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!!

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:

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...

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 :)

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!

Merry Christmas!

I've been fairly absent from the blog world for a few months, I've been doing an internship in London so haven't found that much time for Newton Rose :(

However, I just wanted to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone and I hope you had a brilliant day and are now having a wonderful boxing day!

Here is our tree this year, its a bit wonky...



I also DID make a couple of my gifts this year, I made a phone case for my dad with our home co-ordinates cross-stitched onto it... and an apron for my brother...

I'm not sure if anyone has seen it but my brother and myself very much like the show masterchef Australia - it's very different from the British version and SOOO much better! It was on everyday on a random sky channel but has now come to an end (after about 3 months!)

So here is my brother's Masterchef Australia apron :) :


(sorry for the slightly blurry photo...)

Coffee Morning/Evening Thing!

So,

Last weekend I had a coffee evening/morning with a raffle, lots of cake, coffee and tea as well as my Newton Rose things and Phoenix cards! I also managed (thanks to my very awesome cousin) to get coffee and tea donated from Starbucks - so thank you very much to them!!!

The money was for 'St David's Foundation Hospice Care' (who I have been volunteering with for the last year); They help LOADS of people here in South Wales so I really wanted to raise lots of money for them!

I am SO pleased to say that it was a success and we managed to raise £163.15 :)

Here are a couple of pictures:





Thank you to everyone who helped to make it a success!!

Hoop Art!

Lately I've been experimenting with hoop art :)
Basically using an embroidery hoop as a frame....

I've seen the idea in quite a few places now and finally thought I'd give it a go (with varying degrees of success!)

While I was researching what was already out there (some of which is totally amazing) I came across a couple of people sewing messages onto a sort of 'notepad' type design - the idea is a fab one and although I won't be selling these (since the idea is clearly not mine) I couldn't resist making one for myself....

here is the result:




Not sure how many people will 'get the joke' - probably just a few - but lets just say that heteroskedasticity consumed my life for a while last year!



P.S. I have a coffee morning coming up soon where I will be selling some of my 'hoop art' - I'll be posting dates/times etc soon so check back :)

Bunting!

A lovely lady gave me some almost finished bunting the other day... so I thought I'd finish it off :)

Not sure I'll be making more anytime soon but I think it looks awesome - perfect for a party decoration!

Here's the finished result:

Finished Quilts!

So... I've FINALLY finished my quilt, and what I didn't mention before, I actually made 2 quilts! One for me and one for my very awesome friend Sarah for her birthday :)

Here they are (mine is the one with the pink bias binding):




I made sure to take some photos of the 'work in progress' so I can give a more in-depth explanation of how I made them:

Once I had cut out all 280 8 inch squares I paired them all up and with right sides together I pinned along one side. I then used the sewing machine to sew along the pinned line.
A really good way to save a bit of time is to sew all the squares in a 'continuous strip' (pictured below) - this saves having to stop and start sewing for every single square!




Once I was done it looked a little like strange bunting...
I then cut up the 'strip' into the original pairs. Each pair of squares was then opened out and the seam ironed flat:



The pairs were then joined to make fours and the fours joined to make eights etc until the sides of the quilts were completed.
I cut out wadding to the size needed and pinned one of the patchworked sides onto it:



I then flipped it over and lined up and pinned the other side to the reverse of the wadding.
I then tacked through all three layers in order to keep the sides in the right place while quilting.

I decided to hand quilt the quilts and used quilters tape to mark out where I wanted to sew - it was REALLY helpful and I definitely recommend it if you want to quilt straight lines!



Once I had quilted, the last step was to add on the bias binding. For my quilt I used pre-made bias binding which my mum had left over from making curtains about 15 years ago! This definitely fit in with my idea of using up materials :) The bias binding is pinned and then sewn along one side of the quilt. The excess fabric is then cut away so that when folded over the bias binding sits straight! I then hand-stitched it down...



Once the tacking was removed I had finished!!
I also added on a cross-stitch 'label' to both quilts - here's mine:



I hope you all like them :)