The Stitch Gathering - ticket swap bag



Not long now until The Stitch Gathering.  I'm really looking forward to it this year. I did last year, too, but with quite a lot of nervousness in advance of the class I was teaching.  This year, I'm feeling more sure of myself especially since I have taught a few classes throughout the year.  Having written this, and expressed my relative lack of fear out loud, I'm now pretty concerned that I'm tempting fate.  I do hope not!

 

Anyhow, I'm sure it will be a wonderful day. Jo is a bit of a genius for putting together good things (and we'll just have to hope that, for the sake of everyone in my class, I'm not struck by lightning or a similar smugness-induced calamity between now and then). Last year we each received a fabric ticket which we embellished and handed in.....for Jo to turn into a stunning quilt which will be raffled for charity at this year's event.

 

I did wonder how that idea could be beaten, but I needn't have worried.  This year we have all been sent a ticket bag to embellish for a swap partner.  I can't reveal who my partner is as that would spoil half the fun, but I can show my finished bag.

 

After a lot of um-ing and ah-ing the flower applique idea came to me as I was heading off to sleep one night (do you find yourself mulling over stitchy problems then too?).  I much prefer bags with a bit of body and strength to them so I added a lining and picked out some fun lobsters for a wee pocket and key tab too. I hope my partner likes red.  I think she does!

 

I've added a few wee notes below on how I put the bag together.  I really love applique and it was one of the first things I taught myself a few years ago.  I'm not sure I do it the 'proper' way but what I do works for me so I thought I'd jot down a few pointers for the very simple way I decorated the bag in case anyone wants to give it a go but hasn't tried before.  It is fun so do try!

 

Applique notes::

 1. Firstly sketch your design, in this case I just did it straight onto the bag so that I didn't have to copy out the circles which were going to form the basis of my flower - but I could have traced the circles onto a piece of paper and then sketched my design on that.
2. If your design has a right and wrong way round (e.g. numbers and letters) then you'll need to reverse it, I usually hold my paper up to a window and trace the design onto the back of the paper.  In this instance it didn't matter, it just meant that the petals (which I drew free-hand and deliberately weren't symmetrical) would be mirror images of their originals.....but would still be exactly right to fit round the outer circle.  The four inner quarter circles were symmetrical so they didn't change when transferred onto bondaweb.
3. Next, you'll need to trace your design onto the rough side of some bondaweb (check the instructions it comes with if you're not sure which side!) - I use a pencil for this step.  Roughly cut round the outside of each piece of the design, a seam allowance of 1/4" or so works well. 
4. Iron each piece of the bondaweb design onto the wrong side of your chosen fabric(s) (again refer to instructions for exact timings etc).
5. Carefully cut out each design following the traced line on the bondaweb - now you'll have lots of pretty fabric pieces, hopefully in the right shapes!

6.  Now have some fun tearing off the backing sheet from the bondaweb! Place each piece of fabric, right side up, where you want it to lie on your bag (or wherever your design is going).  You can see that my pieces don't match my original design as I didn't reverse it - I have created a mirror image of my original.

 7. Iron in place.

 8. For extra security sew the design down by sewing round the outer edges with a short zig zag stitch - I found it simplest to unpick one side of the bag so that I had more room to manoeuvre the bag while stitching round the flower design.

9. And that's it.  Do say if you spot anything that doesn't make sense and otherwise I hope you have fun!

Working on this design, and playing around with the applique, made me realise how much fun machine embroidery would be - have you ever tried?  Any tips?

Tutorial: Cosy Kid Cowl

A quick pop in to say 'hi' and to let you know that I have a tutorial for making a Cosy Kid Cowl  (using knit fabrics) over on Annie's (The Village Haberdashery) The Daily Stitch blog.  This is just about the easiest knit fabric project ever and is very rewarding..........for only a little time and effort you can make one small person very happy (for evidence just take a look at Annie's Harvey, at the top of the tutorial, and my Katie, at the bottom!).

Annie and I are cooking up a little giveaway too...........watch this space!

I do hope that you are all well.  We're in house selling limbo at the moment.  Nothing much happening, maybe it will pick up after Easter (she says hopefully!).  John and I are off to Inverness tomorrow.  He's doing some work stuff and we'll also look at a few houses, and visit another primary school, to try and make a final decision about which area, and school catchment, we'd like to live in.  We really don't want to move the kids, school-wise, more than once so feel we need to decide where we're going to be and then commit to it - so even if we start off renting we'll have to keep our eyes blinkered so we don't run the risk of falling in love with a house in another area.  There's so many decisions to make and it all feels a little difficult when we don't have much control of the timsecale.  Well, except for the fact that John starts in less than 2 weeks time!  And that we'd really like to have the kids up there for the start of the school year in August.

See you soon for giveaway time.  Wishing you all the best and thanks so much for sticking with me and my sporadic blogging!

The Village Haberdashery - baby bib tutorial

I was lucky enough to get my hands on some lovely Sarah Jane Lets Pretend fabric from The Village Haberdashery.  I made some simple wee bibs - one of which seems to fit* Annie's gorgeous Harvey beautifully!

If you fancy making some bibs have a look at the tutorial on Annie's blog - The Daily Stitch.

* Annie found that wee Harvey, who is only six months, is going to grow out of his bib quite soon - so you may want to widen the neckline if you make one.........but my Katie, who is just over 2 years, still fits the ones I made for her with the same template (she is quite little though!)

1, 2, 3, 4 At The Sea Shore - Number Beanbags

Do you remember a photo of gorgeous fabric and felt from The Village Haberdashery a few weeks back?  Annie sent it to lucky old me to play with and I turned it into a set of Number Beanbags.  Today there's a tutorial on Annie's blog, The Daily Stitch, so you can make some too.

Head on over and have a look, Annie's photos are wonderful.....I just wish she could photograph everything I make!  She also deserves huge congratulations as she has very recently had a beautiful baby boy.

All images from The Village Haberdashery

Kids cosy cowl tutorial

The lovely Lynz asked if I could write a tutorial for the cowls I made for the children and I thought it might be fun to have a go.  It is really simple and would be an ideal first knit fabric project.

The cowls can easily be made with outgrown, thrifted or unwanted t-shirts too (you don't need much fabric) and then you really wouldn't need to worry about whether it worked perfectly first time.

Kids Cosy Cowl Tutorial::

General notes::
1. You can use any kind of stretchy knit fabric but it will be easier to work with, and lie better, if it is reasonably thick and not too flimsy

2. Change to a ball point needle and use ball point pins if you have them

3. Use a stretch stitch (lightning bolt symbol on my machine) or a zig zag stitch is fine too - you want a stitch that isn't rigid and which will move with the fabric

4. Use whatever seam width you are happiest with, I just followed the edge of my sewing foot which is around 3/8"

5. There's lots of information about sewing with knit fabric online, including Kitschy Coo and Made by Rae

6. You can buy good quality knit fabric here and here and here (and lots of other places)

6.  My cowls were inspired by these and these

7. Any questions, just ask!

To make::
1. Cut two 20" by 9" rectangles from your fabric - I have used two different fabrics (tigers for the main and plain blue for contrast side).  Cut so that the long side of the rectangle runs across your fabric from selvedge to selvedge, or side to side if re-using a t-shirt, it should stretch most from side to side rather than top to bottom

 2. Pin the two pieces together with right-sides of the fabric facing each other
3. Sew along both long edges

Don't worry if it looks a little wrinkly, it will settle down when you iron it!

4. Turn right-sides out and press

It is possible to get this next step wrong 

but it is easy if you do it exactly as set out below 

5. With your main fabric uppermost, and right-side out, bring the two short un-sewn ends together so that one right-side main fabric edge lines up with the opposite right-side main fabric edge.  Holding those matching edges together move your hand along towards one of the seams - match the seams as shown below so the main fabrics edges are together and the contrast fabrics edges are together and start to pin in place working out from the seam

 6. As you keep pinning you'll end up swallowing the cowl inside itself with only the wrong sides of your fabric showing and a neatly pinned circle of raw fabric edges

7. Sew round the pinned edge starting with your contrast fabric

8. Stop when you're almost back at the start leaving a gap for turning right-sides out

                            

9. Turn right-sides out through the gap

10. Sew the gap closed neatly. I like to use a ladder stitch - taking a small stitch in alternate sides of the seam. This looks like a thorough tutorial 

11.  Finished - enjoy!