program Playschool that I showed previously.
She had no shirt then so I didn't think she was quite ready for her public debut!

She came with a shirt, skirt and pants to match, though literally one minute after she got her and admired her, the small child wanted all Jemima's clothes removed!

And lastly I finally made one of these carry-along houses that have been on my 'to do' list for a long time.

I'll do a post tomorrow with a wrap up of the house, what I used, what I'd do differently and the like in case you are planning to make one.

In the meantime, grab yourself a vat of tea (that's how much you will need to get through the whole list!) and head over to Kirsty's to see what everyone else is doing in their creative spaces.

A fruitful swap

I found something growing at my place...

My new pear pincushion!

The postie was very kind to me last week with a lovely parcel from Lauren arriving on Friday.

It was my pin-cushion for the super-swap Kate organised.

Lauren was very kind and also included a packet of yummy chocolate eggs (lucky I photographed them when they came, they didn't survive the weekend!) and very thoughtfully sent some foot fizzies to provide some relief for my dodgy ankle.

Lauren hit the nail on the head perfectly for me as I bookmarked an apple and pear pin-cushion tutorial when I was looking for patterns to make for my swappee.

Now I won't have to make them up because she's done that for me.

Thanks Lauren, I love it.

Also a big shout out to Kate for organising this mammoth task and fitting it in among her own sewing, blogging, parenting, farming, baking and everything else she does - well done to you, and thanks.

My Creative Space

I've been getting things finished...

The mushroom house pincushion is finished and waiting to be sent...

I used a great tutorial from here.

I've completed the garden for the fabric dollhouse I plan to make for Miss G's second birthday, with carrot patch and pond with a water lily.

It's from the tutorial by UK Lass in US - it's also in the One Yard Wonders Book if you have that.

Nikki made some rippers if you want to check them out.

They actually go quite nicely together, but I'm only sending the pincushion for my swap!

Check out what more than 100 other crafty types are up to by visiting the list at Kirsty's place.

Name tag revealed

Now that it has arrived at its destination, I thought I'd share the pics with you of the name tag I made for Julie for the upcoming Sew It Together sewing weekend.

Julie makes dresses under licence from Izzy and Ivy - and this is a miniature of the Ava design.

I spent some time checking on her blog to see what the dresses looked like and then set to cutting out tiny pieces of fabric to get it made.

Having time on my hands (while I have been off my feet!) meant I had lots of time to fiddle with the small pieces such as the shoulder frills and the like.


And I have to say that my tiny iron was a huge help in pressing the small dress parts together.

Julie has blogged it and is very happy with her little badge so that makes me happy and glad I had the time to make her something special.

Not long to go now til the big weekend.
Check out the other gorgeous name tag creations in the flickr group here.

My Creative Space

Has small goings-on happening.

I've finished my badge for this swap, I can't reveal much as it is a miniature item relevant to the swapee - and I want it to be a surprise.

I've also made a start on my pincushion for this mammoth swap arranged by Kate, over 100 swapees - what an effort!

And I am pleased to say that while this was the view from the couch yesterday morning...

The cast has now been removed and I am much more mobile, with a foot that will soon be working well enough to sew at my machine again.

Oh and eventually walk too!

To check out all the other crafty chicks pop over to Kirsty's - she always has something cool going on.

The road to Bethlehem is long!

I realised that while the nativity has been set up here I have neglected to fill those of you in blogland in on the progress to date.

Well, the main folk, Mary and Joseph, both got hair and also shrouds/veils and then they were ready to go.

Joseph had me stumped for a while as I wanted he and Mary to look a little less 'polished' than the kings and nothing seemed quite right for a while.

Then I found some red cloth with a slightly coarse weave and secured a small ring of rafia around his crown with a few stitches.

All the kings received a gift to pass on to the small babe; a decorative silver box,

a golden chalice;

and a gold pouch.

And an angel appeared overnight, all floating fabric and whispy ethereal hair.

They are now all set up, though their surrounds are changing daily - I'll include pics of this soon.

There is a backdrop of blue crushed panne velvet with gold stars on it and a small wooden stable has been made, though it is yet to be lined with the many twigs I have collected for the purpose.

Sadly the shepherds are still bald (not enough hours in the day at the moment!) and the oversized sheep has not joined the party, but I am OK with this as it gives me more to go on with.

It really has been a most enjoyable project to work on and I am looking forward to watching it grow along with our girls in the years to come.