I'm in a magazine...

...This Months issue of Making Magazine to be precise...they have a reader's makes section every issue and I'm in there with the Pillow Mat I made!! It's quite hard to see, but I'm there at the very bottom of the right hand corner...!!

Emily's Quilt...Chapter 2 and a half!!

...in which I finish the centre piece!! Yay!!! This is really just an "add-on" post to yesterday's...as I ran out of time to finish it off...So this morning on managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing...

...As I was joining the rows together I found it easier to manage by rolling the fabric and pinning...this way it was easier to manoeuvre through the sewing machine...

I know the finished item is promised to my daughter...but I am loving the colours in this one...so vibrant and "spring-like"...Next step is edging...and then I need to read and learn how to layer my quilt...oh and buy the materials needed...batting and backing...

Plus I have now got together a pack of fabrics ready to start a quilt for my son...I am hoping he will like the colours and patterns I have chosen...I am toying with a hexagon quilt...like this one that my sister in-law is currently making...

All of the above materials were from Kate's shop M is for Make...aren't they fabulous!?! Well that's all on the quilting front so far...next up...side and top panels...keep watching and reading...

Emily's Quilt...Chapter 2...

...in which I actually get some sewing done!! I made the conscious decision to crack on with Emily's quilt this week...I knew we were going to be eating "Out of the Freezer" for the majority of the week (As in eating all the frozen 'other halves' of the meals cooked in the last fortnight or so...) which meant I would be freed up to sew!!

Emily's Quilt...an update...

...Hmmm it's been a while since I got all excited about making a quilt for my eldest...Chapter 1 is here...In the interim period, time and life has passed us by at an astonishingly high speed, we are now 2 months down the line and all I have managed to do is wash the squares of fabric (84 of them)...

 Make a mess doing it...luckily I had the sense to bag the squares in an old pillowcase before popping them in the machine!!

However, the temporary stitches I put through them to hold the rows in their order (which I thought was a great idea) didn't work, so I now have 84 separate charm squares once more...!! At least I took a photo of the order they were in before washing!!

So my next jobs are trimming all the threads that are hanging from the squares and re-ordering the rows before starting to join them...hopefully next week will give me a few moments to crack on with it...don't give up on me...keep watching...this UFO will not get the better of me!! 

It's a Busy Old Life...

...so much so, that I haven't baked for a few days, and dinners have been super quick, super easy, and things already shared with you...however over the next few days that will change, as we have four friends coming to stay for the weekend...2 smallish people, and 2 larger ones (one of which is Cath who's blog you can find here)...and they're vegetarians, so forget  my 'Midweek Veggie Meals' we are moving into full-blown veggie heaven this weekend...Ok have to confess, these friends do come to stay about 3-4 times a year, so am used to cooking veggie meals, however...I am going to try a few new recipes out on them this weekend...so they get to be my guinea pigs!!! (This should be where the evil laugh comes...but don't want to scare them off!!!) Oh and there may even be a pudding or two in the mix...so watch this space!!

There is one thing that I managed to get done earlier this week though...

Crafty Little Mother's Day Card...

...Em came home from Guides on Monday with a Mother's Day card for me...Hubby tried to get her to hide it until Sunday, but she wanted to give it to me there and then...I think she was really rather proud of it, and because of that I want to share it with you...

Emily's Quilt...Chapter 1...

Now that the pillow mat is finished I have a sewing gap in my life...although as I mentioned before I need a new cover for my sewing machine...but Emily (the 10  year old female smallish person) has a different idea! After visiting her cousins last weekend and seeing this...I was asked if I can make one for her...now I am going to start slowly (remember I am still wearing those L-plates on my sewing machine!) and have cheated by buying got a couple of charm packs from Moda, the lovely fresh colours from Kate Spain in her 'Good Fortune' series of fabrics...Emily 'helped' me lay them all out the other day to design her quilt...the results are below...

Making The Pillow Mat...

...a new sewing project...a little while ago I posted to say that this project jumped out at me from issue 18 of Making Magazine...and that my smallish male person quite fancied the look of it...and because I had made the smallish female person two cushions...why couldn't I make it for him? Good question, apart from the obvious reason...I'm only just learning to sew!!! But after reading the instructions about fifty times...I decided it seemed pretty okish for me to tackle...

Another new project...

 ...I have been busy today, but not in a 'making' sense of the word...Firat of all I took a trip to a well known Swedish Store to look for some fabrics to make a pillow mat that is in issue 18 of Making magazine...

I think this would be great for my son...he can fold it up to sit on, or unfold to lie on whilst reading or playing games...I also think it would be good for when friends come over to stay...Will take pics of progress once I start it, and if all goes well I may make a second one for my daughter too...we shall see!

The Bag, part 4...

...The Bag becomes cushions!!


After yesterday's sewing, it became quite clear to me that The Bag was to be a bag no more! In fact when she came in from school, my 10 year old decided she would quite like to have the cushions for her bedroom!


So what happened today?...

 This...First of all, I want to show you the wrong side of the two cushion fronts...As this is the first real thing I have made using my sewing machine, (I really am a complete novice!!) I am really chuffed with how neat it all looks...yes, I know you don't see it when made up, but it just gives me a little sense of pride!!

The Bag...Part 3...

...the 'tweaking' begins...


As half-term is over, and I have a bit of time to myself again, I picked up The Bag and got on with a bit more of it. The 'Patch' book instructions tell me to start sewing it all together, but I don't think it is big enough for me, so I have decided to 'tweak' it and add some extra side, top and bottom panels to it before I line it and finish it off.

Whilst away in Wales last week, I found a tiny little quilting and knitting shop in Mumbles, near Swansea...it was called Red House Quilting. It was from there that I bought some fabric to use as side panels on The Bag.

The bag part 2...

...an update on how my patch bag is coming along...


Right where had we left off? Oh yes, I was in the middle of the decorative stitching on the first flower (the Cath Kidston one)...well this is what it looks like now...

As I think I said before, I was only going to use either a simple straight stitch, or a simple chain stitch as embellishments on the petals... 

...so that is exactly what I have done...

Taking the next step...sewing wise! The Bag Part 1...

Spurred on from the cute owls I have finally opened my copy of Cath Kidston's "Patch" and got as far as step 7. The original pattern and materials allows you to make either a dresden plate cushion or (as I have chosen) a dresden plate tote bag. The book came with enough materials to make a one-sided unlined tote bag...and as you know by now, I love to tweak things and make them my own. So I used yet more of the fabric from M is for make to duplicate the flower design on the other side of the bag. I'm currently thinking I prefer this side than the original one...









This is the side I prefer...the trickiest bit so far was actually more time-consuming than tricky, tacking the petals to paper inserts to get the shape sorted.

The original design...After all this hand stitching I think it might be worth investing in a thimble!

My first sewing project ever...

My sister in-law runs her own fabric website...M is for make and it was this and a trip to see her and her family last Easter that set my rather rusty sewing cogs moving again!