Islay finds, makes and bakes...

2011: A year of hand making (part two)

Umm, it's possible that this is another random and gratuitous family photo from Christmas. Baking with the toddler is mainly a battle to stop him using the spatula to shovel cake mix into his mouth as fast as possible.

I mentioned on Saturday that 2011 is the year in which I shall attempt to keep my hand making (and other family activities) just a teensy bit more organised and on track than I have in the past. I'm not planning on sucking all the fun out of it by scheduling every last minute of crafting and family time, but I am hoping that I'll achieve more of the things I want to by having a rough schedule in mind, instead of being taken by surprise by every single season change, festive event or family party.

I decided that some things were more ongoing projects than tasks that could be slotted into a monthly schedule, so there's a little section of aims for the year, but beyond that I've roughly thought about the months. You'll notice that beyond about March things get progressively more vague. That's partly because of the new baby arriving around the beginning of April (I've learned my lesson the hard way about over-estimating how much I can achieve with a small baby), partly due to the wedding in July (again, not sure how much time/energy I'm going to have around then) and partly due to the fact that I don't want to stress myself out with a year's worth of plans that could be thrown off by any number of changes (like, oh, I don't know, the arrival of a new baby?). My vague aim is to always be planning at least a handful of months ahead in order to retain the benefits of planning without panicking myself about how much I'm trying to achieve.

And so, without further ado, here you go.

Aims for the year (I hate the word resolution)

1. Blog more regularly and more thoughtfully – I’m aiming for somewhere in the region of 4-5 times a week, and actually spending some time over those posts so they say all of what I want to say
2. Carry the camera everywhere – I have missed so many shots this year simply through getting out of the habit of carrying it with me. Also we have a shiny new camera (this one) so I ought to make the most of it
3. Try to make even more of our food from scratch – I currently make most of our bread and treats, but I’d like to increase what I'm doing. I used to make granola and breakfast foods, maybe that's a good place to start.
4. Waste less time – I have an almost limitless ability to idle away hours on the internet or just pottering in my workroom. I’m sure I could increase my hand-making time by about 20% simply by being more efficient
5. Master colourwork – I’m not sure why, but I am suddenly determined to be able to knit colourwork. I think it’s all the cute baby fair isle projects I keep seeing on Ravelry
6. Think about seasonal making more than a week in advance, so I can actually make some of the lovely projects that always inspire me on other blogs come Easter, Halloween or Christmas
7. Spend more time outside, whether it’s in the garden or at the park. Just generally appreciate the natural world a bit more and hopefully instill a bit of that appreciation in Teddy
8. Spend more time crafting, baking and hand making with Teddy – we got quite into this in the run up to Christmas and it was a huge success. Definitely need more where that came from, especially in order to keep Teddy happy and occupied when the new arrival shows up.

January

1. Finish Teddy’s big bed quilt (hoped to finish it in the run up to Christmas, but it never happened)
2. Organise the crafting/art supplies cupboard – it all got a little out of hand towards Christmas. Also I think there's quite a lot more we could be doing in the way of arts and crafts, and I have nowhere to put more supplies
3. Knit Teddy another pair of socks
4. Make quilt tops/blankets for the wedding (the aim is to have a handful of quilts to drape over hay bales and as picnic blankets to sit on, as there won't be any formal seating for the meal)
5. Design and print the wedding invitations (loving the save-the-dates we made, blog post coming soon on them)
6. Quilt half of the sunshine quilt
7. Start a tea leaves cardigan for myself (just as soon as the yarn arrives from the States. Fingers crossed it makes it over the pond soon)
8. Make Teddy an outfit from Ottobre magazine (I've had a handful in mind for months now)
9. Make maternity dress from Handmade Beginnings (Anna Maria Horner’s lovely sewing-for-baby book)
10. Knit a baby cardigan (once I've narrowed it down from the not-very-shortlist of about 30 patterns)
11. Knit a baby hat (I am always sad that Teddy didn't have any hand knitted baby hats. Not sure why)
12. Knit Teddy a new winter hat (the last one had a minor run in with a hot wash, courtesy of Adam being in a bit of a rush to get a laundry on, and is now more fit for use as an egg cosy)
13. Make curtains for the sitting room (we really need to stop being open to stares from everyone walking down the street)
14. Organise my workroom and plan any sewing, making or shopping that needs to happen to keep it under control
15. Knit some practice colourwork swatches
16. Finish my father’s Christmas (ahem) socks
17. Plan what’s going in the garden this year (mainly very simple things that can be planted and forgotten for a few months, thanks to the rather busy summer we have planned)
18. Make marmalade (January tradition in this family)
19. Plan what other wedding hand making needs doing before the baby arrives
20. Sew zippered bags for crayons, pencils etc

 February

1. Finish tea leaves cardigan, if it’s not already done
2. Baste and quilt wedding quilts (yup, any and all of them. That'll happen)
3. Finish quilting sunshine quilt (along with those wedding quilts)
4. Knit baby bootees
5. Knit a cotton baby vest or sweater for summer
6. Make curtains for our bedroom
7. Plan Easter/spring related hand making
8. Organise the bedroom for the new arrival and plan any hand making that needs to be done
9. Plan and knit a colourwork sweater for baby (maybe the cardigan from Vintage Baby Knits )
10. Make a change bag (mine is nowhere near appropriate for two children, as well as being deeply unstylish)
11. Sew a needle wrap for circular needles

March

1. Make baby toys (I’m thinking possibly some felted balls, or some stacking blocks. We got rid of loads of Teddy’s toys because they were too plastic/noisy/broken, so we’re a bit short on that front now)
2. Go through the baby clothes bags and plan what needs making/buying
3. Finish quilting wedding quilts if not done yet
4. Start knitting wedding shawl/wrap (even if I'm not going to manage the dress, it would be nice to wear something handmade)
5. Find a space to make a nature/seasons table for the house
6. Make curtains for workroom
7. Finish any Easter/spring related making
8. Knit another baby blanket (I have ambitions to make this brightly coloured one and back it with jolly fabric like this one, first seen on Soulemama's blog but who knows)

April

1. Mainly we’ll settle for having a very new baby this month. Anything else achieved is a bonus, including getting dressed

May

1. A bit of more baby knitting maybe
2. Change seasons table at the end of the month
3. Finish piecing charm quilt (remember that one?)

June

1. Make some summer clothes for Teddy (maybe some more Huck Finn style pants and a couple of t-shirts, or maybe a wedding outfit, depending on how much sleep I'm getting)
2. Finish knitting wedding shawl/wrap

July

1. Get married! There will probably be enough hustle and bustle this month not to add more

August

1. Make a winter coat for Teddy
2. Plan and knit a colourwork sweater for Teddy
3. Knit winter jumper for baby

September

1. Change seasons table at beginning of the month
2. Make a round of baby clothes for winter
3. Make a round of Teddy clothes for winter
4. Plan any Halloween making
5. Plan the Christmas/winter solstice time making season, including

• Wrapping paper
• Tree decorations
• Winter table cloth

October

1. Knit two pairs socks for baby
2. Knit two pairs socks for Teddy
3. Make a start on Christmas making
4. Finish Halloween making

November

1. More Christmas making

December

1. Finish Christmas making

See, told you it got vague after the spring! I'm really enjoying reading on other blogs about new projects starting and crafty aims being set (gosh, the temptation to join things like the 365 project, but I know how stressed I'd get when I inevitably missed a day or two), so if you've made some resolutions, I'd love to hear about them.

Incidentally, this list is going to take the place of the list that normally loiters in the menu bar above for the forseeable future. I'm keeping that original list (which is more of a general list of things I want to achieve) updated and all links to it live, but all the things from it that I'm hoping to achieve this year are on the new list. As with the old list, I'll update with links to appropriate posts as projects are tackled and finished (I'll only update the list in the top menu bar - this post will remain as it is today, for the sake of posterity!).

Apologies for the mammoth post, I have some less epic ones coming up to show you all the things I managed to get made over the holiday period (it's actually a bit embarrassing how much more I got made when I was away from home and the lure of the internet. Whoops).

Waiting for Ottobre

 No, not eleven months' time, the magazine that does those amazing kids clothing patterns for not just woven fabrics, but knits and weatherproof fabrics too. I've ordered a couple more issues to go with the Spring 2010 one that I already have (much thumbed, page corner turned and generally loved). I bought mine from this brilliant UK site (which also has a great range of knits and corduroy, incredibly prompt delivery and free sweeties! What's not to love?). According to the back of the magazine, Americans can order it here. I don't know about the States, but in the UK the magazine is shipped directly from Finland, so it takes a week or so to arrive. I'm drumming my fingers.

I've had the fabric shown above (also mainly from DotsnStripes, although the dinosaur fabric is from this American site) kicking around for a while, but since (a) Teddy needs clothes (gosh, have I mentioned that enough this week?) and (b) I have a dedicated 'garment fabric' section in my storage shelves now and I can see just quite how much jersey and rib knit I actually have, I've decided that the next couple of weeks will be focused on making for him.

It should also help get me back into focusing, in a way I haven't been so much in recent weeks, on my little boy. Adam is back at work today (a mixed blessing, but we're trying to be positive about it) and I am back on full time Teddy-duty. I'm hoping I can still manage a sensible amount of work on my supplies shop and my new handmade venture, but I definitely need to make the mental shift to toddler speed again, at least during working hours.

Test run 1: Success!

Sorry for the appalling photo - we are well into winter light here (i.e. pitch black or insanely bright glaring sunshine).

I'm so pleased to be able to show you the first test runs of products for my new handmade organic line - 100% organic cottons and ecologically sound hemp and bamboo. I'm still waiting on the labels etc, but I just couldn't wait to share these. I am just so pleased with how they've come out, exactly as I pictured them - fun prints, but simple and unfussy, and not too girly girly (and the non-pink stuff isn't too overtly 'blue for a boy'). This little bundle consists of:

1. Organic flannel and hemp/organic cotton fleece snuggly baby blanket (that's the big polka dot one)
2. Two burp cloths, made from three layers of super-absorbant organic cotton flannel (and oh my goodness they're so soft! Definitely using some of that flannel for lighter receiving blankets). I've always found that a thinner burp cloth was much more effective than a thick washable-nappy one, as the bulkier ones always seem too stiff to get in the right spot, missing the crucial bit of sick (which is inevitably not discovered until some hours later)
3. Organic flannel bib - again, the absorbency of the flannel is great for dribbly milky babies, and won't rub on delicate baby skin

I've got lots of other ideas waiting to be turned into reality (grab bags for outings, bath sets. All kinds of stuff), and there are still improvements to be made to the samples above (a little bit of reinforcing around the snap on the bib, for example, so it holds its shape), but I can already see how it's all going to come together in the end.

I'm currently scouring my local vintage sources for the perfect baskets to put these in (I'm planning on having some luxury gift hampers and some products available individually), and I can't wait for the labels, tags and packaging to arrive so I can start making them beautiful and ready to order.

Working out the pricing is the hardest (and still ongoing) part . I don't want people to have to spend a fortune just because it's organic, but at the end of the day, the combination of ethical sourcing and carefully handmade costs a little bit more than popping to a chain store. I'm hoping my lovely customers will understand!

My workroom, naturally, is feeling the brunt of this sudden burst of activity. I'm not even going to show you a wider shot...

Rainbow or random?

Rainbow (sorry it's not very clear - I hadn't done many flowers when I made up my rainbow!)

Random

I was originally planning on putting my hexagon flowers together in a rainbow, but now I've got all these pretty flowers I'm kind of tempted by a random arrangement too.

I'm kind of thinking that if I went random I'd want to make each flower one row bigger (i.e. sew on another ring of hexagons round the edge), and perhaps even put some white/grey/some other colour hexagons in between as sashing, to make each colour pop more.

Probably I will sew some more flowers while I make up my mind - I've only sewn about 150 hexagons out of my 1000 or so, so I've got a while before I have to choose! Opinions on this matter very welcome indeed though.

Sewing the flowers is taking a little longer than it might as I am alternating it with quilting the sunshine quilt, which is coming along at breakneck speed. Seriously, I'm so slow at machine quilting that actually hand quilting doesn't seem much slower to me. I'm loving the way it's coming together, loving that the hand quilting is slightly more forgiving of my somewhat meagre basting skills, and loving that I can't move from underneath it once I'm settled, so Adam has to run and fetch everything I need all evening.

We have actual quilting!

 

I know, you thought it was never going to happen, right?

I'm only a couple of hexagons in, and there's an awful lot left to go, but I have say it's already going more quickly than expected. It's the perfect in-front-of-the-TV-after-toddler-bedtime activity (in between knitting some socks and sewing more hexagons for the next hexagon quilt. Addicted? Me?) and I'm hoping to have the quilting done in the next few weeks (and I'll thank you not to remind me of that in the new year when I'm still working on it).

I'm settling into using the perle cotton (No 8 - thick, but not too thick) instead of regular quilting thread. I had a bit of a melt down initially due to trying to reproduce tiny hand quilting stitches before giving into the big-stitch mentality of this chunkier thread.

Basting it was a real barrel of laughs, not least because of my laziness in making a rectangle shaped backing. Have you ever tried to stretch out an irregular piece of fabric? Not fun.

It took about four hours, one huge blister (the entire tip of my sewing finger), two broken nails, five relatively impressive puncture wounds and a very stiff back to complete. Who said quilting was for girls?

I also had to piece two vintage woollen blankets (my quilt batting of choice) to make a piece large enough. Much easier than I was expecting, to be honest.

I'm so excited to be making more progress on this quilt. Just don't ask me about choosing a binding for it (in fact, binding suggestions are gratefully received! Should it be yellow, blue, or something else?)

ps: apologies for the horrendous photos - the basting was done in the evening (can you imagine trying to do it with a toddler on the loose?) and it's so gloomy today that I may as well have taken the quilting pictures in the dark too.

Production line

I gave myself a bit of a break from the endless etsy listing today to work on some custom orders for lavender bags. My favourite bit (apart from mixing and matching my treasured collection of vintage fabrics with modern dots and checks) is sifting through my button tins to find the perfect combinations to go on the front.

It's lovely to get a chance to do a bit of sewing instead of photographing and listing, and I suspect I'll keep making and listing the odd handful of these here and there in the run up to Christmas.

Pretty flowers. Of the hexagonal variety

So, I've finally started sewing my charm quilt together. I would have preferred to get my sunshine quilt basted and quilted before starting anything else, but I've just discovered that we don't actually have a floor space large enough to lay it out in this house, so I'm saving that chore for when we go to my mother's next week.

I'm trying to have a bit more finishitis around here before I start (a) the massive amount of hand making I've lined up for myself for the wedding and (b) sewing things for the new mini-venture I've been mentioning here and there for a few weeks now (sorry if it's getting boring! I promise more information will follow soon).

I hope you're all having a productive Monday!

Every great top deserves a bottom. Or something

After giving up and turning to my machine, the back for the sunshine quilt is finally finished. I'd like to say I'm even mildly disappointed that I didn't sew it by hand, but given that it took me about three days to do on the machine, I don't think there ever would have been a quilt if I'd attempted to do it by hand. So, I'm fairly zen about it.

I'm hoping for a bit of clear space this evening to baste it. I'm hoping it will squeeze onto our sitting room floor, but if it doesn't, I'm going to be a tiny bit stuck!

I have such great plans for hand quilting this (yup, I'm still planning on doing that bit by hand. Don't think I'd get a kingsize through my machine anyway!), I really hope it comes off as well as I'm hoping.

Principles? What principles?

So, I know I said I'd be back here soon. But I didn't bank on a family-wide bug arriving the microsecond I turned off the computer! Teddy is largely recovered, I am trying to ignore the perpetual nasal drip, and Adam is showing signs of coming down with it too, despite looking like he might stay strong initially.

But that isn't the point of this post at all. No, it's that sunshine quilt again. Now, I know I said that I was planning on hand piecing the entire thing, front and back. Well, I really did mean it. But, the thing is, it turns out that hand piecing great big squares of plain blue fabric makes me want to stab myself in the eye with my needle. I think I mentioned this already last week, that's how strongly I feel about it.

And since quilting (for me) is meant to be about relaxing and having fun, not sticking to some silly self imposed plan just because it seemed like a nice idea at the time, I've decided to abandon that idea and start machining the back, just as soon as I get myself to the shop and buy some matching thread.

In other news, I was planning on taking part in the ever-wonderful Kids Clothes Week Challenge this week, but the onset of illness and general drama around the house (Teddy turned two, we had approximately 3,000 relatives staying over the course of a few days. You know, the usual stuff) meant that I had to abandon that plan. Also my serger ran out of thread approximately two months ago, and I haven't got round to ordering any more yet, and until I do there's going to be a very limited amount of garment constructions around these parts (seriously, I can keep thinking up excuses all day why I'm not doing anything. Just call me Mrs Slack from Slackville).

A Liberty dress

 No, that's not posed. Apparently I occasionally stand just like I'm posing for a photo...

I decided, about three days before we went camping last week, that I needed a simple, over-the-head summer dress to take with me.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and making a toile, adjusting the fit, and taking a couple of weeks about it (hey, my sewing time is limited!), I just went for broke, sliced into my hugely expensive Liberty print fabric and sewed up Anna Maria Horner's Socialite dress (always my plan for this fabric).

 Generally, I have to say, I'm a little bit in love with it. Sure, in an ideal world it would be an inch or so longer, the neckline an inch or so deeper and the bust area generally a little bit more forgiving (I am not the most petite of bust), but I wore it lots, will wear it again and was pretty darn pleased with my simple summer dress.

Also, I used about half the fabric that I expected (I haven't checked to see if I misread the quantities required, or if my fabric was much wider than required, or if it's just a very generous fabric allowance), but I definitely have enough for practically another dress. Although maybe I'll make a skirt.

Anyway, all in all, I'm rather sold on this handmade clothes malarky. (This is the first garment I've made for myself that wasn't a simple a-line skirt for a long time) Regardless of the minor alterations that could do with being made, this dress is as good a fit as any I'd get in a store, is made of super cool fabric (which was, incidentally, an absolute dream to work with) and is totally unique. Love it.

Oh, and my dressmaking is about to become a whole lot easier - tomorrow you get to meet Daphne.

The big top

 Yup, that is one finished quilt top. Somewhere in the region of 1,050 1.5" hexagons (I haven't actually worked it out exactly yet), over two months of sewing (I don't even want to estimate the number of hours), an awful lot of abandoned housework and more paper hexagons drifting around our sitting room than I care to think about. But it was totally worth it, I love this quilt top.

We're going camping today, and I really wanted to take the backing fabric with me to sew while we're away, but in the interests of saving space (and because I haven't actually cut it yet) I'm taking my charm quilt hexagons along instead.

What, you thought I was bored of hexagons? You must be joking! I seriously can't get over what a portable, easy little project they make, and I enjoy sewing them together just as much as basting them (apparently this is the favoured part for most people).

 

Apologies for the ugly matting under the bench - they have it by all the benches in this otherwise very pretty park, I guess to stop the grass wearing away to nothing and then turning into a quagmire when it rains.

 

In other news, wouldn't these make a pretty bouquet? I'm not really a hydrangea kind of girl, but seeing these ones practically glowing in the park today made me think that they could be kind of pretty. Also I hate the idea of a load of hothoused flowers wasting all that energy, so the more British, outdoor grown flowers I can find, the better! Plus they'll go with any of the multitude of colour schemes I'm choosing between at the moment. I may be calling on the blogosphere for opinions next week.

London calling

And so, I return to this space. I'm sorry for the brief absence, but if I'd posted, it only would have been about the relative benefits of canvas and plastic marquees (we're all about the canvas here), whether one should have a dessert display or a single wedding cake (still not decided on this one, but saw a lovely cake in Martha Stewart Weddings that may have convinced me to go traditional), and whether making 20 picnic blankets in 12 months is feasible and/or likely (umm... yes).

Skipping back to the present (mind the draft wedding invitation designs on your way past. Did I mention that the wedding is still 12 months away?), today I was treated to a day out to London, all alone, with no toddler, no Adam and no responsibilities. I do love my little family, but the odd day off to do my own thing is an undeniable luxury.

The trip was ostensibly to look at wedding dress fabrics (of which I have about six samples, all of them beautiful, and none of them likely to be posted here, as we wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. They're pretty though, I promise!), but once that was out of the way, I went here

 Yup. Liberty of London. Home of the eponymous Liberty Tana Lawn, in more prints than you can shake a stick at (and also a very pricey, but seriously tempting haberdashery department). I used to go to Liberty every now and again when I lived in London, just to absorb the glamour of this wonderful store, and it was really a love of Liberty prints (instigated at a young age by my mother, who gave me and my sister a Liberty print elephant toy) that got me into quilting in the first place.

I spent about an hour wandering up and down the extensive rail of tana lawn fabrics, until, feeling that I was beginning to look a little like a stalker, I actually began to pull out some prints.

Given the range available, I think I was positively restrained (although I did sign up for a loyalty card, which comes with it the added lure of repeat visits).

 I've been meaning to make Anna Maria's Socialite dress for a few weeks now. It's not the style of dress I would normally think to make, or wear, but having seen a few fantastic ones online, I couldn't resist, and when I found the pattern in Liberty as well, it seemed a shame to ignore what was quite clearly a sign that I should buy fabric!

I also bought one or two (ahem) other fabrics to make a quilt. I'm thinking that there might eventually be some scrap bags up for grabs from this lot, as Liberty is a whopping 54" wide, which means you actually get quite a lot of fabric for your half metre! Plus, you know, if I give away scraps, then I simply have to go and buy more, right? (can you tell my love for Liberty has been re-ignited today?)

 It's also possible that I accidentally bought enough of this amazing fabric, called memories of rain (how cute is it, I mean really? It would have been positively rude not to get it) to make another dress, although I have no idea what pattern I might use. Any suggestions? This is a seriously cool print, so I want to get it right.

I'll save the Goldhawk road part of my day for tomorrow's post, I think. I have to just say though, any dressmakers/home sewists out there, check out Goldhawk road before you bother with any of the expensive city fabric stores in London. OMG what a great range, including lots of basic cotton jerseys and some fantastic silks.

I'll leave you with one last Liberty moment. How far wrong can a store go when its stairwell looks like this?

 

Quilting catch up required

Yup, that's a stack of fabric waiting to be turned into 1" hexagons. Ohmygosh. I've spent literally every spare sewing minute on the sunshine quilt in recent weeks (although it doesn't particularly look like the top is going to be finished by July 1st as I was hoping. Boooo), so all the lovely scraps I've received in swaps and as gifts from generous bloggers have been sitting there all neglected and unloved. And I've even got some fabrics in my stash that haven't got little 2.5" squares missing from them yet. Doubleohmygosh.

 

I promise, little squares, that just as soon as that pesky yellow monster in the corner is finished, you'll be top of my list of priorities. Hexagons are the perfect project to work on while chasing a toddler around.

 

I suspect I'll catch up pretty quickly.

Fairy tale prints (prince. Geddit?)

I ordered these fabrics an age ago (well, a couple of weeks), and they've finally shown up! Not the fault of the lovely Etsy seller I ordered from (who shipped the very next day), just typical slow transit from the States.

 I'm absolutely loving the prints - The Owl and The Pussycat has long been one of my favourite poems. I remember reciting it for a school concert aged about 7 and being terribly pleased with myself.

The colours are that slightly muted tone you get from printing on unbleached linen, which works well with the fairy tale images, and the fabric is a cotton/linen blend (I think), so it's slightly more stable than pure linen, but a bit more interesting than acres and acres of perfectly flat quilting cotton.

I'm  debating between mixing this with plain linen or some matching Kona solids. I love the idea of eking the prints out with some solids mixed in, but I'm not sure I'll like the contrast of quilting cotton with this slightly more textured fabric. Saying that, I love the mix of fine and heavy cottons in the last quilt I made using vintage fabric, so maybe it would be fine. Not that I'm indecisive.

Incidentally, this fabric and many others will be featuring in my soon-to-be-released online textiles journal. Click on that link for more information about my latest obsession (and item-to-be-crossed-off on the Mother List)

In other news, isn't it funny how blog lives can run parallel? I was reading Meg's blog the other day (lovely blog, and she's written a book and everything. Green with envy, me? Never) and I saw that she too has given into the lure of Ottobre magazine. I finally gave in and ordered a copy a week or two ago after fruitlessly searching for months for nice and cheap boys' clothes patterns. Anyway, while I wait for my copy to come, I've been searching for some nice jersey fabrics to sew these amazing patterns with. Of course, Meg has beaten me to it and linked to a load of fabulous stores selling knits, but they are all based in the States. So, my dilemma is this: stick with cheaper, more boring, synthetic mix jersey fabrics available in the UK at very-cheap-per-metre or order a load from the States at -less-chap-per-metre-but-much-much-nicer? It's a pain, sometimes, living in the UK - so many of the homemaking sewists whose blogs I read are US based and have access to an enormous range of fabrics (including organic fabrics, which I really would prefer, but are mostly prohibitively expensive over here) within their own country at a reasonable price.

Now, how to persuade Adam into a Stateside road trip....

Bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger

I nearly decided I was done on my sunshine quilt top yesterday. It is almost scraping double bed sized at 69" by 73" and is almost certainly an acceptable size for a handmade quilt.

But no, I have decided that having put all of this work in, this quilt may as well get lots of use, and the best way to ensure it gets used on our bed is to make sure it's double bed size.  For the first time I am imposing a target on this quilt (until now, I always said I'd stop when I got bored). This sucker is going to make it to 80" by 88". If it manages an inch or two extra in either direction, that will also be lovely.

Please pretend that the missing chunk isn't missing - the relevant square is sewn, it just needs attaching, and given the speed of my handsewing now, that's only about an hour's work, maybe less.

Incidentally, I was reading up on SEO (seach engine optimisation) the other day, and how you should make your blog post titles relevant and keywordey. I think it's safe to say that no one is going to find my little blog based on my post titles.

These pictures

1. Are all from the past week
2. Didn't justify a post of their own (although some occasionally make their way into other posts...)
3. Make me happy

 

An abandoned bucket made this trip to the beach particularly exciting (now the beach has been discovered, it's become a twice-weekly trip).

Vegetable thinnings that are actual food. Along with leaf beet and salad leaves, we're doing pretty well from the garden already.

  

The watering can has improved life dramatically for this fair and chubby boy in the heat of the past week. Mainly he waters himself.

 

Hexagons in the park while Teddy napped in the pram. I can stop any time I want, honest. But wouldn't it be great if my first hand pieced quilt was king size?

 Listed this in the shop last week, but mainly I love the photo that my mother took to show off this candy coloured blanket.

 ***

 

These pictures is a regular Sunday feature with a few pictures from the week that never quite made it into their own blog post. Hope you enjoy it, and feel free to share your own These pictures moments too!

On sewing pants, Huck Finn ones

This is the second pair of cropped trousers/shorts (depending on the length of your child's legs and the accuracy of your hem turning. In my case these were short and bad) made from the Huck Finn pans pattern from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. Really loving that pattern - the perfect length for covering the delicate knees of my firstborn (which has a texture somewhat akin to leather, due to his refusal to get up and walk before 20 months) while allowing the bottoms to be rolled up for paddling.

Also my first attempt at lining up both grain and an actual pattern instead of just stripes. I was OK at the grain bit, but my pattern-lining-up skills were, ummm... Let's just say that there are three left leg fronts kicking around my workroom, and there was also meant to be helicopters on the front right. A more civilised sewist would say that they learned an awful lot about lining up patterns. I would say I learned an awful lot about how few times I am prepared to cut out a panel of upside down helicopters before going, "oh, it'll do. He'll grow out of them soon."

And in fact I like that they don't match. The backs of the legs match perfectly and I don't like it nearly as much! I wanted these trousers to look kind of scrappy and random, and the back is too perfect (in terms of pattern lining up. My sewing is less so). I'm loving the fabric in general - it seems pretty hardwearing, and how can you not love those Echino prints? Luckily a friend of ours has just had a baby boy so I've got the perfect excuse to buy a bit more...

That's the first pair, by the way. I made the pattern slightly bigger for the second pair (the largest size is 25mths, and Teddy is 21 months and big for his age) and plenty bigger in the rise for his cloth nappy clad bottom. They're made from Robert Kaufman's Essex linen, the first blue fabric that came to hand, with a little car from Heather Ross's rabbits and racecars line appliqued where the pocket would be if I cared enough to add pockets (apart from pebbles, what do toddlers actually carry in their pockets?)

I'm actually planning a third pair of these pants, as I wanted to compare the same pattern on the sewing machine and the serger, but I completely forgot and sewed the second pair on the machine too! I'm thinking a pair in pale linen might be nice,  but not sure I want to combine loosely woven linen with my serger for a first garment. Maybe four pairs of Huck Finns...

Incidentally, I like the simplicity of that pattern in Weekend Sewing. The finish isn't exactly designer standard (although that's mainly down to my bad sewing!), but they do live up to their claim of being quick and simple. I'm contemplating trying the kimono dress after seeing some pretty dresses on Flickr. Although what I should actually make is a halterneck dress, as I have serious farmer tan from wearing too many mid-bicep-sleeve-length t-shirts and dresses in recent weeks. Any suggestions?

A little case of finishitis

You've heard of startitis, right? Well, much as I am loving the sunshine quilt, and am impressed with myself for sticking with it, I am getting slightly itchy feet about the lack of finished projects in my life.

And so, with a thinly veiled need to actually create something although way through to the end, I decided that I had to check out the colour combination I have in my head for my workroom. I'm planning covers for my fabric shelves, a quilt and other bits and bobs in this colour combination, so it needs to work. That's important, right?

The resultant pin cushion also (temporarily) satisfied my postage stamp urges (although I'm now thinking that the quilt I'm planning for this room would look mighty fine as a postage stamp one...)

Oh, and the colour verdict? I love it, but it needs something to give it a bit of depth. Maybe an actual pale colour in there somewhere? I'll just have to make another pincushion and find out.

Inspired

  

I want to make a postage stamp quilt and I want to make it now.

Those four squares, in case you're interested, are to adorn the front of my soon-to-be-made scrap basket. We (we? I mean I. Adam and Teddy are not helping and I am not schizophrenic. I don't think) are in serious fabric reorganisation mode over here, in preparation for the launch of the fabric diary.

In other news, the sunshine quilt is coming on apace - it's about 75" by 65", and I'm contemplating buying some more yellow so I can make it a proper big double quilt (I don't want to add a border. This is a full colour quilt). I do hope that once it's finished I can get on with showing you finished projects on a more regular basis!

I need a name

 

I can't stop thinking about the idea of having a fabric diary, last item on the Mother List (so theoretically last to be started, but we'll gloss over that for now), inspired by this antique fabric diary at the V&A museum (my most favouritest museum of all time).

Obviously my diary would be online (in the form of a blog, of sorts), in the hopes that someone else might find my fabric hoarding/obsession interesting and possibly even helpful. I did contemplate keeping a paper one so that I could keep actual scraps of all the fabrics, but while that would be nice for me, it would mean that I was keeping it purely for myself, and I want this to be something that is accessable to anyone looking for inspiration/comments on a particular fabric.

 I've spent all week thinking how I'd lay it out so that readers can see a range of fabrics at a glance, what information I'd put in (including price, yardage and each and every project that it's been used for, as it's used up), and I'm pretty much all set to go.

Only one problem - I simply cannot think of a name! Any ideas? I'd like to get the idea of it being (duh) about fabric in there somewhere, and if it was possible to fit in journal/diary/record/book, that would be nice too, but I am literally blank on the inspiration front here.

Feel free to post any ideas, no matter how silly!

Edited to add: I've had a couple of thoughts/suggestions, which include:

1. Inspired by Barbara: a textiles diary (I'm quite liking the idea of putting the name of the original diary owner in there, but not sure if it's completely obscure and no one will bother to look at the diary)
2. Offcuts: a diary of fabric
3. Fabrication

Why, good morning ladies

 The sight that greeted me this morning when I walked into my workroom. Once I'd stepped round all the packaging.

I cannot believe how successful our day trip to Bournemouth was yesterday. It involved a special trip to a sewing machine store with a huge range (including lots of Berninas. Sigh). I got to play with loads of models, and although in an ideal world I would have bought a computerised Bernina, I decided that really I had no justification for such an indulgence, and buying one would have meant missing out on the serger. And possibly any actual fabric to sew.

Of course, most of yesterday evening was spent playing with these lovelies. The serger (a Frister and Rossman Epochlock 055D), while terrifying, is not as horrifically complicated as I first thought - I spent a good hour reading the manual, unthreading and rethreading it until I was absolutely confident, so that I won't be scared to use it. I was a little bit anxious about buying a fairly basic serger, as everything I read says that cheaper ones are harder to thread and more likely to chew fabrics, but purely on the basis of my test sewing last night, I'm incredibly impressed. And a little alarmed by the fierce cutting!

I'm also in love with the sewing machine - a Husqvana Emerald 122, which I got on special offer due to low supplies of the model below (not that I actually wanted the model below). I genuinely hadn't realised how clunky, loud and inaccurate mine had become in recent years - my new machine is quiet, powerful, and allowed me to sew four buttonholes (and accompanying buttons! Woopeee!) in under 30 minutes. It also came with a whopping 12 feet, including the crucial 1/4" foot, and a quilting guide, which has saved me a few quid on accessories.

I visited this store. I have no idea what their online support is like, but the store itself was great - lots of machines ready to try, and knowledgeable salespeople. The saleswoman who served me was helpful, clear and honest, and eventually advised me away from a much more expensive Bernina after a long discussion of my sewing needs. I thoroughly recommend this place if you're in the South of the UK and thinking of buying.

We went on to the beach afterwards, which was lovely too, despite Teddy's determination to make me eat pebbles and hide all the pegs for the sunshade tent thingy. If my sister sends me a couple of the pics from her camera I'll post them here too.

In anticipation

 

Of finishing the sunshine quilt top. I'm now debating whether to quilt it entirely in perle cotton, or mix perle cotton with some finer hand quilting thread, so I can have quite a fairly dense quilting structure without overloading on statement quilting. Either way, I'm pretty excited about edging my way closer to seeing this quilt on my bed.

Also, I'm running out of the yellow fabrics, and I promised the girl in my local quilting store that I wouldn't buy any more, so the top has to be finished soon.

So, binding ideas? (What do you mean, I'm getting ahead of myself?)

ps: I know I said I'd announce a giveaway winner today, but it's a gorgeous day so we're off for a trip to the beach and to a sewing machine shop that just happens to be near the beach (luckily my sister will be on Teddy duty while I drool over Berninas and Janomes). I promise I'll do it tomorrow!

These pictures

1. Are all from the past week
2. Didn't justify a post of their own (although some occasionally make their way into other posts...)
3. Make me happy

More walking means more splashing in puddles. We're all pretty happy about that.

Yeah, so it's from the shop and I try to avoid advertising my stuff here, but hey, I like it.

    

I think we've established I'm in hexagon overdrive at the moment.

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These pictures is a semi regular Sunday feature with a few pictures from the week that never quite made it into their own blog post. Hope you enjoy it, and feel free to share your own these pictures moments too!

Blown away

 Seriously, I am. That stack of scraps was sent to me by the fantastically generous Kate for my charm quilt. Thanks Kate! She wouldn't take any money for the scraps or postage (which was international, in case you haven't noticed), and she sent absolutely loads.

 I've cut well over 50 unique 2.5" squares (amazingly, there was not one duplicate with fabric I already have) for my charm quilt, and there's still well over half the fabric leftover for another scrap project. She is one super cool lady (with a pretty super cool blog too).

 Those scraps have been added to the swap scraps I recently received from Cate (another super generous soul who squeezed every last scrap she could into the standard rate UK postage envelope). Combined with the few bits of fabric I've cut into in recent weeks, I've got about another 100 scraps to baste just as soon as I get a chance.

 All of this generosity has really touched me and made me determined to play a slightly more active role in the bloggy community - I love reading about all the swaps, quilt alongs, quilting bees and giveaways on other blogs, so I reckon it's time I started participating in some of my own. More on that coming just as soon as I persuade Teddy to nap for long enough to write another post...

Hello bandwagon

 I've always been pretty good at staying away from buying all the fabrics from one particular designer or range - usually most ranges have some fabrics I like, some I'm less fond of, and some I just don't get (I may, for instance, be the only quilter in the blogosphere not remotely excited by flea market fancy. I'm just not feeling it).

 However, in recent weeks I've come across just one too many lovely photos of Heather Ross's fabrics, and I'm a bit hooked. I bought the princess and the pea double gauze and the rabbits and racecars from my local store and the Munki Munki pyjama panels are from this lovely Etsy seller.  No idea what I'm going to do with this stack (apart from make it bigger), but I've got lots of inspiration to keep me going:

1. Hexagons in Heather Ross fabrics. An almost-perfect combination
2. A simple stacked coin quilt to show off the lovely range of colours (I love how all her ranges co-ordinate with one another. It's all the orange, I'm sure)
3. I like the way this quilt shows off each little scene
4. Definitely feeling the appeal of circles mixed with these prints.

So, I am, officially and unapologetically, on the Heather Ross bandwagon. Being a sheep is acceptable if I'm hand stitching heirloom quilts, right?

Incidentally, I'm still totally feeling the love for hand sewing - the sunshine quilt is over half its final size, and I've got my probable next project lined up (which, naturally, isn't any of my WIPs).