New Top

I have found a lovely shop in Lewisham where my MIL lives that sells loads of different kinds of fabrics, and they always have a big wooden bin at the front with remnants in.

I have bought a few bits from there in the last couple of months to make my self some tops but hadn't got any done, but yesterday I decided to go for it and make one up.

The fabric is sort of netty, very open so you can see through it.  The pattern on it is nice and bright where its been sort of embroidered or something with some silky deep colours.  I found a stall out side the shop selling braids and lace in all different colours and found one that matched the fabric in colour so bought a couple of metres of that as well.

I decided I wanted a square neck to my top and had a top indoors that had this kind of neck to it so took that in to help me cut it out.  I had another top that I liked the style of but it was a little bit too tight so I folded it in half and put it away from the edge of the fabric and cut around the the opposite side leaving some extra fabric to make it a bit bigger.  The extra fabric in the middle where the neck is I gathered up to fit the piece of braid I used at the neck line and then just sewed the braid on over the top of the neck hole.  The hem adn sleeve hem were easy to sew, I zigzagged the edge first to make it a bit firmer then folded it under and stitched around using a very slight zig zag stitch to make it stretchy.

 I have a pink vest type garment that I can wear underneath which came with another top I bought in a similare type of fabric.

I am very pleased with the top, I reckon it cost me about £10 to make altogether and I have some fabric left over which I might use to make a skirt for my granddaughter.

Denim Quilts

I saw some denim quilts on the web and thought it would be a good idea as I love the idea of recycling so I asked everyone if they could save me their old jeans and I had enough to have a go.  The ones I had seen were what you call raggy quilts where the seams are done inside out so that you get a shabby look to them.  Some had fleece on the back and this too had been put through to the front and fringed but on pricing it up I thought it would cost too much to buy fleece as I wanted to make four of these quilts for my four nieces.  Their ages range from 12 to 21.

On the web it said a good size to cut the squares is 10 inches and to do the quilt 6 by 8 blocks.  I started to cut out the squares from the jeans but soon found that it was hard work trying to find a big enough piece of denim in todays style of jeans to cut a 10 inch square so I started to cut them with a seam in them going down the middle or to one side what ever.

After cutting out as many as I could I decided that the ones with the seams might look better with some embroidery down each side so it made it more of a feature.  My sewing machine does embroidery stitches but I had not yet used any of them so did a try on a spare bit and was happy with it so carried on.

When I had done them all I decided I would sew some wadding onto the back of each square as I am not that keen on quilting by machine and I thought it would be tough going trying to quilt through the whole quilt once made up.  I stitched around the out side of the semaed squares and diagonally across the middle of the plain squares.

When I came to piecing them together I thought it looked very drab and dark and I wasn.t that pleased with the effect, not for the four girls.  It would have been better for a boys room but not with the embroidery on.  So I put it away and had a think for a couple of days and came up with a solution.  I decided to firstly make the quilt smaller so just had it 5 x 6 squares, and then I cut out some smaller squares (4 inches I think) and sewed these onto the fronts of the plain squares.  I used nice bright girly fabrics in a 100% cotton left over from other projects.  Then I sewed the completed squares into strips and the strips into the top of the quilt.  I found when sewing the strips together I just sewed along one edge of a square at a time finishing off and startiing again on the next so that I didnt sew down any of the cross ways seams or they might not rag properly.

This is a photo of how it looks so far.  I am pleased with the effect, I have some nice bright coloured buttons to sew on when its finished which I hope will hold it all together.  I am going to look our for some pretty duvet covers to use as backing for them.

Finished Item

I managed to find some nice fabric for the backing and finished off the quilt the other night.  I have sewn a quite large, very primitive looking running stitch just inside the outer edge of the squares with the coloured fabric sewn on to join the layers together.  It is not proper quilting as I had already sewn the waddding to the back of the denim squares so I only needed to attach the backing fabric.  I sewed the buttons on randomly on the other squares.

I used some strips of fabric I had left over from the Oriental quilt for the edging as the red colours went with the fabrics I had used.  Then when it was finished I put it through the washing machine and then trimmed the raggy bits to make it look a bit better.

I am quite happy with the finished product although it is quite a heavy item now with the denim being quite weighty in itself.  I think this would look nice as a throw across the back of a settee or something rather than as a quilt on a bed.

Embroidered Pillow Case

My Ex Mother-In-Law said she had seen one of her friends with a pillowcase that had her name sewn on it and asked if I could have a look and see if I could find out about them.  I am still not quite sure what she meant but thought I would try to do her something along those lines for her birthday this year.

She uses a pillow on her settee as a cushion so it woudn't matter about embroidering over it all (not like as if she was going to lay her face on it and get a pattern on her face).

I found a nice white cotton pillowcase in my local charity shop that looked brand new, the tag inside doesn't look like it had been washed.  I had a look on the internet for some ideas as I haven't done any proper embroidery for years, just labels for my quilts.  I used a couple of designs I found for some pretty flowers and then found a lovely poem that had a couple of lines about a pillow in it which was very appropriate so I wrote this out on the pillowcase and embroidered over the top of the words.  I also put her name on the top.

Here are a couple of pics of how it turned out.  It looks very big to me but I think that might be because it has a bit around the edge outside where the pillow goes sort of like how a frill would be but not frilly.

Here is a close up of the poem.

I think the writing could have been a bit straighter but all in all I am happy with the outcome.

Another Quilt

I have finished the quilt for my other Sister.  This one is a smaller quilt which drapes over the end of the bed which I think is called a scarf.

The colours don't exactly go with my duvet cover but should go with her brown, cream and white bedroom.

I bought the centre piece first and measured it as being 15 inches across then worked out that I would need 3 x 5" finished squares to fit across one side, adding on 1/2" for seams gave me 5 1/2 inch squares to cut out.

I had to have 7 squares each side of the centre so I made six strips with 7 squares in each strip alternating them from dark to light.  Then I sewed three sets of strips together for each end giving me two large rectangular blocks.  Next I sewed one block onto each side of the centre piece so I had one longer rectangle.  Then I sewed 2 strips with 17 squares in each strip and sewed these strips one on each side to finish it off.  It was quite easy to keep the seams together as I stitched, I just had to be careful when going past the centre piece to make sure the next seam would come in the right place.

I hand quilted the top piece together with the wadding and backing fabric by sewing diagonally through each small square both ways making a cross in the centre of each.  I missed out the centre piece until I had quilted everything else then I hand stitched around all the lines of the squares on the centre and the circle in the middle.

For a finishing touch I sewed some small pearl beads onto the centre piece but you can't see them in the photos.

Hoody No 2

Here is the hoody I made for my middle Grandson's birthday.  I used about 1 1/2 metres of fleece and the same in lining material.  The jacket is lined throughout.  I reckon its cost me about £15 to make including some toggles which I bought from my local sewing shop to put on the cords at hem and hood to stop them pulling through.

There is one thing I am not happy about and that is that I forgot to match up the checks on the pockets.  I had matched everything else like down the front either side of the zip but didnt even think about the pockets until after I had sewn them on and then it was too late as I had double sewn the corners to reinforce them.  Still, I am sure he won't moan about it.

Craft Desk

I have just about finished decorating my spare room which I use for my craft room and this is my desk where I do all my sewing. 

I made the desk myself by building a frame into the corner of the room where we have an alcove.  The alcove is 6 feet wide so it is quite a big desk.  Once I had the frame built I used some slats of wood I had from an old set of shelves we were going to throw out.  The drawers underneath were from an old dressing table which I took the top off and then slid them under the new desk at each end.  I painted everything to match my room and I am very pleased with it all.

Hoody

My son bought me some Laura Ashley fabric for Christmas, there were two pieces each one metre in length and both co-ordinating fabric.  I couldn't think what to make out of them but then the other day I bought myself a hoody top from New Look and thought I could try to make myself one out of the fabrics if there was enough.

One piece of fabric was a looser weave than the other and looks like it would be used for curtains, this fabric is white with a pale green flower on it.  I used this piece to cut out the front and back of the hoody.  The other piece of fabric is pale green with white spots on and is more like the cotton you would use to make a bed cover out of or something similar.  I used this to cut out the sleeves and hood.

I had to buy a 24 inch open end zip.  I didn't put a rib around the cuffs or bottom but just did a hem.