Saturday 29 December 2012

Making a List, Checking it Twice

Happy belated Christmas everyone! Hope you all had fun. We were with my family for a very relaxed Christmas, which was lovely after the busyness of house moving. We're now back home for a day and a half and then off to see the hubby's family. Fun times :)

Anyway, it's now time for Kelsey's 100 Day Hustle link-up. Just realised that she had us make a list and check it twice (once at the halfway-point, once now); do you reckon she might be Santa? Anyway, here are my results!

1. Finish frog project
Done! I'm part way through blogging about the quilts for my friends' new twins, here's a sneak peek of the completed quilts :)


2. Start and finish London project
Done! The London project was for my mum. More to come on this later, but here's a quick look.


3. Start and finish Mouthy Stitches bag and keyfob
Done very early on in the hustle, and sent to Sadie :)

Photos taken by Sadie

4. Pick out fabrics for a quilt for hubby and I
Not happened yet. Although I do now have some exciting new fabric - as my Christmas present my hubby took me out for a Thorntons hot chocolate (the epic one with a scoop of icecream in it, I went for toffee icecream and it was amazing) and then took me on to the fabric shop to pick out my present :) Very exciting, I'll show them to you soon! Probably not what I'll use for our quilt, but very fun all the same.

5. Maybe make some little things for people for Christmas
It didn't involve sewing, but my hubby and I did do some last-minute making. Will show you soon.

6. Make my Texting While Sewing block into a cushion
Wasn't expecting to find time for this, even before I knew I'd be moving house! Ah well, will get to it in the new year :)

And that's my list! It went pretty well I think. It feels weird entering the new year with no ongoing sewing projects (well, unless you count making that cushion). I'm quite excited about it though, and looking forward to picking what to make next!

Hope you all have a great new year, and see you soon!

Tuesday 18 December 2012

We did it!

We moved house 2 weeks before Christmas! With the help of friends and family we managed to move everything across here on Saturday. And amazingly, this place already feels a lot like home. This is mostly thanks to my hubby, who spent all of Monday unpacking our lounge. Wonderful man. Here's a corner of our new place during moving day:


And here it is now!


The rest of the house still needs work, but it's great to have some of it done already.

Surprisingly I've still found some time to sew. Late one night, a few days before we moved, I had a go at making a tissue holder after being inspired by this post. I followed this tutorial, and loved it! So simple to make, and yet it looks so professional. To my eyes anyway :) This was a gift for my lovely friend Kirsten.


I've also been working on another project, but it's another secret one so I'll tell you about it later.

Hope you're all well and looking forward to Christmas!

Friday 14 December 2012

Squares, squares, squares

Hi all! It's moving day tomorrow, very exciting! Day off today to 'pack' (read: have a lie-in, do Christmas shopping and at some point put things in boxes) so thought I'd pop in to say hi.

When I last left you, I'd been working on lots of mini embroideries with some friends. Well, next up was turning them into two quilt tops. My inspiration was this quilt. Making something with this pattern had been on my to-do list for a while. And so I began by laying out the plain squares:


And then started adding in the pictures to replace the embroidery-representation-paperclips (technical term):


Next up I piled the squares neatly:


And started making some blocks :)



I tried different methods of making the blocks - with the first quilt I didn't pin the squares at all, with the second I put one pin in either side of every intersection. In the finished product I'm not sure you can tell the difference! The pinning made things a bit more accurate so I didn't have to redo any 'those points don't quite match' seams, so I'm not sure which was the quicker method in the long run. What do you do? Are you a pinner or not? I'm still finding my sewing style :)

Before too long, something resembling a quilt appeared:


And I soon had a quilt top :)


More on these quilts coming soon!

PS: Below is a typical shot of my lounge (soon to be my old lounge, sob) when I've been let loose to sew -  one project on the floor, another on the table, a pile of fabric and assorted discarded jumpers because I've got too hot when ironing fabric. Does anyone else take over entire rooms when they sew?!

Monday 10 December 2012

Double Trouble

Do you remember Miss A and Ruan? Well, earlier on this year we found out their parents were expecting twins! They're an amazing couple, and if anyone can handle 4 under 4s, they can. I wasn't sure with budget and with being busy with Toby's quilt whether I'd be able to make 2 more, but in the end it all worked out :)

These quilts started with some scheming between myself and my best friend Kirsten. Unfortunately since we've both graduated, got jobs and become proper grown-ups, there has been a lot less time in our lives for scheming. But we'll make the most of the opportunities when they come! Our scheming this time resulted in plans to gather some girly friends and all embroider squares which we'd sew together in quilts for the twins. The pictures we'd embroider would be gender-neutral, and once they'd arrived I'd pick up pink or blue fabric to add into the mix, depending upon the genders.

I went to my LQS and realised this would be the perfect opportunity to use a dragonfly fabric I'd been eyeing up. They sold it in blue, pink and green - perfect! I found solids which matched it and bought the gender neutral prints ready to start some embroidery.


And so we began :) Sewing, snacking (far too much during the first girly evening...), and coming up with fun, gender-neutral pictures.


When we were part way through sewing squares, the twins were born. Two boys! Again! And so, blue it was.


Mmm, pretty fabrics.

Anyway, some boyish pictures started to creep in as we created more and more mini embroideries. I was expecting making so many to drive me spare, but I actually (mostly) quite enjoyed it! Me and embroidery getting along, who knew?

Here are most of the white-background pictures:


And here are the coloureds:


Points if you spotted Edmund, my guest blogger, in the first pic :) Yes, for those of you who follow my blog, this is 'the frog project'!

I'll leave you with some close-ups of some of the embroideries. Tune in next time to see them turn into quilts :) Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, I do have some very talented friends!







I'll be linking up to Fabric Tuesday and Work In Progress Wednesday when the appropriate days arrive :)