Baby Joe's foxy quilt!

I have a Pinterest board I share with my mum where we collect quilt inspiration, it's packed with all sorts of ideas that we want to try one day and when we are stuck for an idea it's the first place we look!

When a colleague of mine told me she was pregnant I knew I wanted to make her a baby quilt and my mind jumped to this beautiful fox quilt I had seen on Pinterest

http://redredcompletelyred.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/fifty-shades-of-fox.html

It was also pretty perfect as she wasn't going to find out if the baby was a boy or a girl but this quilt works well for both...

I think there is a pattern available but I just picked up some squared paper and got to work (as in my usual method - I don't tend to like following the instructions!)

This was my test fox (out of scraps) Which turned out better than expected:

And here is the finished quilt:

I also got the baby a toy fox (LOVE Jellycat toys):

Since I made this there has been a flurry of babies at work so I have at least 4 more baby quilts in progress which I will write about soon!

Baby Clothes Quilt!

Two years ago I spent a year living in the Netherlands.

It was an amazing year and I'm so glad I got to spend some time in such a beautiful country!

While I was there my manager (and friend) lent me her (unused) sewing machine and set me a task; she asked me to turn her daughter's baby clothes into a quilt.

It was a fairly epic task with lots of annoying stretchy fabric and it took me most of the year to complete but the result was awesome (if I do say so myself) and I definitely think it's one of the best things I have made to date...

The whole quilt (except the wadding) came from the clothes, including the binding, and I tried to keep a lot of pockets, buttons, zips and other details from the clothes. We also decided to make the quilt 'two-sided' with one side using a lot of the characters and being a bit more 'baby' and the other being a bit more grown up and fairly plain so that she could flip it as she gets older...

Here are some pics:

Jane Davies 'New England Houses'

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of joining the Gwent Quilters at a workshop run by Jane Davies who uses free machine embroidery quilting to create her 'New England Houses'

I can't seem to find any picture of her work online which is a real shame as it's really impressive!

I had never tried free machine embroidery before but I loved it (even if I got a bit shaky at times) here are some pictures of my efforts:

I had a great time at the workshop and discovering a new technique - I'm definitely inspired to add some more quilts to my 'things to make' list but maybe not so much 'New England houses' but maybe castles or haunted houses or maybe some Dutch houses... We'll see when I finally get round to it...

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:

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!

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 :)

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:

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!

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 :)

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!