Blooming bloomers

Dreadful title but I couldn't resist. Sorry.

Blooming bloomers

I managed to get a little sewing time last weekend and finished off Katie's bloomers.  The left-hand pair will be worn under the dress I must make for Nat's wedding (see this post) and the others were just for fun.  Because it is a really quick, fun, simple pattern.....and I think they look very cute.........probably even better with a pudgy little baby in them once it is warm enough.

The pattern is from Heather Ross 'Weekend Sewing' - Ruby's Bloomers.  The book has some pretty good patterns, I made the Everything Tote (a big slouchy bag) almost 3 years ago now when I first got back into sewing - at the stage I was still learning a lot every time I sewed anything (I'm still learning most of the time now too, but some things are getting to be second nature).  The Everything Tote worked out really well even though it was possibly a little ambitious for me at that stage but I seem to remember there was a mistake in the measurements somewhere which I managed to spot and correct - it would be worth checking the errata on-line if you plan to make it.

Fabric, from left to right:: 1. Sarah Jane, Children at Play - Meadow in Soft Pink (from Eclectic Maker), 2. Hanky weight linen from fabric.com, bought a couple of years ago, 3. AMH voile, probably from M is for Make 4. red gingham (bought for Islay's school uniform), I think from Raystitch.

Stars for Marg

I've been planning to write the rest of this post for some time and these blocks were sent off ages ago.

They were made for for Marg.  She has the last month for our Fresh and Funky Bee (I must show a photo of all the wonderful blocks I received for my month....and eventually the quilt I intend to make with them).  Marg has had an incredibly busy year but was dedicated enough to stick with the bee and complete blocks for everyone else.  When it came to her month she didn't have the time to decide on a block and choose and send out fabric and suggested not doing anything.  That just wasn't right so I suggested that we each make her blocks with our own fabric and send them off to her.  We agreed on stars on white or cream - any size block and any size star as Marg will sash them up to standard size and make herself a star quilt.  Which is very appropriate as she is a star herself!

Cosy Katie trousers

And these trousers are for Katie (made with flannel left over from this jacket I made for Islay).  The pattern came from Meg McElwee's 'Growing Up Sew Liberated'.  The pattern is for double-sided reversible trousers but I thought double flannel would be too warm for the summer which is when they should fit her.  It was easy to adapt them to single-sided.

Very skinny feet and long toes!

And this is what happened when I asked Islay to show how twirly her new skirt is.

The yucca is no longer - thanks Lily kitten and her pesky teeth!

Way too much twirling and a very dizzy girl.

Oops

The skirt is a full width piece of linen (bought from Manda about a year ago) and I made a deep shirred waist-band (rather like on this skirt I made for myself) I also off-set the pockets just for fun but I'm not sure if they really work like that.  Not that you can really tell with these photos!

Some finished sewing

I had a number of sewing targets I hoped to meet before Katie was born.  The first had to be met, really, since it was a commission.

The Summer Meadow quilt is for a toddler girl.  Her mum and I picked out a bright mix of fabrics with lots of interest in them.  It has birds, butterflies, foxes, flowers and elephants....in such a happy, summery mix of colours.  I guess it would be a challenge to find all those together, especially the elephants, in one meadow - but you never know, especially in the mind of a toddler.

Like most of the quilts I make it is backed in soft unbleached flannel.  I love the feel this gives to the quilt.  With the bamboo/cotton mix wadding it still stays fairly thin bit it has a definite weight and warmth to it.

Next up were bee blocks.  I was way behind on my blocks for the Fresh and Funky Bee and, for my peace of mind as much as anything (my fellow bee members are a lovely patient lot thankfully), I wanted to get up to date.

This first block was for Courtney from Seamstar with a great fabric selection.....but that's not surprising given what's in her shop!

There was an equally lovely fabric selection for the next block - well, strip.  Which again wasn't surprising as it was for Jo and Fran from Saints and Pinners.

We're very honoured with our bee members!

And just because I can't resist, and to break up all the sewing, here's something non-sewing.  Little Katie peacefully sleeping in my arms (who would have known you could take photos while carrying a sleeping 7 week old?).
I also desperately wanted to make some sleeping gowns for Katie before she was born.  I've seen them over the years and thought they looked like a great idea - no poppers for night-time changes.  The pattern came from Growing Up Sew Liberated and was pretty straight-forward (actually very, I just had to learn a little as I've never sewn with jersey before - it was pretty okay once I got into the swing of it).

I managed three sleep gowns.  They are quite fabric hungry, I found, and I ran out of time and fabric to make any more.  They have been used every night since she was born and are much easier for nappy changes.....and look pretty cute and comfy too.

This Blue Skies quilt was commissioned by the same person who commissioned the Summer Meadow quilt - this time for her nephew who is due any day now.  It is a little smaller than most I've made as she'd asked for something baby sized.  It is a proper quilt however with wadding, flannel back and hand-sewn binding.

As you may have noticed its another bright one!  I was quite worried when I'd finished joining the strips, it was just way too much.  After some humming and hawing and a few colour 'auditions' I settled on adding the turquoise around the edges.  It settles it down a lot (this is settled, honestly, compared to before!) and then the floral feedsack fabric for the edges calms it further and I think/hope ties the colours together quite well.

This was finished at the weekend and posted off yesterday.  I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to open my folksy shop just yet - I think I may leave it empty and in holiday mode a little longer and do some sewing for Islay and Katie - and I'm just starting to think about the very last block in our bee, so I should probably work on that too.

Sunshine quilt, starting school and other stitchy stuff

I thought it was about time I had a little round-up of what I've been up to sewing-wise....before I forget and it never gets recorded.

My very favourite thing, and the one I was most determined to finish, is a quilt for the baby.  As soon as I selected the fabrics for it I've thought of it as the Sunshine Quilt.  And really what could be a better way to welcome a new little being than a snuggly yellow sunshiny quilt?  I've used lots of my favourite fabrics here and all but two were from my stash.  In fact I had so little of a couple that I had to very carefully plan my cutting and placement to ensure I could use them.

 I used a quilt pattern for the first time.  I saw this one from One Flew Over a while ago and thought it would work well with the fabrics I had selected.  I didn't follow it exactly, the pattern repeated some fabrics but I didn't do that.  Very simple and straight forward - the hardest part was bringing myself to cut up the log cabins to rearrange them into a scrappy effect.....but it was worth it.

The fabrics are a mix of quilting cotton, linen, flannel and double gauze and because of this, in a complete departure from my normal minimal approach, I prewashed them all - I thought otherwise I was risking really different rates of shrinkage.

The photos really don't do it justice - it was a very wet grey day when I took them.  We have had the odd better day since but I'm afraid my two-weeks-to-due-date body is in full lazy mode and I haven't made the effort to go upstairs and dig it out of my hospital bag - pathetic, I know.

I had also hoped to make a few new muslins.  I have a pretty enormous pile already - mostly thanks to Angus, the others were fairly sicky compared to normal but he really was a champion.  I remember many many feeds where, at the end, he brought up pretty much everything he'd just swallowed.....to the extent that it wasn't unusual to have to change everything he was wearing, everything I was wearing (including underwear) and, since it was often an evening feed, our whole bed linen too.  And then of course, he'd have to be fed again.  Still, I'm sure double-feeding must have helped with getting back into shape!

Anyhow, I quite fancied making a few prettier muslins to go in with my big white pile.  I reckon they might make those first couple of weeks of establishing feeding a little bit brighter (fingers crossed this time it might be easier).   I'd read (probably here I think) that Spoonflower's double-gauze was ideal for muslins tho' it is more like a single gauze.  And one lucky day I spotted they had an offer - free postage overseas I think it was.  So a yard of this pear and bird fabric made its way over from the USA plus another, completely justifiable of course, yard of girly elephant fabric (which actually is being used in the commission I'm currently working on so I wasn't too out of order - honestly, John). 
I've just backed them some of my existing muslins - so really they are a bargain (am I over-egging my justification a bit here?!).

Last Wednesday Islay started Primary 1.  I had a very cheeky excited little girl on my hands that morning.  She had a lot of fun and is still enjoying herself.  Its lovely to see her settling in so well - and just a little bit sad that she's taking that next step to being a bigger girl. 

 I had planned to make a couple of gingham pinafores but in the end only managed one (made with Oliver and S music box pattern) - and used the rest of the material to make a couple of quick and easy elastic waist skirts.

I hemmed the skirts with a strip of Westfalenstoffe (I think bought from Celtic Fusion last winter).  The gingham came from Raystitch.

I absolutely loved making this next little stitchy thing.  Aaaages ago I was lucky enough to win a baby oobee pattern from the lovely Leslie at onegirl (and bad enough to forget to blog that I had won it).  I have been reading Leslie's blog for a while but had been a bit shy about commenting until she mentioned that she was planning to fly with her two little girls, by herself, from Australia to visit her family in Canada.  I've made several solo-with-kids trips to South Africa to visit my parents so thought it was something I could usefully comment on - unlike sewing where I'm very much a beginner in comparison.
I decided to buy one of her baby oobee fabric packs which includes fabric for the oobee's body, ears and wadding for the quilt.  I didn't think I'd be able to find natural fleece for the body here and wanted to avoid synthetic.

 The pattern is incredibly straight-forward and easy to follow.  I thought I'd have fun with the little quilt and use scraps to make it patchwork.  She is now carefully packed away in her bag with her quilt and pillow - to be given to Islay when the baby arrives (the boys haven't been forgotten - we have a watch each for them.  We've had a run of bad luck with watches and hopefully these new ones will withstand my rough little boys a bit better)

I finally finished bee blocks for Kerry in our Fresh and Funky Bee - I have to confess that I'm still not caught up yet, but I'm getting there. 

 And finally, at the beginning of the summer (crikey that seems like moments ago but was actually a good few weeks ago now) I finished a commission for a toddler girl quilt.  It ended up being quite different from the initial plan as my customer had a bit of a change of heart part way through.  The end result is a fun little quilt with lots of different animals and patterns for her daughter to look at.

So, what is planned next???  I'm fairly well through a commissioned baby quilt that I hope to finish before the end of this month - and before our baby arrives.  I have a couple of bee blocks to finish.  And ideally  I'd like to make a couple more baby things.....but they are not essential and are really more of a hope than an expectation.  Of course there's numerous other things to do, along with normal daily life, but I won't bore you with them.

Fingers crossed all will be well, things will get ticked off my list and, at some point, we'll get to meet a healthy little baby.



That was fun

I'm woefully late with bee blocks.  One of the reasons, apart from general bad planning and busyness, has been that I was quite scared of the book block that Vicky asked for......it included, gasp, embroidery (now, I have to say at this point, that the very kind Vicky also said not to worry about doing the embroidery if we didn't want as she could add it later - but I'm not very good at admitting defeat and not doing something, but that's not to say I won't also procrastinate in order to avoid said scary thing).

Eventually, and several weeks late, I talked myself into having a try.  And do you know what - I enjoyed it!  I didn't produce anything miraculously wonderful but, hopefully, for a first attempt at embroidery it isn't too bad.  As I worked my way through the children's book titles Vicky had given me  I kept thinking 'this is fun' which immediately reminded me of one of our favourite children's books.  I haven't read it much lately as the boys are very much past reading this kind of book and Islay is pretty much too (she's enjoying things like the Faraway Tree and My Naughty Little Sister just now) - perhaps no. 4 will enjoy it as much as the others have.

Anyway, to cut a very long rambling blog post a little shorter I dug out the book to share some of the pages with you.  Miss Lollipop travels around the world picking up an assortment of animals along the way and eventually the very full truck meets a tiger - which gobbles up all the animals.......

Fortunately they pop back out again when the tiger has the hiccups........

And on being asked if that was horrible they all reply 'NO, THAT WAS FUN!'.

So, I've learned a lesson (probably one that I've learnt many times before and should really know at my age).  Not only do I enjoy embroidery, I should just try things that worry me rather than leaving them far too long. Sorry, Vicky, for being so late and THANKYOU very much for helping me learn a new skill!  It was fun.

Oops, catching up time

Oh, dear.  I really didn't intend to disappear for so long, actually until I logged into blogger today I hadn't realised how long it has been since I last posted.  Oops.  It's quite scary how time can disappear so quickly and relatively unnoticed.

We had a couple of weeks of house chaos and mess with builders knocking down a wall, knocking through another to create a new doorway and then building a new wall.  It was pretty horrendous while it lasted.  I can just about cope with dust and mess and noise but I really don't like having other people, however nice, in the house for so long quite - I guess I just like my space.  But now it's pretty much done, apart from loads of decorating that we'll need to squeeze in sometime.  The boys have bedrooms each, both with room for a spare bed and plenty room to play, and our study is smaller but a much better shape.  Definitely a good piece of work and worth saving up for.

We also had 3 days with no kitchen.  The built-in cooker that came with the house finally died to such an extent that even John agreed it needed replacing (yippeee - I didn't sabotage it, honestly, tho' I have wished I could for the last 3 years!).  Because it needed to be cut out I was able to wangle new solid wood (from Ikea - I love them) surfaces too.  The new cooker has a double oven and even four working rings (quite a revelation!) and with the new surfaces the kitchen looks a whole load better without too much cost.  Yay.  I do feel very lucky and am making sure to remember to enjoy it all.

There is a purpose to these cycling photos, really.  A few days ago we made a trip to Glentress - our closest mountainbiking centre (I've been visiting Glentress since I was a kid but in those days just for walking, as a student to get my chainsaw certification and for numerous fieldtrips, and many times for work too.  It is a bit of a leading centre for mountainbiking........which it does beautifully in amongst lots of walking and horse-riding and also producing some pretty stunning timber and wildlife habitat too.  That's what I love about forests - they can be so many things at once).  John loves his mountainbiking and, as a qualified leader, he runs a club for teenagers.  Finn and Angus probably made their first self-propelled trips when they were about 5 or 6 and Islay has been many times in the bike trailer or on the back of my bike.  The boys progressed to blue routes last summer which makes them feel very proud of themselves (trails are graded like ski-runs from green, blue, red and then black as the hardest).

We decided that Islay was ready to try the green run by herself.  And boy did she have a good time!  She did have a fall but picked herself up and carried on.  She 'wheee-ed' her way round the corners and finished, after 50 minutes or so, with a huge grin on her face.  Sometimes we remind the boys, when they have had enough of pink and girliness, that there aren't many not yet 4 1/2  year old little sisters or brothers who would be able to do what she does (she actually started cycling without stablilisers this time last year).  That's my girl!

I have a commission from a lovely couple to make a cot bed set for their baby boy who is due this summer.  I emailed pictures of suggested fabrics and after a few tweaks we came up with a set which while suitable for a baby will also work when he is an older boy using his bed.  It is lovely to be working with people who are so interested and really appreciate the value of hand-made.  Today I finished quilting the quilt (top shown pieced below), the fitted sheet is made and the pillow case top is ready for quilting too.  Then I'll be onto the bumper and mobile - he's going to be one lucky little boy! 

Alexandra asked for confetti blocks for her month of the Fresh and Funky Bee.  It really stumped me for quite some time.  Her gallery pictures were so pretty, as were those made by the rest of the group, but I couldn't think of a design that I was happy with.  Once I sat down and thought about what confetti means to me I knew what I wanted to do.  To me, confetti conjures an image of tiny paper hearts floating in the air at a wedding and also cherry blossom gently blowing in the breeze.  So I have tried to capture these two images in my blocks.  The heart and blossom shapes are stitched down in a continuous line that stretches from the top-most piece to the bottom.....hopefully suggesting gentle floating down to the ground! 

                                                                                                                          

I had an exciting reason, to be revealed next time, for putting together this cushion top.  It is intended for our bed - along with the quilt I'll make from my bee blocks....nearly all sent back and looking fantastic, I can't wait to show you them.

So,  thanks for bearing with me through that mammoth catch-up (if you knew how many things I decided you could do without knowing you would be very relieved!).  I have a couple of exciting things to share next time, including the reason for staying up late to make that cushion top!  I'll try and be back sooner.

In the meantime I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and get to enjoy some time with family and friends.

Very very annoyed

As I said last time February is my month for the Fresh and Funky Bee. I spent ages last week cutting up my precious fabric and then sent it off to the lovely people who will be making blocks for me. But there's a problem....I seem to have bought a dodgy batch of envelopes and, so far, two out of three have reached their destination without any fabric in them. Kind of defeats the purpose of an envelope really! So far I only know about three UK ones but I can't believe the USA and NZ ones are going to have a higher success rate.



It looks like I'll have to send out lots more packages of fabric - and I've just ordered some more Kona white accordingly (I think I'll have enough of the rest for sending out but probably not now to complete the quilt). Fingers crossed it's just been these first few that have been dodgy. If not I'll try and take it up with Tesco - it's horrible to think of that lovely fabric floating around in the postal system somewhere. I thought twice about mentioning that the envelopes came from Tesco - maybe the BBC has had an influence on me, however they do seem to be truly dreadful envelopes, they weren't cheap ones and quite frankly one grumble from me complaining about their shoddy goods won't make so much as a minute dent in their profits......especially since I have to do most of my food shopping there as it's the only shop within easy reach of here.

Hexie tree sample block

So onto a happier note. I had a lovely time preparing a couple of example blocks for the bee. Just to give some ideas for the sort of thing I am after (along with the inspiration gallery). Both need some more work. The hexies (my first ever and quite fiddly at 1/2") need to be sewn onto the block but I'm not sure whether to set them centrally or offset and add something else - a sun perhaps? The branch and leaves block needs some definition with machine and hand embroidery - and definitely the purple pears which don't really stand out at the moment.

Branch and leaves sample block

I made both blocks at 8" square but I found that size a bit restrictive, and doesn't really do the fabric justice, so I've said anything up to 16" square would be good.

Log cabin blocks for Mandy

I also made my first ever log cabin blocks for Mandy (January Fresh and Funky Bee). I really enjoyed making these up and have my fingers crossed that will be one of the successful packages as I sent them back along with my fabric for February.

Excluder without stuffed inner

And finally I had a lot of fun making a draught excluder for a local friend. I do like being asked to make things and hopefully she'll like it. Her kitchen is yellow with a touch of blue and brown but she didn't want much yellow in the excluder. I've made an outer with envelope closing for easy washing but the inner is stuffed with polyester and can be washed too. With two kids and a young dog that is pretty essential! I did enjoy picking and mixing the fabrics and colours. But draught excluders have one serious downside - being long and narrow (this one is over 1m by 15cm) I couldn't really work out how to photograph it successfully. Oh well.




Here's to a good week for everyone. And, for me, less stressing about little envelopes of fabric. I'm going to try to focus and finish a few of my new projects.