Pan Grabber!

As yet another 'practice quilting thing' I decided to make a couple of pan grabbers....

We use one in our household to open/close the wood burning stove and our old one has completely fallen apart - so I came top the rescue :)

I patchworked and hand quilted them, like I'm doing with my quilt, but mostly they were a good way to practice using bias binding (especially those corners!).

Here are the two sides of one of them:



and an action shot taking chips from the oven (sorry about the quality):

Birthday presents and CAKE!

Quite recently it was my very good friend's birthday!
I love to handmake all gifts I give to people but the hard bit is generally not the making of the gift but thinking of what to make in the first place!

No two gifts should be the same...... well... not exactly the same :P

Anyway - so for my friend I decided to delve into the cushion side of life and managed to come up with some new ideas :)

I then got my brother to take some good 'in focus' pictures (since he always says my photos are rubbish... which they probably are...):







I also made her a very awesome cake (I got the idea from the martha stewart website!):

Cushion covers and a new walking foot!

I thought I'd take a small break from quilt making (before I begin the insane task of trying to decide what goes on each side) and make some cushion covers!

I saw them as a way to practice patchworking a bit and also to try out my new walking foot :) A walking foot (for those who don't know) is a clever little sewing machine foot which works with the usual feeding things on your machine to feed the material through from the top as well as the bottom! VERY useful as it means that your material layers stay lined up and you don't end up with a funny little bump of excess fabric...

Anyway - so here are my cushion covers:





I'm really pleased with how they turned out!

Now it's time to get on with my quilt...

My first quilt - making big squares from little squares!

Making this quilt is turning out to be quite addictive...
Once I cut out the 96 'little' squares I couldn't help but make them straight into 'big' squares!

First I lay them out onto the table to pick which groups of 4 would go together - I really wanted to make sure that no two same squares would be the same:



And then I sewed them together :) It was actually REALLY quick to do!
First I pinned the squares together in pairs and sewed all of the pairs in one MASSIVE continuous strip. I then ironed out the seams and pinned each of the pairs with another pair, then sewed THEM in one continuous strip!
After some major ironing I lay all of my squares out on the floor - I'm really pleased with how they have turned out:



(I'll make sure to take a few more 'work in progress' photos when I sew the big squares together! My explanation might make more sense that way :P)

My first quilt - in progress!

For the past few days I've been busy cutting out squares for my very first quilt!

I'm making a 'scrap quilt' - basically trying to use up all of my random small pieces of fabric (of which I have a LOT) and trying to not think too much about a colour scheme or pattern or anything...

Thanks to my Mum I have a VERY useful rotary cutter, cutting mat a quilting ruler thing (one of my very lovely christmas presents...) which is definitely time-saving! and so far I have 157 'big' squares and 96 'little' squares:



I've cut out 96 'little' squares to make up 24 'big' squares and to use up more of my really little pieces of fabric:



I still have some more cutting to do and I have to make my 'little' squares into 'big' sqaures but I'm getting there slowly!

I shall keep you updated on my progress :)

St David's Day Daffodils!

I know it's still 9 days until St David's day but I got this idea in my head and just couldn't get it out! I simply had to make these badges:



e-mail me if you want one!!
(newton.rose.mail@gmail.com)

Folksy!

The time has finally arrived!
I have JUST opened my shop at folksy (an online craft selling community)!

I'm not selling all of my products online since a lot of what I make is very personalised and therefore better dealt with in person but I have a couple of things up at the moment and hope to post more things for sale soon!

Click on the link below (the folsky button thing) to get to my shop; make sure you check out some of the great things for sale by others too!

Turning baby clothes into...

Just before Christmas a very nice lady had an awesome idea; she asked me if I could make her some of my 'products' for her daughter Eliza but out of Eliza's old baby clothes!

So after Christmas I took 8 'baby clothes items' and got busy sewing and I made her a whole goodie bag full of things!




I had talked with Eliza's mum about most of the things I made in advance but when I reached the end of my list I still had LOADS of fabric left over! It occured to me that up until now I had been making baby clothes into things that didn't resemble baby clothes AT ALL so I decided maybe it was time to try to keep the idea of the baby clothes rather than hide them away. I cut out all the pockets, buttons, labels, fringing and special little details and patchworked together a cushion cover :) It turned out REALLY well and I was SO happy with the result!



Although I did also really like the back of the 'mini pillow' I made with one of the patches on Eliza's t-shirts:


SO, for Eliza (and her mum) I made:
a name drop
a mini pillow
2 lavender hearts
a bird
a brooch
and a memory cushion cover

All items are priced individually so I can make as many or as few items as required!

New Top!

I got the idea for this top while I was in London in September and actually MADE it before Christmas but I didn't get around to photographing it until now!

I knew I wanted to sew a quote or a saying onto a jumper but finding a good thing to write was a challenge, luckily I was reading the book 'A Week in December' by Sebastian Faulks, near the end of the book one of the characters quotes a French poet saying "Il n'y a qu'une vie, c'est donc qu'elle est parfaite" which means 'There is only one life, it is therefore perfect'
And I thought it was a perfect thing to write on a jumper :)

Then I picked out a long cowl neck jumper dress and started sewing...

Here are some pictures:

Name Drop Orders!

I said I'd post pictures of name drops once they were all delivered so here they are :)
This isn't all of them but its a good selection I think!

Thank you to eveyone who ordered one from me, I hope that everyone you gave them to loved them!