Lots of distractions

I haven't been sewing at all much.  I did spray up that quilt, which I hope to start today, but soooo many other things have got in the way. 

Firstly, I have had constant requests to teach again.  I did a couple of workshops for my local groups and love doing them BUT my health is not what it was and I don't want all the stress.  Then I started to clean out all my old kits etc and found there was a lot of classes already prepared.  So, I will teach again, but only on my terms (i.e. using up the kits I already have prepared) and all the money I raise will go to charity.

So one or two classes before the end of the year.

Kogin is booked in.  Just a drink coaster, "easy peasy." ( Here is a link to the tutorial)  You don't have to use Kogin stitching for this.  You could use repurposed embroidery or fabric, this pattern is multi purpose.

And I will see what else students might like.

Then, I got a request about a very old embroidery class I did years ago.  I couldn't find that one but I did a lot.  I think I will put them up here on the blog as well.  Someone might like them.

Xmas Toys - 2

This little bear is again, very cute, the pattern is from Whip-Stitch.

Again, I have made various changes to the original pattern, I wasn't happy with the join of the head to the body, it just didn't look right.  I found this doll face in an OP shop for 50c and have been waiting for years for the right project to use it in.  I gave her some hair by appliqueing this into position and also chose a heavier weight fabric to make it more durable.

This is not my favourite toy  because of how the head joins to the body.  It makes the head somewhat 'floppy' but I'm sure some child will like it.

Xmas Toys - 1

As part of our Christmas celebrations my quilting group, South Sea Quilters, are making a toy to bring as a donation to our Xmas lunch.  This has led me on a quest to find free toy patterns and share the patterns with our members, and I thought I would share them here as well.  So I launched out on the web and have found quite a few.  The problem has been getting through all the associated advertising.

My first offering is an elephant and it is so cute I'm sure lots of people have used this before and is from Birch Fabrics.  (How could I have missed it?)

The patterns are easy to follow and it comes with good instructions, although the seam allowances are confusing, some are included and others you have to add plus the straight of grain are not marked.  The other thing I'm not happy about is the position of the eyes, so I made an alteration here,  I added some pellum interfacing in the ears , so that they would flap better,and omitted the tail then decided that they need a tail.   Here is my version, one big, one little.

Plate Cosies

This project has been on the go for ages.  I started it long before I became ill and I just never seemed to get anywhere with it.  But, now the "plate cosies "are finished.  There have been made to fit a full size dinner plate and I used this project to learn how to machine quilt straight line patterns.  Each one consists of a front and back piece, so 12 different patterns and lots of thread used.

I used the same fabric for the back of each piece and three different fabrics for the front.  For the example in the picture above I used a serpentine stitch, which is a built in stitch on my machine.  There are so many 'fancy stitches' on machines these days I am going to experiment with these and see what I can come up with.

Place mats and coasters are a good way to experiment and it is  time I replaced my old ones.  I don't like machine stitching nearly as much as hand work but it is still stitching.

There are lots of patterns for these cosies on the web but here is another one.

Download Plate Cosie

Still struggling with the computer

One step forward, two back.  That seems to be how my life goes at the moment.  But, I keep trying, not always successfully, or so it seems at the moment.  I am not receiving the comments to my email, but they do show up in the Typepad comments and there was an interesting reference to a tutorial on the "Elefantz" blog regarding another tutorial for the envelope bag from Alison.

What is the saying? "A picture is worth a thousand words."  This is a nice blog with lots of interesting articles.)

There are just so many variations on this basic design.  I have another one on the go using left over strips that I cut for the binding on my 'Chicken Quilt'.  When I started the quilting I realised that it would work well with strip quilting as well for the construction. You know I did all that practice for my walking foot quilting and now can't remember any of it!!

But this is coming along nicely.

I don't think I will decorate the seams but I need tassels.  I bet I have used all my purple threads!

That tutorial for the Bag

I have had several requests for classes and now my Patchwork group wants to make this the Mother's Day gift.  So I thought I would put together a tutorial on how to make the "envelope bag".

So here is Download Envelope Bag you can print off if your are interested.

(There are only 2 pages that imp in my computer says there are 4.)

Because Hand sewing is painful.

It is too, and the hand therapist tells me this could go on for some time.  So I have been exploring what I CAN do and one of those things is machine sewing.  I have just finished another quilt and sent it off to the long arm quilter and in my quest to 'do things' I have been looking back at some of my past tutorials.  I have chosen these little thread holders, although you can use them for lots of other things, like sweets and chocolates.

I am on a mission to use up my fabric stash and although these bags are only small they make useful gifts.

This is the link to my free pattern and tutorial.

(It is in PDF format so is easy to print out.)

My mug bag

Before my run in with "The Virus" I was working on making a new mug bag to take my mug to Patchwork meetings.  As I said before I have a lovely bag that is somewhere "safe", but , not knowing where "safe" is I needed a new one.  I liked my 'lovely bag" so decided to base the design on that and as I wasn't feeling well when I started I would just use fabric I had in my stash, also, as the mug had an Australian Native Flower printed on it I would look for those kind of fabrics.

The only fabric I could find that fitted this criteria was some Furnishing Weight fabric that was printed with May Gibbs "Bush Babies".  I proceeded to 'fussy cut' out panels of this.

Then to find the co-ordinating fabric.  Once again, only one match.  This time a small remnant of Tilda fabric I had collected but this was a light weight.

And them I cam across some stripped fabric that matched, another weight of fabric from the other two.  I immediately knew I was going to have problems putting three different weights of fabric into a project. But, I could handle this.

This bag design is basically a rectangle, which is then folded into three parts, the 2 sides,  and the base.  You insert the side pieces of fabric on  the base rounding of the corners to make the insersion easier, and then attach  either side of the insert to the sides of the rectangle, Add some handles and then bind the edges with a "quilters binding". " Easy Peasy"   I little more difficult when you are using different weights of fabric.

The size of my bag was dictated by those fussy cut panels but you could just use any fabric and make it the size of your mug.

I just used a hair tie for the loop to close the top.  An elastic casing at the top of the side panel, that I cut on the fold at the top edge and then stitched the casing holds this nicely.  But if you are not fussy about seeing the underside of the fabric you could just sew an ordinary casing and save fabric.

 

I would have made the bag a bit smaller if I was using other fabric but I decided to add a couple of pockets inside to hold extra things.

So now I am all ready for when Patchwork meetings recommence.  I have enclosed a PDF drawing of the measurements I used to make this bag.

Download Jan Mug Bag

Still designing

Even though I am not teaching anymore I just can't stop designing embroideries and other things.  For my "exploring more stitches" class, which I no longer teach, I designed a book cover every year.  This is a very handy piece if you use a pen and paper diary like I do, so I got to thinking about what I would make for next year.  I got out all the past covers I have made and found I had made quite a few.  (Not all were embroidered, some were quilted.)

In amongst all these I found a small applique that I had done to test the design for an applique class, along with a piece of Indian embroidery I picked up when I was in India and some plastic wood-grain fabric,  I thought I liked.  I have no idea why I stitched that applique on the wrong side of fabric but now I can use the right side as a contrast.

So this will be the basis of my 2023 Diary Cover.   Incidently, this is the finished cushion cover I developed from this little piece and there is a free copy of the applique if you would like it.  (This is only the drawing no instructions.)

Download Applique class

The book marks.

As I said before, these make nice gifts and should be quick and easy but...  Maybe it was more difficult because I didn't have a pattern and I was making it up as I went along? So, here they are.

 

Anyway , I have included a pattern,  Download Book mark Xmas 2022 if you are interested.

Some interesting pointers along the way were:

Keeping the hexis straight.  Those things move around!!! I folded a line down the middle but they just moved on their own.  Luckily I had cut my base fabric a bit bigger so I just cut the edges so the hexis were straight. I bought my 1/2" hexis pre-cut.

It is important to be consistent with the number of stitches you make along each side of the hexi, I settled on 4 as that looked the best.

Different Interfacings.

I tried 3 different weights.  The one I ended up with I don't even know the name of, it has been in the stash for years.  I think that if I had to buy one today it would be a light weight 'Parlam fusible wadding.'  (You don't want the bookmark to make a big wedge between the pages.)

The ribbon trim.  I'm going to have to start checking Op shops for ribbons, I had to buy this one as I had non in my stash.

The other thing I bought was a collection of 2nd hand books to put the bookmarks in before they go in the baskets.  There are lots of good cheap  2nd hand books around. 

Those bookmarks have got me thinking about other variations I could use in that design.