Something for me

Back in February last year I found out I was going to get promoted at work (yippee!) so I treated myself to the new Amy Butler bag book and some lovely Amy Butler prints to get me started.  Full of enthuisam I cut out my fabric and interfacing ready for the fun bit of sewing it all up.  Then I found out I was pregnant, a whole load of other things took over and the cut out pieces spent the next ten months or so on my sewing table :(

Once the Little Monster was here and all my windows had curtains the right length (they had been hanging pinned up for about 2.5 years!) I finally got round to finishing my bag.  I've made quite a few bags but this is the first 'good' one I've made for myself - a recycled jeans gym (now toy) bag definitely doesn't count.

I really like this bag :), Its a decent size and was very straight forward to put together; I've made a couple of Amy Butler's patterns before and they are lovely to follow.  When I'm not lumbering around with my enormous changing bag, this has been my bag of choice in recent weeks.

The Quilt, the story continues.....

Never has a quilt been so long in the making. Having decided to try and make this a single (ish) bed sized quilt for when the Little Monster goes into her big bed I kept making wonky log cabin squares until I ran out of fabric - like all mums, my spare time is very limited so this was a very (very, very..) slow process.  I ended up with 24 x 21cm square blocks which looked awfully busy when laid down next to each other and nowhere near big enough.  With a little bit of inspiration from the web (this is my very first quilt) I decided to add some sashing but had no idea how much would look right despite much sketching out on square paper. I ended up laying them all out on a single duvet cover so I could play around with sashing widths.  This really helped me work the sashing out but more importantly gave me my first glimpse of how the finished article would look when I was really losing my enthusiasm.


When I started piecing the thing together (I'm not very good friends with it right now) I found that I had clearly been 'a little tired' when I'd made the first eight or so blocks - having a newborn will do that to you! So they were a whole lot more wonky than I expected and I had to add a little fabric here and there from the left over scraps to help square the whole thing up.  The quilt top is now finished (hooray!) and I've even made the quilt sandwich, secured with safety pins as suggested by blogland.  Thinking I was now on the home straight I jumped into the quilting only to find that straight line quilting, which I'd assumed would be the easiest method for a complete beginner, was a total nightmare on my basic little sewing machine.  As I tugged and pulled the bulk of the quilt through the machine I thought I must be missing something, that there must be an easier way to do this. I had a google only to find that there isn't :(, that I'm not on the home straight at all and that I've got a whole lot more nap times working on this quilt.  On the plus side I really do like how the top has come together, I hope the Little Monster likes it too.

Birthday Surprise for Granny

Way back in June it was my Mum's 70th birthday.  My Mum is one active lady and we all joke that despite being firmly retired, she is always 'so very busy' - you know, theatre trips, Guiding, taking classes, looking after others, being a fab Granny... So her reaching the ripe old age of 70 came as a bit of a shock to me I mean 60 something is still at the end of middle age these days but 70, that seems to tip the balance into old age, a label I really can't attribute to my Mum just yet.

Anyway, to celebrate this auspicious occasion her very kind friends threw her a lovely lunch party and the Little Monster and I got crafty with the fabric paint and the sewing machine.  Following our success with footprints in fabric paint for Granddad's birthday I thought we'd have another go for Granny's however I didn't count on the Little Monster being a couple of months older and a whole lot more wriggly - wriggly baby = very smudged prints :/

The pink prints on the left were pretty much unrecognisable but the silver ones turned out a little better. As Granny is really into her scrapbooking I thought we'd make her a big denim bag to carry her albums in with the footprints as an outside pocket.  I found this pattern over at SewMamaSew for a really simple tote that was just the right size.  As I didn't have a lot of time an unlined bag was definitely the way to go and even though I'd never attempted french seams before I finished the bag in one nap time (my measure of time for all things crafty these days).  I lengthened the handles so she could wear it over the shoulder but left the rest of the pattern alone.

I know its getting lots of use as it was returned to me the other day for repair - should have double stitched the handles.

A Brief Hiatus

The past couple of weeks have gone by in a fog of man flu, teething and itchy eyes chez maison little monster. We have got a few bits done but not as much as I'd hoped.  I finally managed so sew up some of the much needed dribble bibs - nothing can cope with the current torrent that the little monster is producing.

We also celebrated Granddad's 60th birthday with the help of a big squishy chocolate cake and a little homemade present from the monster herself.

I'm still a bit wary of using handprints as the monster can get her hands in her mouth much faster than I can stop her so we stuck to footprints and made a couple of customised handkerchiefs.

She seemed to enjoy the feel of the paint between her toes and we got some really clear prints.  I used Tulip fabric paints as they seemed to be the easiest non-toxic paints to get hold of.  I'm glad I did a bit of googling before we started as using really sturdy cardboard underneath the fabric, as recommended by numerous online sources, made all the difference.

Progress at Last

So I finally made it to my sewing room today to work on some dribble bibs for the little monster.

When I started maternity leave I made myself do all the boring sewing jobs first (shortening pencil pleat curtains for starters ick!) and then finish off all the random projects I had previously begun before I started anything new. However, 6 months on I may just have a few works in progress again ;)

I bought the fabric for a play quilt for the little monster before she was born with the intention to make it whilst waiting for her to arrive.  The monster had other ideas and put in an early appearance delaying her quilt by a good few months.  Its only a simple wonky log cabin but I've never quilted before and thought I'd start on something simple.  Anyway 7 blocks down 9 to go.  The little monster's need for dribble bibs far out weighs her need for a new playmat at the moment (especially as her Godmother has made her a beautiful quilt to wriggle on) so today I had to get on with those.  They are all cut out now ready for the machine - no one ever warns you that its the cutting, pressing and pinning that takes all the time with sewing and that the actually sewing is the easy bit!