Wednesday 22 August 2012

Phone and Ipad Case!

Today I was on a mission to make a phone and an ipod case/sleeve thing...

It's not my ipad (unfortunately) so I let the owner choose the fabric from some I had lying around...
The fabric is a sort of jersey type material so I was a bit scared to use it at first thinking it might slip while sewing and just end up a complete mess!

I had the idea to use iron-on vilene to strengthen the material and stop it stretching but wanted to test it first to make sure it worked. I therefore made myself a phone cover first :)

The vilene worked fairly well to strengthen the material and I also used wadding to give the cases a bit of padding. I then used bias binding to finish off the tops, this was a little bit fiddly but worth it for a nicer finish!

Here are the finished results:



Friday 27 July 2012

My Finished Quilt!

You may remember my blog post from back in February where I talked about starting a new quilt...
(you can read the blog post HERE)
Well, 5 months later I have FINALLY finished!


To make the quilt I used a moda jelly roll (lots of 2.5 inch strips of fabric) and I WAS following a pattern which I bought at the Malvern Quilt show around 2 years ago! :P

To back the quilt I used a big piece of moda fabric (bigger than the front patchwork) and used the excess to fold forward to make the border...
It's hard to see how I quilted the layers together from this photo but I followed the union jack design using blue cotton on the blue and red on the red so that from the back you could see an outline of the union jack  :)

I'm REALLY pleased with the result and although I missed the jubilee it's perfect timing for supporting team GB and the Olympics!

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Tapestry Bag!

A few months ago I made a tapestry (pictured above) from a Cath Kidston pattern :)
I blogged about it HERE
The design was actually meant to be made into a clutch bag and I finally got round to giving it a go over the weekend... Although the Cath Kidston books are great for patterns I'm not a big fan of the project instructions so I decided to ignore those and just do it my way!

Above is a picture of the half-way stage, I used iron-on vilene to make sure the fabric didn't fray when making the button holes for the magnetic clasp.....

 And above is the finished project, I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out!

This was also the first time I tried using a magnetic clasp, after having a look on the internet for instructions it was surprisingly easy, I'll definitely be using them again :)


Sunday 17 June 2012

Lily's Baby Clothes!

 My cousin Lily turned 3 today and for her birthday I made her/her mum some things using her baby clothes! In total I made a patchwork cushion, a mini cushion, a bird, a heart, some 'LILY' magnets and two christmas decorations....



Here is a back view of the patchwork cushion:

I especially like how the christmas decorations turned out, here is a back view of them too:

Saturday 16 June 2012

Cloud Mobile!

While trying to figure out what to give/make my cousin for her birthday I turned to her pinterest for some gift inspiration... she had pinned this amazing cloud mobile but unfortunately, at the time, it was unavailable on etsy so I thought I would give my own version a go!



I made it quite a bit smaller than the one from etsy and since I used my own templates it obviously looks fairly different but I definitely think it was a success and my cousin loved it! :)

P.S. If anyone hasn't already jumped on the pinterest bandwagon I really recommend it! It not only gives me crafty inspiration but also awesome recipes AND makes me discover amazing, talented people making and selling their gifty things online!

Saturday 9 June 2012

Mooshy Belly Bunnies!

I found an awesome pattern on the blog: Chez Beeper Bebe for a little cuddly bunny!

I didn't make mine out of an old t-shirt, instead I used some jersey type fabric that I happend to have lying around, it was really quick to make and I was so pleased with my first attempt that I decided to make another one...

Here are some pictures of my bunnies:



If you like them I recommend giving it a go yourself using the tutorial in the link above as they are REALLY easy to make :)



Monday 21 May 2012

Covering a Notebook!

I haven't kept a diary for a LONG time but I'm forever writing quotes, poems and ideas onto bits of paper which inevitably end up lost! I therefore decided that it would be good to have a nice notebook in which I could write my random things and keep them safe...

I found a good notebook but the cover of it was a bit rubbish and made of fairly thin cardboard... So I decided to cover it! First using wadding and then material and finishing it off with some kind of catch to keep it closed...

Here is my starting notebook
Here is my chosen material, wadding and button

And here is my finished notebook! In order to keep the notebook closed I decided to sew a button to the front cover and some string to the back cover which can then be wrapped around the notebook and then around the button...

This is a close up of the string which I sewed onto the back cover using a sewing machine!

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Making Magnets!

I found this awesome tutorial for quilted alphabet magnets:

http://chezbeeperbebe.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/tutorial-how-to-make-plush-alphabet.html

I thought I'd give it a go, so I found some craft magnets on ebay (100 for £3.05), dug through my bucket of material scraps and set to work; here is the result (the K and S being for two friends of mine!)


I'll definitely be making more for gifts in the future!!

Monday 30 April 2012

Tool Wrap!

My brother set me a mission, to make an old rucksack into a tool wrap for his bike tools...

After some research into exactly what a tool wrap was, see these fab examples http://www.etsy.com/listing/81125400/regular-red-and-navy-plaidred-duck-cloth and http://www.bikecozy.com/p/products.html, I began to disect the rucksack and see what I had to work with. Amazingly the bag came apart really well and left me with almost the perfect shape for a tool wrap!

Here is the finished result:

I even got the tie from the rucksack!

AND I had enough bag left to make this for him too:

Sunday 11 March 2012

Tapestry!

I've been busy working on a tapestry (which I found in a Cath Kidston book) to make into a bag, I have yet to attempt the bag making part but I HAVE finished the tapestry!

I photographed each 'stage':




Once I had finished the tapestry it was fairly warped out of shape, I therefore had to 'block' my tapestry in order to straighten it out. To do this I pinned squared paper to a board and stretched the tapestry into shape, following the lines of the squared paper and pinning it into place. I then sprayed the back with water and waited for it to dry naturally before unpinning.



The next step is to make the actual bag...

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Baby Clothes!

I recently (well... in December/January) made another 'baby bundle' out of old baby clothes.

This time I made a mini pillow, a name drop, a couple of birds and three hearts!
I especially like the name drop; since Tom is such a short name I decided on using slightly bigger letters and since all the letters are 'symmetrical' I made the letters different on both sides :)

Saturday 11 February 2012

Quits!

Recently my Mum and a few of her friends have started a quilting club, they meet once a month in our local hall - a lot of the work is done outside the club but the time together gives them a chance to share tips and get some advice from the more experienced quilters!

So, my Mum has started her first quilt and made quite a lot of progress already!



Although it looks fairly done, a lot of the squares still need sewing together!

Since I have now finished my internship I will be joining the quilting club and so it's my turn to start a new project!
I picked up a brilliant union jack pattern and a jelly roll at the Malvern Quilt show in 2010 and thought I would FINALLY get started on it:



I'll keep you up-to-date on my quilting and I'm starting to make a bag so I'll blog about that at some point too!

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