Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts

27 January, 2019

Cool Recycling

Sorry about the picture of me. 

But hey, I had a bit of fun making these things out of chicken food bags.  We have had them sitting there for a while as I never like to throw them out cos you know you will need one then.  Or at least someone will.  

Yes, it's all for the school fair again.  Being the little country town & country school we are these seem rather a good idea.  Guess we will find out...  



19 January, 2019

Fiddling With Scraps

More scraps.  I have made a nice little menagerie of butterflies.  Fabric origami actually.  Used up only a small about on scraps but it is something a bit different & hopefully they are popular at the school fair later on.  Oh the things we do...  


A bit more knitting by the sea this time.  Was a cooler day so there was no getting me in anyway.  Getting along with these scrap socks. 



09 January, 2019

Summer Holidays

Summer days are lazy days.  We had a pretty chilled time.  

Working on scrunchies!  I discovered that scrunchies are back in fashion.  So with that I was all over the fabric scraps & experimenting with assembly & sizing for good scrunchies for our school fair in March.  



Pool days = knitting time. 
Scrap socks helical style...  Making a small dent in the scrap pile.  These are cool. 


07 January, 2019

New Year, New Project

Yeah, another project. 

More fabric.  

Have loved this range of fabric since we got it at work but as my self imposed rule says I can't get it right away I did wait.  

I needed a fabric to fussy cut.  Lots of fussy, lots of cuts.  Having played with the mirror on it at work, this was definitely going to be fun.  

So some cutting, some working out which way to put them to make these little triangles into hexagons.  




09 December, 2018

Tomte

I showed you the first Tomte I sewed last week.  This is the rest of the clan.  

It's been a sew a long with a bunch of other folk all around the world.  It is always interesting to see all the different ways people make them.  Mine are fairly ordinary though.  Blue sky, white snow, green trees.  You get the idea.  They were a lot of fun.  I still haven't done the 2 girl designs though.  Maybe after Christmas I will get them back out & maybe even turn them into something.  

I finally started getting the hang of the foundation paper piecing too.  Good fun to try new things!  

These designs are by Moss And Lotus...  check them out.






This one I had to include.  The design on the left is an "ugly sweater pattern" from kidgiddy.  It's from the sister of the designer of the Tomte.  So I decided that I needed to make this Tomte a match sweater block ..  Turned out pretty cute I think.   Now I need to make a whole bunch of sweaters! 


28 November, 2018

Sew Along

It's not like I don't have plenty of other things to do.  

But I saw this one Instagram & had to join.  I had purchased the pattern bundle for the gnomes last year.  

So I got stuck in.  Foundation paper piecing again, & after the quilt recently I was pretty impressed that I had a clue now.  Some of the things I learnt from that helped a lot now.  

Not that it went without errors.  Bwahahahha...  I don't start easily either...  why not begin with trying to pattern match a stripe fabric.  But I really love this little Tomte's sweater.  



Pattern is fro Moss & Lotus on Etsy.

01 November, 2018

And Then There Were Two

After a month of fun sewing, I finally got brave enough to put together DJ's stocking.  

Of course it didn't take very long but I was nervous about wrecking the stitched picture.  

He was very excited to come home from school & find it done.  



31 October, 2018

Pillow Puppies

Somewhere in the middle of quilt making I made a new pillow.  This was the perfect theme!  I have lots of dog fabric & this one is one of my favourites.

She loved it.  I think her mum loved it more...


Pillow Present # 19

30 October, 2018

Ta-Dah



The last bit was auditioning fabric for the right hand side, the top, & the 2 rectangles on each end of the diamondy squares...  It was actually quite tricky & something I couldn't decide on until the rest was done.  Then it was a play with options & the right ones just popped up in the right place.  Another couple of favourite fat quarters from my stash to go on the side & top.  A bit of cutting to make them work but I love them. 

I am really pleased with it.  it was such fun. 

However, it didn't make much of a dent in my scraps. 

29 October, 2018

Row 6


Again!  Circles are still not my friend & not very circular.  They took nearly the longest of any of it.  

But the wonky zigzag bit was fun!



24 October, 2018

Row 4 & 5

My wonky geese were fun & so fast!  



Foundation paper piecing again.  But circles are not my friend.  I don't care how good they look, they are not well done.  Don't ever look too closely.






21 October, 2018

Row 3

This quilt top uses a number of different techniques which was all part of the fun.  

This row was foundation paper piecing which I haven't done a great deal of ever.  I really enjoyed this row.  I would love to make a quilt just in this design.  One day...



20 October, 2018

Row 2

Sewing lots of strips...  Wonky & all.  & then adding bendy curves.  Not the easiest thing every but it is done.  



17 October, 2018

Row 1

It isn't very often that at work all of us get as excited about new patterns as we have with some this past week.  

So having got so excited, I started.  Like now...  

This will be a fun project.  Stash and Scraps.  Really little scraps...  anything...  

But, I did need to buy 3 parts for my back grounds ... all the pretty colours were to clean out the scrap box which I have only nicely sorted last week.  

I was very brave & even cut up one of my favourite fat quarters for the edge of this row.  Go ME!




yes the carpet has holes in it.  Did put move duct tape over it after though.  lol

19 September, 2018

Allsorts

I had a birthday just before Stuart.  Nice & low key as well.  

My favourite 86 year old friend made me this bag with some of my favourite fabric at work!  What a great surprise.  It's a fabulous sock project bag.


Someone hunted me down in search of some slippers like the ones they purchased last year at our school fair.  So I gave in & made some in colours requested.  These are really such comfy slippers.  Can't blame them really.  I need new ones next winter.  Will have to decide on a colour eventually.  They will probably be left over colours.  




I've been experimenting with some bag patterns & bag stabilisers.  Haven't found a perfect one yet.  In the meantime though I am using stash & I will have an interesting variety of shopping bags! 



17 May, 2018

Pillows Are Back!



It's been a little while since I have made a pillow.  It was quite nice to hit the sewing machine again though.  

We may get a couple of parties through the year that didn't get the pillow present last year.  That's a nice thought as I really don't know what to buy other kids these days. 

Pillow Present # 17 

29 January, 2018

New Things

Been having some crazy hot days here.  Hot like we haven't known for quite a few years.

It's been good in ways.  Swimming has been in.  Lazy days have been in.

So what better way to try to keep cool is to be cool & take up the hexie fad.  Actually it's not really a fad as they have been around for a very long time.  But I had never tried them.  So I dug out some fabric cuts I had, got some rather big hexie papers & some glue sticks.  Yeah, you don't have to hand stitch the papers in these days.  Gee, that went fast.  Magic glue & sticky tape.  Who knew.

I also know people.  Lots of crafty people.  But particularly crafty people that do lots of paper piecing.  Thank goodness I talked about it, as my friend Karen put me on the right track in stitching them in the first place.  Phew.  So that's been fun.






Now if that wasn't enough, I have been procrastinating over this heel pattern that I got probably six months ago.  It's been nagging me & I decided to just jump in & do it.  So I cheated with the sock.  Pretend sock, which consisted of about 5 rounds, just so I could get to the heel.  Experiment with new stitches & new techniques.  Wow, that was simple.  Most impressed.  So now I want to get onto a new pair of socks so I can do a whole sock with it in to see how it fits properly.   


It's good to learn new things!  What do you have planned for this year?  

04 December, 2017

Quick Sewing

It's been such a long time since I have sewn a hat!  But I wanted to make one for my nephew.  Taking it to him this week!  Yay!



12 October, 2017

Pillow Time


Another party! 

Another pillow!

Grandma Lyn came to play games with the boys.  I got to whip this one up. 

Pillow present #15

29 September, 2017

Airmail

I was bored.

That happens occasionally.

It's OK though.

I found something to do that suited my mood at that time.


I dug out some fabric that are some of my favourites.  I used to be an avid letter writer so anything with letters printed, especially vintage looking ones are pretty cool in my eyes.  Team it up with an Airmail stripe & you are set.  But lets have a think.

It's funny to recall the letters of the past.  Most children these days would have no clue.  I must educate my boys.

There were aerograms.  Those blue fold up & stick it shut letter sheets.  You could only write a letter as long as that.  That's all.  It would have been good value for those with not much to say. I remember Oma getting them with writing all over the outside as well as the inside...  never enough room!

An aerogram was never big enough for me & the letters my thoughts ended up putting down.  Plus I had a terrible stationery addiction too.  You can't write pretty letters without pretty paper can you.

I think I can even say when my paper addiction begun!  My Oma gave me a stationery set once.  I guess I was 6 or 7.  It had about 15 sheets of paper & 15 envelopes in a plastic folder type sleeve that held it all in place with a pretty picture on the front.  That picture indicated what that pictures on the paper & envelope would be like.  Well I loved it.  Of course I had no one to write letters too though.  So I do remember I used to write them to myself.  I put them in our mail box in our front yard too.  It was a whole other thrill getting mail out of the mail box!  We never had mail delivered to our home in those days.  We had a post office box.  So I never got to enjoy getting mail out except when I wrote to myself.

I think I was about 11 when I got my first penfriend though.  She lived in Queensland.  Funnily enough, we lost touch in our teens but since social media came into play, we have reconnected again!

At one stage I had about 30 penfriends from all over the world.  I used to send them all birthday & Christmas presents in the mail too!  Gee, you can barely do that anymore.  Postage prices are prohibitive!  I still have contact with a few.  It's pretty cool really.  I don't write the letters I once did.  It takes me ages to write still & I do hand write them.  My arm isn't used to it.  So I should do it more often & then I would be fine.  But it really does take me a while.  I write a lot!

Anyway, I am quite side tracked when all I wanted to do was show you the bag.  It's a pattern I have used a couple of times now for project bags.  These are a great size for my sock knitting.