Retro skirt

My Aunt gave some fabrics to my father because she knows both my mother and I sew. I am not sure what the origins of this fabric are, it could be from my Grandmother's stash. I do know that my Aunt gave him the fabric when they were sorting through things after my Grandmother passed away last year.

My daughter fell in love with the print. It's quite retro I think. There wasn't much of it but enough for one skirt and maybe another for daughter 2.

I used McCall's pattern M5696. Very easy to follow and quick to make, I managed to make it in one day while the Daughters were at school. I even lined it. I must admit I didn't put a zip in it. My daughter is so slim that she needs elasticated waists. I hope for her that this will last for a long time. :-)

She is posing a bit on the picture. Shame she has refused to let me tidy her hair or clean her glasses. And I did iron her top before it went into her cupboard but she just stuffs them in.

Queen Jubilee

 It's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee soon. My friends will be celebrating this more than I will; after all she is only my Queen half of the time. The other half of the time is the Dutch queen and orange is just so much more fun :-) . Friend E. really liked my other Union Flag cushion and asked for one for the herself. She is more of a pink sort of girl.

And boy the back of her cushion is pink! I used the free downloadable pattern by Freedom Fabrics to make the cushion.

The fabrics are all leftovers from previous projects. The pink stripes and checks are percale cotton bed linen. The blue is very old I think bought in the late 80's. The back is again old sheeting.

Have a good weekend.

Dutch Love

I have been looking for fabrics to make a skirt for myself and I found a range called Dutch Love by Hamburger Liebe.

I love it. I would love to make myself something from the blue and orange range. Great colours. Now to find a suitable skirt pattern and somewhere that sells this fabric range...

Union flag cushion - finished

 I finished the Union flag cushion for my friend. I used the free pattern from Freedom Fabrics. It's not the easiest pattern to follow. I used foundation paper piecing to get the rectangles of the flag right. I still need to make a second cushion. I will try to make pictures of the process for the next cushion

 I used some Liberty lawn from my stash for the back of the cushion. I can't think of anything much more British than Liberty. I Love their Regent Street shop.

Now if only I had remembered to sew the tag in the right way up.

The Man quilt

The man quilt a.k.a. shirt quilt is finished. I thought the top was finished a while ago but the man a.k.a the much beloved a.k.a. the husband thought it wasn't wide enough. I dutifully added a border of lots of little squares. It still wasn't wide enough. I luckily found some nice checked fabric to make another border.

The man quilt is meant to be thrifty but if I am honest it isn't. The idea was to use old shirts that had had their live as a useful shirt and were now too old to wear without people offering to show you to the nearest Salvation army hostel. So far so thrifty. Turns out if you take say seven shirts out of your husband's collection he notices. I have had to replace the shirts, which is probably dearer than buying the fabric for  a quilt. We are both happy with the results though. Husband still has his beloved shirts albeit in a different form and I have a husband who doesn't walk around in raggedy shirts. I call that win win.

Another brick wall

 You may remember that I made colour brick quilts for my Australian nieces and nephews. I used Stitched in color's tutorial. My parents had paid for the fabrics for the Aussie cousins, so to be fair they paid for fabric for two more quilts (for my girlies).

This little red number is called "red brick wall". The owner thought the colour bricks look so much like bricks it might be fun to make it look like a real red brick wall. The fabrics she chose are mostly from Makeover' rouge range. The back is makeover Tea time cherries. It's 140cm x 210cm.

Have you ever said...

Have you ever said that would never ever do something again? Well I did. After I finished my hexagon quilt (roughly 15 years in the making). Somehow I seem to have forgotten that I said that. I have started on a new hexagon paper pieced quilt.
I blame my daughters. They took up swimming and I got bored waiting for them at the pool. I hope that this one will take less than 15 years to finish :-)

Finished coin purses

 I finished a load of coin purses. They measure 5.5 inch by 3.5 inch when finished. Well, there abouts. Some are slightly smaller because that was the size scrap I had left over. Most have been re-homed to my mother's house.

 She liked the nautical ones. All of the above are with her.

 She was less keen on these. In fact she only took the all black one and the one with the Russian dolls.

And Daughter 2 claimed the pink one of these.

Now I have learned some things while making these:
1) Do NOT forget to leave the zip part open before sewing up the sides. A slightly silly mistake that will make it difficult to turn the purse right way out.

2) Do NOT open the zip too far. This can either lead to the zip head being stuck under the needle (not good this will break the needle of your sewing machine) or the if you are using a zip that is slightly too long and you trim up later the zip can end up stuck on the wrong side of your stitching.

I should probably mention that I got the idea for the purses from Noodlehead's tutorial.

I need to finish sewing binding on the red brick quilt. I hope to have a sunny day (well dry at least) day this week to be able to the some pictures.

Union Flag

This is proto type flag. It's not as easy as it looks to make a Union flag. It gave me quite a headache. As you can see I will need to trim a few bits (oops). I want to make a cushion for a friend who is emigrating. I thought if she is feeling in need of the UK she can always turn to her cushion. ;-)

I am going to have a go at another flag in more pinky and pale blue for her daughter. Maybe that one won't need trimming.

Sorry for poor picture quality. I couldn't find my camera and i-phone just can't cope with grey skies.