getting my mojo back

 

Although I have been sewing a few things here and there, I haven't tackled any major projects for what seems eons.

 

We've had quite a number of birthday parties of late so I have been making gifts to escape the headache of toy/gift shopping. 

Anyone else find that mind-numbingly boring?

 

This headband was for one of Aimee's friends, tutorial here.

 

 

 

Loveheart scatter cushion for another of Aimee's friends, inspired by this one here

 



 

and the BIG project, the beginnings of a mermaid quilt for another of Aimee's friends.

 

I've sewn every day this week and God it feels good!

sending out an S.O.S.

inspiration quilt by oh-cherry-sew

image source

I know you're out there, fabric horders and stashers, I need your help!

A dear friend of mine has a daughter obssessed with mermaids. 

She is gearing up to moving into her own bedroom so my friend wants to decorate the room with a mermaid/underwater theme.

While discussing this with her one day I jumped on pinterest and showed her some of the beautiful quilts made with Heather Ross' Mendocino fabric. 

She fell. in. love.


inspiration quilt by Erica Randall
image source

So this is where I need your help. 

As we all know this fabric is rare as hens teeth, but I have cooked up a plan to make a quilt for my little friends birthday later this year, using as much Mendocino fabric as I can get my hands on. 
I am particularly interested in the aqua/orange colourway as in these gorgeous quilts I found on flickr.

inspiration quilt by theknicksofknacks
image source

If you, or anyone you know, has any fabric from the Mendocino collection you are willing to part with I NEED it!

Contact me

lovelylittlesweetpeas@y7mail.com

 and we can discuss prices.

I knew I could count on you ;)  !!!

a Custom Quilt

Late last year, a couple of weeks before the school year ended, a lovely lady who I work with in the tuckshop at Aimee's school (yes I am a tuckshop mum) asked me if I was willing to make a quilt for her to give to her son for Christmas. 

She explained it was to replace a quilt which her oldest daughter had been given as a baby eighteen years ago and it had been handed down to her son, who was still very attached to it.  Alas though, the quilt was now threadbare (I have since seen the quilt and that is being kind).  My friend wanted to replace the quilt with something her son could use on his bed, but that would also be a reminder of the original quilt.

As this lady is a very lovely lady, who I am rather fond of, I could hardly refuse.

So after some further discussion regarding size, fabric etc. this was her brief:
- a quilt of any size, but big enough to lay across the foot of her sons double size bed
- green on one side, navy on the other
- a ruffle around the edge
- a pocket to keep a piece of the original quilt in
- the word KIKI2 embroidered on it

I sent my friend off to Spotlight with some measurements and words of advice regarding fabric choice.  She came back to me later that day with a 2 metre length of green quilting fabric and a navy single bed doona cover.

This is what I came up with.  Please excuse the rather average photo's, I was madly snapping away as my friend was on her way over to collect the finished quilt!

front of quilt 

The finished quilt measures approx 60" x 75", so about a single bed sized quilt.

  

back

I used one side of the navy doona cover to make the back of the quilt

pocket and embroidery

and from the other side I cut a square of fabric from the buttoned edge to make the pocket. 

The pocket is a pure piece of genius if I do say so myself. 

I made it in such a way that I used the existing snap button from the doona cover and made the pocket the right size to fit perfectly within the quilted squares so it blends seamlessly into the back of the quilt.  If it weren't for the white button and the embroidery it would be quite secret!

Embroidery is not my strong point so I kept it simple here.

ruffle and binding

I cut the ruffle from the remaining fabric from that side of the doona cover.

The ruffle I'm quite proud of too. 

Having never made a quilt with a ruffle around the edge before, it took alot of searching the net to learn

a) how to make approx 10metres of ruffle

and b) how to attached it to the quilt

This tutorial from Everything Your Mama Made and More is revolutionary - who knew you could do this with an overlocker!

And this tutorial from Blackbird Designs for attaching a ruffle to your quilt is so simple and clear.

I used the green fabric to make the binding. 

I think it looks fantastic against the solid navy blue.  I actually think I like this side of the quilt best!

 I made double-fold binding rather than single-fold binding as in the tute for afew reasons.  

Firstly it is stronger but also because it cuts out that fiddley step of ironing in the edges of the binding and I think it makes for a neater finish!  I machine attached the binding as I do for all my quilts.  No hand stitching for me thanks! 

When she arrived to collect the quilt, my friend seemed pleased with the finished product, saying it was more then she hoped for.

Today she sent me a lovely text message thanking me for the quilt and telling me her son LOVED the quilt and had shed "tears of joy" upon receiving it for Christmas.

Can't get better then that!

One per Month - October

Time flies and it's that time again.

My craft book for October was "patchwork style" by Suzuko Koseki. 

I got this book about a year and half ago, and although I love alot of the projects in the book, the instructions just seemed too complicated to tackle.

  Until now that is!  I've been wanting to update the cushion covers in my loungeroom for awhile now, so trawled through my craft book library for some inspiration. 

Of all the pillows in all the books I have, this style jumped out at me most. 

So I decided to bite the bullet and give the unique Koseki method a go.

 

So whats the deal?  How is this different to other quilting projects?  Well, rather then sewing all your strips together first and then sandwiching them with batting and backing fabric to quilt, you attach and quilt each strip directly to the batting as you go. 

Once I got going I loved it - and best of all it was easy peasy!

I used fabric from Valerie Wells Del Hi range, which I bought eons ago and then when it arrived I didn't quite know what to do with it.  But it was perfect for this project as I wanted something that was bright and bold and would give my loungeroom a lift.

For the backs I used some Ikea fabric in my stash, which also had a flora theme, and again fabric which was bought on a whim.  Only a smallish piece from the bargain bin - too small to do much with - but perfect for this project.

I am really loving this "de-stashing" business.  It's great to go through what you have and actually use some of it.  I just hope the dollar is still so good when it comes time to replenish......... 

endulge me if you will.............

as these quilts have been about 18 months in the making.  After falling in love with this quilt I became determined to make a quilt for each of my girls in a similar fashion.

I decided to go with pink and green blocks for miss A and yellow and purple blocks for Miss B, based on their favourite colours at the time. 

All inspired I rushed out to my local fabric warehouse and bought up any and every bit of quilting fabric in said colours, with little or no thought put into the choices I was making.  I even bought the batting.

 

I set about making my first blocks........................and then I discovered via the wonderful world of blogging, designer fabrics.

Suddenly I hated all the fabric I had bought.  I completely lost enthusiasm for the project. 

It all languished in my tiny sewing room, taking up valuable space for more than 12 months.  Every now and again I would pull some fabric out and make afew more squares, because I couldn't bare the idea of never really finishing the quilts.

Then afew months ago I read about Mel sending a quilt to Suzanne to be quilted. 

Light bulbs went off in my head!!!!!  I know Suzanne, I thought to myself.  We both meet up at the Craftroom from time to time.

I contacted Suzanne to see if she would be interested in quilting my quilts on her long-arm machine- YES, she was! 

That was all the inspiration I needed to f.i.n.a.l.l.y. get on with it and get the quilts done.  Truth be told, it was not only the fabrics I didn't like, it was the thought of quilting two single bed size quilts on my domestic machine.

After laying out the blocks the way I originally planned (pink/green and yellow/purple - don't worry I'm cringing right along with you) I decided it would look much, much better if I made both the quilts using all four colours.  As the girls share a bedroom this would also give the room more harmony.

 

A week and a half later (I know incredible or what after so much procrastinating) I had both the quilt tops finished. 

I decided to use some store bought bed sheets for the backing for a couple of reasons.  Firstly to save time and secondly to save money.  Worked well on both counts. 

I know this wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but seeing as though the fabrics on the front were cheap and nasty (let's be honest here) I didn't see the point in going all out on the backing.

After a few emails back and forth between Suzanne and I, I settled on an over-all design called Butterfly Garden for the quilting.  I dropped the quilts over to Suzanne, and a week later she had them both finished!  I was soo soo excited when I went to pick them up. 

I was totally overwhelmed with how beautiful they looked once they had been quilted. 

I cannot fault her work or professionalism.  Job very well done!  Thank you so much Suzanne. 

I decided to make pieced binding, using up all the left over scraps. 

In the 18 months which passed since I started these quilts Miss A has decided her favourite colours are now pink and yellow, and Miss B's are purple and pink. 

Lucky I mixed the blocks all together then.  Phew! 

I machine stitched the bindings on and hey presto, suddenly the quilts were - DONE. 

Miss A and Miss B are truly rapt with their quilts.

And you know what, so am I.

One per Month - September

Well week one of the school holidays is almost over.  It has been jam packed so far with play dates at the park, best friends coming to our house for a play and today at Playgroup we had a visit from the Fire Brigade!!

Each month this year I have selected a different craft book from my bookshelf and made a project from the book. 

I have found this to be a sometimes challenging (as in getting around to making something within a set time frame) but always rewarding task. 

I'm sure we all love pouring over and being inspired by the gorgeous projects contained within the wonderful craft books we all accumulate.  But actually following through and producing a diverse range of beautiful, handmade items has been great!  And I have to say that I am really proud of myself for sticking with the challenge thus far. 

This month I chose a fantastic book called Sewing for Children by Emma Hardy.  I delibrately saved this book for a month which contained school holidays because as the title implies, this book contains 35 projects which are easy enough for children to tackle.  But not only are the projects quite simple they are also really lovely projects which adult crafters would enjoy making themselves.

The girls and I chose to make the Flower Hair Ties.  Miss A (aged 6) managed to make most of hers by herself with only a little help from me.  Miss B (aged 4) needed a little more help, but really enjoyed the process and has proudly been wearing hers every day and happily telling anyone who will listen that she made it herself!

I have half a dozen more cut out and ready to be stitched together - I can see these being great little christmas gifts for Miss A's school friends! 

I'm also itching to make afew of the hair barrettes too to go with the hair ties.  There are so many projects in this book that I can't wait to share with my girls and the beauty is there is a great range of simple projects and those that are a little more challenging for older kids.  So this book will give them and me years of pleasure.  

So eight months down, only three months to go!

I'm going away for a little family holiday tommorrow, but before I go I wanted to share something with you that I am so excited about!

Back in June last year I started on a couple of quilts for my girls.

I was greatly inspired by this quilt and rushed in without too much planning or thought. 

I floundered for quite a while, lost direction, changed direction and finally, after 15 months, came up with these.

More on these quilts to come next week!

Don't forget to check out and enter my giveaway while I'm gone.

For those of you lucky enough to have it, enjoy the long weekend and keep safe!

One per Month - July (a.k.a. the case of the missing month)

What a month July was, it just totally flew by.  The past few weeks have just been jam packed full of outings and entertainment, with a quick family holiday to Canberra thrown in followed by a very lovely weekend away to Melbourne for just Mr lls and I - bliss!!!  Hence posts have been few and far between round these here parts.

What a fantastic place Canberra is for family fun.  In the couple of days we were there we visited

Cockington Green,

Questacon, 

Black Mountain Tower,

Parliment House

 and the National Gallery of Australia 

and the list goes on.

The trip to Melbourne was a last minute thing (for me anyway).  Mr lls had been planning on going down to Melbourne to attend a convention for quite some time.  A couple of days before he was due to fly down he asked if I'd like to go with him.  A quick call to the in-laws to arrange a 'holiday' at Nanna and Pappa's for Miss A and Miss B and the answer was a definate Y.E.S.

I have no photo's to show as the camera somehow slipped out of my bag and was left behind on the floor of the car..........................

We arrived in Melbourne late on Saturday evening. 

Mr llp was attending the convention on Sunday so I had the day all to myself.

What a fabulous day I had. 

I caught the train and then tram to East Malvern, especially to visit the wonderful experience that is Patchwork on Central Park.

I spent a fair amount of time there just browsing and lusting after the wonderful fabrics on offer.  I couldn't bare to come away empty handed but as my airline ticket stipulated hand luggage only I restrained myself to purchasing just some beautiful Liberty fat quarter's which will oneday become a quilt. 

Oneday.

I had a scrumptious and leisurely lunch, uninterrupted by squabbling, attention seeking children. 

I then enjoyed travelling back to the city - just me, my thoughts and my mp3 player.

I spent the next few hours at the National Gallery of Victoria, wandering around as I used to do regularly pre-children, just enjoying the freedom to take. my. time.; until the nagging need for a good cup of tea got the better of me!

The next morning we spent alittle time in the city before heading out to the airport for our return flight home.

We arrived home on Monday afternoon, back to reality but oh so happy to be with my two little sweetpeas again.......................

and to the realisation I still had not completed my July One per Month challenge (shock horror).

The book I chose for July was Alicia Paulson's Stitched In Time. 

The project, Silhouette Stack.

After completing seven projects now from seven different craft books, I have noticed a common theme running through all my projects. 

That is my complete inability to follow instructions and adhere to the particular ins and outs of individual projects. 

I always seem to need to adapt the project for some reason or other.

In this particular case it was because I wanted to use fabric to match the quilts (last mention way back here)I have slowly and quietly been plugging away at for Miss A and Miss B.

Yes, Miss B still dresses up as a cat on an almost daily basis - cardboard cat ears and stuffed stocking tail is an absolute must as far as she is concerned!  Who am I to thwart her inner cat.

 

My plans for these quilts have morphed alittle since then, but today I finished the last block - that's 48 blocks done.  I've only attached the sashing to half of these but I'm getting there.

Anyway, I've gone alittle off track here, back to the Silhouette Stack.

I didn't have enough of the fabrics I wanted to use to make it the same way Alicia did by just stacking half a dozen different fabrics one on top of the other.

So how did I do it?

Well I did follow Alicia's instructions for stencilling the girls silhouettes onto the chosen fabrics. 

But then I just made wonky patchwork blocks. 

I then essentially made a teeny little quilt but instead of binding it I laid the right sides together, stitched around it leaving a 3 inch opening to turn it right side out through and slip stitched the opening closed.  I also sewed in a length of ribbon to hang them by.

Voila!

I truly love this project.  Simple, sweet and definately something I will keep for many years to come.

They now take pride of place hanging on the girl's bedroom door. 

A vast improvement on the piece of black cardboard with some Disney princess stickers that was hanging there yesterday...............

More crafty goings on over the next few days including an On-the-Go Art Satchel waiting in the wings to be stitched up for a little boy turning 6 this weekend. 

We have quite the social calendar at the moment.  It seems half the children in Miss A's class were born in August - including Miss A. 

Her birthday party plans are well under way...........more on that later!

Pink and proud!

I've been sporadically working away on this quilt, started back here, inspired by the squares I made for the 65 Roses Quilt Project.  I finally finished it last night and am really pleased with it. 

Yes it's decidedly pink and girly but I like pink and I'm a girl so I guess thats ok!  Pink and green is one of my fave colour combo's too.

The finished quilt measures 1.2m x 1.2m (48" square).  I haven't washed it yet to see how much it will shrink up, I'll keep you posted.

edited to add: after machine washing and drying in the tumble dryer the quilt now measures around 46" square, that's some shrinkage!  But it looks and feels sooo soft and cuddly I'm almost wishing for the cold weather...........almost!

I machine quilted it, on the diagonal for the centre squares and a squared off spiral around the sashing and border.  I love how the quilting pops out on the solid.

I love the pieced backing. 

Most of the fabrics where from my stash collected over the past couple of years. 

I picked up the clematis fabric ages ago at Spotlight.  It was on sale for something like $3/m so I bought afew metres of it.  Clematis is one of my most favourite flowers. 

I bought the solid pink especially for this quilt though - a dusky rose - love that colour.

The binding is store bought bias binding which I hand stitched for a nice neat finish.  I started sewing the binding on at the last Inner West CraftRoom meet up, but with all the chatting, laughing and eating going on not a whole lot of stitching got done! 

Makes a great throw sized quilt - good for snuggling under when the weather cools down,

or having a snooze on!

A whole lot more crafting has been going on in the little sweetpeas sewing room..............

more to come soon.

From little things big things grow

I've spent the last few days stealing a bit of time here and there to make this little quilt for a friends brand new baby girl.

I went to the Just Remnants shop in Marrickville last week and found these Lecien Merry Bon Bon fat quarters for $5 each - perfect, I thought, they will be great for a little quilt for Molly!

My plan was to keep it really simple, you know, trim the fat quarter panels down alittle and just add a nice wide border to bring it up to size.  Well of course one thing led to another and this is what I ended up with....

I really love it.

The finished quilt measures 47" x 29", a good cot sized quilt.

I wanted something that wasn't too pink and girly and everything other than the Lecien fat quarters I already had in my stash, so it came together quite nicely I think.

 
In an attempt to stick with my keeping it simple idea, I decided to forego binding and use the method Joelle Hoverson uses in her super quick and easy baby quilt from Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. 
I backed it with the same fabric I used on the front for the sashing.

I personalised it by adding a love heart which I printed the baby's name and date of birth on using Matilda's Own Inkjet Printable Fabric - I love that stuff.

making progress

I found a little time today to piece the backing for my quilt.  I think I like it just as much if not better than the front!  I've basted it and now just need to decide how to quilt it.