A more productive half term than I had thought.

I had hoped to get more done than I did but all in all not too bad. I made a new drawstring bag for PE lessons. The fabric is so cute. Love the little ladybirds.

  A nice box corner pouch for my mother. You can make one too using Noodlehead's tutorial. Mother wants it to store her pliers in. No, I didn't really think this was strange. She makes jewellery, so that explains it. 

And a pencil case for daughter 1. I took the liberty of using some left over water proof fabric from her swim bag. After all pen do leak sometimes. 

Dress making hasn't progressed as well as I had hoped. That is what my table looks like right at this moment. some math homework, toys, a trivet and some cat food. The cat food is on there because the children were trying to lure the cat away from baby birds. Of course they didn't then return it to the kitchen. That would be helpful. 

I have managed to overlock the dress pieces and the lining pieces. Probably not the Great British Sewing Bee way but I like to cheat. It works for me, so there. Sorry getting that out of my system. 

Bring on Monday when the hordes return to school and I can get some serious sewing done.  

Dressmaking

It's half term. The weather has been so miserable that I had to take the children to an indoor play area. I hate those places with a passion. They dare to charge an arm and a leg and I have to pay £1.20 to supervise my own children. Staying in for another day was not an option though. Swimming pool was not that appealing. Partly because I took them there earlier in the week and one adult trying to supervise one non-swimmer and one overconfident semi swimmer is not great. So indoor play area it was.  

To calm myself after the delights of noisy indoor play I decided to make a new dress for daughter 1. Simplictiy 4721. I have made it in several sizes (I like to trace the pattern for the right size required rather than cut it out. Makes it last a little longer) and know it's an easy pattern with great results.

 Daughter chose this lovely fabric by Timeless Treasures called Amelia a while ago when it was in the sale.

 I bought 1.8 metres, as directed by the envelope, but I have loads left over. I think I needed about 1.5 meters. Is it any wonder that my scraps pile never seems to shrink?

 Lining is also cut. Weather permitting I can get it sewn by the end of tomorrow. As is if it's good weather I can send children into garden and not worry about entertaining them. ;-)

I am linking to Freshly pieced WIP wednesday.

Not much sewing this week.

 There hasn't been much sewing this week. There has been baking. I can highly recommend this cinnamon pound cake.

 I guess husband did get the hint and bought me these cute fat quarters from celtic fusion fabrics. I suspect that the daughters helped him to choose. They got me some tape measures that look like snails too. Forgot to photograph them.

 I have decided to put my dress making fears to one side and actually make something for myself. Yes, I do make clothes for the daughters but they have great figures. Mainly because they have no shape yet. There are no hips or waists or breasts to worry about. Making dresses for them is easy. I on the other hand have all of the afore mentioned in abundance. Maybe I will let you see what I look like in my new skirt. Depends how flattering it is.

 Did I mention it was my birthday. Well it was. I bought this cute bag kit with some birthday money.

 How lovely are these little bunnies? They had a bag made up in the shop and it's not too cute because it's brown. I could do with a small bag for school run. Now all I have to do is make sure daughter 2 doesn't steal it.

 The shop had a scarp bucket. You know how it is I couldn't resist a rummage. I thought these two went well together but the green also goes well with the owls. There was more of the green but Friend A wanted some as well. Friend E wanted the third piece. Actually E did very well out of the scarp bucket she found an almost fat quarter of Denyse Schmidt fabric for 50p. Jammy

 I found this cute red riding hood fabric as well.

 Now there was that thing about not buying any fabric in 2013. I know, I know. But I am working on getting rid of scraps. Scrappy trip quilt has helped with that and so will this disappearing nine patch. So I am sticking to my one out, one in policy; sort of   ;-)

Hope you have better weather than we do. It's blowing a gale outside and I am about to light the fire in May. Have a good long weekend.

Sea green

 I call this one the sea green quilt. I have a problem though. It is 1.35m (53") wide. Suspect that it is too narrow. After all my duvet is 1.5m wide.

 Now I can make it wider by adding a border but what kind of a border?

I am toying with the idea of four patch type of thing using white and leftovers from the main fabric but I am worried that will be too busy or maybe pinwheels. I don't have enough of any of the fabrics for a border in just one colour.

Any ideas?

Goth quilt finished

 What can I say? I LOVE this quilt. I love that all the coloured fabrics are made from off cuts. Some of the little pieces of fabric are older than I am.

 Yes, I did buy the black background fabric and the border and the backing new but I still think this is a great bit of recycling.

The chief quilt holder upper didn't want to stand outside for much longer.  I used Quilter's dream green green wadding. I am very pleased with how looks and feels. I have used polyester wadding before and found it disappointing, this is very similar to my usual 80/20 mix.

Measurements: 64" by 76''
Pattern: Lynnebobsquarepants.  Using my accuquilt 2.5" HST cutter and 2.5" square cutter

I am linking to Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have a good weekend

Scrappy trip quilt top finished.

 I have found a layout I  liked. The yellows were the problem. First I thought I should put them all together but this was too overpowering.

 I settled on distributing them around the quilt. I am happy with the design I settled on. Not sure if daughter 1. I will find out when she comes home from school.

This is a bona fide scrap quilt. No new fabrics were bought and all fabrics are left overs from dress making or other quilts. Personally I really like it. I liked the process of making it as well. I may have to make another.

Conspiring against me

My Schipperke has decided it is not time for me to finish this quilt. Not a lot I can say to that.