SMS MBOM October

An interesting block to do because it's skewed when you cut it down, but as the pattern indicates, rather wasteful of background fabric. It was doubly wasteful when I discovered that I seem to have sewn my seams just under 1/4" so the big block of white was too small and I had to recut a longer one. Even then it's not perfect because the bottom left corner of the dark grey fabric is cut off. I'm just surprised I was that much off with my seams, but it's a new 1/4" foot and perhaps I've not adjusted it properly. Anyways, it 90% worked and with any luck the bit I had to replace will be used up in a future block; and once it's sewn into something the corner would have looked cut-off anyways.

Here they all are (so far) together - they're starting to look like something!

Stuffed animal sleeping bags

I've had the Flossie Teacakes stuffed animal sleeping bags Pinned for quite awhile but finally got on to making them after Cat gave me the gorgeous Heather Ross Far Far Away fabric as a gift. The pattern comes in three sizes - Daddy Bear (Teddy), Mummy Bear (Foofoo) and Baby Bear (Snooks). I don't know if Teddy is really a daddy bear (its sex varies from day to day to be honest) but the bag fits beautifully.

I'd like to make a longer one to accommodate Puppy, as he fits nicely in the largest width-wise but is too long - the beauty of the pattern is that it's easily altered to accommodate a range of animals of different sizes and shapes.

I bought the pink fabric from Stitchbird because I really felt that they had to be set. Not because I like buying fabric, oh no.  All the rest of the fabrics came from my stash so I feel vaguely virtuous about the whole exercise. Vaguely. Though if I have to get a fourth version to make Puppy's bag...



Just simple straight line quilting but you could get fancy if you wanted - they'd be a great project to try out free-motion machine quilting.

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Note: Just to clarify, the pattern for the sleeping bags isn't mine - if you'd like to make one the pattern is available from Flossie Teacakes at the link above.  Thanks!

Hazelnuts on Holiday

I'm enjoying our trip down south, documenting it all on Instagram of course! You can follow along if you're on Instagram (link to the right there) or if you aren't an addict you can try websites like Inkstagram or Webstagram to view photos.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cathedral Window pillow

I finally finished the Cathedral Window pillow! I'm really pleased with how it turned out too. The points aren't perfect and I had to do quite a bit of tacking them down in the middles so it would lie flat, but yeah, not bad for a beginner! It's bold and bright (though the grey in this first picture has gone a bit blue, the second one is more accurate) and is one heck of a solid pillow! Tina will have to make sure there are no pillow fights with it or there might be a trip to A&E.



Next time I do one I'll sew the edges down by going in continuous circles and passing through the centres, which will make sure things are all sitting nice and flat and the weak points at those points will be reinforced without the need for that extra stitching. This one I did by sewing the four sides of each colour, and I didn't think it gave the nicest results.

I used this great tutorial over at A La Mode. The second part to it is here.

A blog holiday

It seems I inadvertently took a blog holiday! I didn't mean to and sadly I haven't really even been on a holiday - I've been doing a lot of this:

(the green isn't as neon as that in RL!) I'm on the final stretch in the living room, and the spare room is all finished!

I've been doing a bit of sewing in between coats but nothing major and nothing finished! We're heading off on a family holiday on Monday so my sewing machine is going for a tune up and hopefully I can get lots of stuff finished when we get back! I'm sad I'm missing the Kid's Clothes Week Challenge though, I love that! Spring is suddenly upon us and wardrobe needs have changed radically so I'm desperate to make myself a few things and also some for Hazel. It'll be so nice not having this painting hanging over my head anymore when we get back, I won't know what to do with myself!