allconsuming: craft

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2011-08-25T19:05:00.002+10:00

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Grover's Quilt - the start

2010-05-01T22:18:00.000+10:00

The first quilting fabrics I bought were the sage green polka-dot for sashing the lap quilt I made, using the present from Duyvken and a fabric kit loaded with primary colours and children's pictures in that retro feel. That kit has sat next to the machine since then. I've known I was going to use it for a quilt for Grover but I just didn't know how I was going to put it together.

Anyway, after making my brain melt last week working out the maths of it all, here are the initial 10 blocks!

I think I'm going to use a basic black for sashing and the back. I also have a group of the images above in 4x4 inch boxes so will do a panel incorporating them along the back as well.

Onward!

A wedding quilt

2010-04-27T19:44:00.000+10:00

OH MAN, have I been BUSTING to tell you all about this one.

Our friends E & D were married in February and I had decided to make them a quilt to mark the occasion. Oh sure, it's a few months late but hey, I actually delivered!

Choosing colours was a synch when E mentioned that red and blue together were her favourite colours - red as in a ruby red and blue as in a clear cornflowery blue.

There was a mild hiccup in proceedings as mis-judged my seam allowance on the small four-patch block, giving them 3/8inch instead of 1/4inch. So, the middle square of the bigger blocks had to be reduced and then the strips around them adjusted too. Oy. Anyway, I got there in the end and added an extra border to make-up for the slightly smaller size.

Pink Cat

2010-01-07T00:00:00.000+11:00

I made this on Christmas night for my niece. Because of the sleep deprivation on Boxing Day I totally forgot to take a photo of her backside, on which I attempted my first ever hand stitched embroidery. I did a fancy E for her name.

I initially called her Pink Cat because I'm nothing if not original but Jasper rejected that and called her Colourful Cat.

The googly eyes were a bit of an experiment and someone (RicRac maybe?) gave the tip of using tooth-threader to really hold them in place. They're stitched on but then I used some threader and tied them off on the back.

How good is my blanket stitching these days! (Especially considering I was doing it at around 1am on Boxing Day...

Her belly is this gorgeous fabric (maybe a Prints Charming?) that I just adore - it's all oranges and yellows and greens with fairies and love hearts. I fussy cut this bit to get the gorgeous fairy on her tummy as well as some love hearts.

At first I thought it was a dud gift as another relative had given her this life-like cat which purrs and meows and probably makes breakfast but then I discovered she has been taking her to bed every night and well, I'm just tickled pink.

Here's the dress

2010-01-06T23:48:00.000+11:00

The dress

2009-12-07T22:12:00.000+11:00

Holy crap people. I was sewing along on a merry dream of unicorns and rainbows until I got the the sleeves.

Oh sure, I did a placket. A PLACKET!
Apparently very tricky and fiddly but something I found relatively straightforward and not so fiddly at all.

Oh sure, I unpicked the whole goddamn thing because my bosom needs two darts not one and a hell of a lot 'deeper' than what the pattern said.

But sleeves. SLEEVES are a BITCH.

I've just finished one. Again.
Yeah. I finished it the other day and then realised there was a whole CUFF section I had completely forgotten to attach.
Holy crap one hundred times over.

Now I know why I chose a floral. It hides so so so many sins.

Pictures tomorrow. As tomorrow is my birthday and GOD DAMN IT I am wearing this god forsaken dress on my birthday IF IT KILLS ME.

Oh, it's Simplicity 2885 and I'm making the dress on the top row, second one in from the left.

Felix's quilt - FINISHED!

2009-11-17T15:37:00.000+11:00

OK, so I've learnt my lesson about being slap-dash and not measuring on this one. Whoooo boy was there some sweating and swearing yesterday when I realised I hadn't trimmed it well enough and had to unpick the entire binding. Anyway, I am pleased with the result and Felix LOVES it.

Felix's quilt update

2009-11-08T00:31:00.000+11:00

Reading for quilting!

But first, I discovered it was too short:

by three rows. Awesome maths on my part.

But it then came together. Behold:

I had so much fun piecing the back, just making it up:

neither of these pics do it justice but I am loving it sick.

But dudes, some things I've learnt on this quilt:
- this is meant to be a single bed quilt with a slight overhang. See that pic up there of the top with the borders on it? That is laid on on our KING size bed and it is as wide as that. It's HUGE. Anyway, I have no idea what happened as the ladies at the fabric store and I worked all the measurements out.
- measuring can be good. I really think a lot of quilt makers would be sweating over my laxidazical approach to this - the back of this quilt I have measured by holding it up to the front. This was really dumb because I totally forgot you need to make the back a bit bigger than the front as it draws up when you add the batting and do the quilting.

and now, I'm stitching it together to get ready to quilt it. And suddenly I've really nervous! But basically Felix is GAGGING for me to finish it (he is IN LOVE with it and keeps kissing and cuddling me and saying thank you over and over) so it'll be done over the next few days.

Felix's quilt

2009-10-21T16:42:00.000+11:00

So I've just started on Felix's quilt. Here are the colours:

Does that not just scream teenage boy. Not that Felix is a teenager yet. He's in that weird tween zone between being a kid and a teenager than yawns on and on for what feels like a decade.

We're doing an Amish Four Patch for him.

this is me about a tenth of the way through making eleventy hundred 2 1/2 inch squares. I thought I'd loathe it but really, I love the process as much as the end result!

Here I'm playing with the squares:

The pattern called for the coloured four patch squares to contain all the colours - in this case a red-pink/purple and a red-pink/green but the way Felix collated them (I'm trying to get the boys involved when I'm making a quilt for them) was for a purple square and a green square. Of course, once he saw them all sewn (I did this when he and Oscar were at Dad and Sue's) he thought there'd be a red/purple and a red/green in each patch. Oh well. He's happy.

The way I've currently got the first few rows laid out has them going in a diagonal pattern across the quilt. I'm not convinced this is the best idea, fancying the idea of randomising them all but always having the red-pink in the same placement. What are your thoughts?

Here's a better idea of the colour palette and how it will ultimately look

The outer border will see me using my first ever Kaffe Fasset fabric - the pictures here do not do it justice, making it look a bit muddy when in fact it is fabulous.

And the yellowy-green fabric just works magically with it all, creating a real zing.

They are certainly not colours I would have worked on together but it's what Felix wanted and yet another lesson in how things you don't think of do come together nicely.

Now to start sewing all the squares together.

Voila!

2009-10-11T00:15:00.000+11:00

Check.it.out.

I'm so very chuffed with it. The boys love it and have been badgering me as to when it would be finished.

I've loved gaining the knowledge about fabrics and colours - and how fabrics you would never consider work together. I'm really pleased with the polka-dot and the striped binding.

It's a bit wonky and I know there are myriad technical mistakes in it, but that is what it is all about. I've got the fabrics for a quilt for Felix and also one for Jasper and am chomping at the bit to get into them.

Everyone who quilts has said to me that once you start you can forget stopping. And how right they are.

Quilt - Project One

2009-10-07T16:26:00.000+11:00

Some images for you of my first ever quilt. I am still to do the binding but other than that, it is done!

I copied an idea off Sooz for the quilting - different patterns on different squares. I did the same quilting pattern in squares of the same pattern or print to give a feeling of uniformity.

Did I mention how proud I am of myself!!!

Purple Cat

2009-10-05T22:01:00.000+11:00

So while I am not completely happy with the final result (face not cute enough, ears too pointy, arms and legs too thin) the boys were blown away by my creative prowess. Jasper has named it Purple Cat and now it goes to bed with him and Poppity. So really, there's nothing wrong with it at all.

The pattern is by the amazing Jhoanna Monte Arenez of One Red Robin as found in the mighty Pip's Meet me at Mike's book.

Things I have learnt - not to be so goddamn hard on myself. There are myriad faults with this cat but then I see Jasper asleep with it under his arm and realise there is nothing wrong with it at all.

Body fabric is an old pillowslip of my brother's. It has an elephant on it which I positioned on Purple Cat's back.

Belly piece is from a 1960s apron of my mum's.

Reversible handbag

2009-10-05T21:28:00.001+11:00

Check it out!

I made a reversible bag.
AND it didn't actually take me that long.

The pattern is for the flea market bag from Grand Revival Design. I bought the pattern online but can't for the life of me remember from which website.

The fabrics are from Ikea. Of course.

Behold, a pocket! The pattern says you could do a pocket on both fabrics but I chose to only do one on the fabric I chose for the inside of the bag. Because I'm like that. Caution. Wind.

I am not going to go into how long it took me to understand the instructions for making the pocket. Let's just say it erred on the side of embarrassing.

Things I learnt from this project:
- reading patterns.
- reading instructions on patterns

I cut the pattern out incorrectly because I simply didn't understand the illustration OR written instructions. But by incorrect I mean it simply took me longer and probably wasn't as neat as if I'd done it as per the instructions.

I didn't like the t.h.r.e.e possible strap lengths the pattern offered so made up my own, thinking it would be inbetween the messenger (cross over your body) length and shoulder length. It was too short. Who knows what I did. Anyway, it made me more creative because I used some orange fabric I had that I'm trying to use everywhere in my life.

Look at the button loop which I also did in the orange fabric! Here I did get creative because I wanted it to be longer than that of the pattern. This final loop was the third attempt. Turns out I'm as shite at cutting fabric as I am reading patterns.

I got quite confused on how to join the two bags together, until I realised what the pattern was telling me and just how goddamn easy it was. Look at that kicky pocket inside that jaunty bag!

I can't tell you how happy I am with this. So. So happy.

Quilt - Project One, version 1

2009-09-26T22:25:00.000+10:00

So this is what it looks like:

I'm about to unpick it and put a fabric around each square. I picked up this kicky polkadot fabric today and oh my, does it life the quilt to a whole new stratosphere or WHAT!

I could just border it, but there are too many corners not matching up. The worst is about 1/8inch and the ladies at the quilting store today were heaping praise on me for my first attempt. It did much to bolster my spirits.

That's right. I said kicky. NOT darling.

The slope. It is slippery.

Quilt - Project One

2009-09-23T17:05:00.002+10:00

I need some help. The beautiful Duyvken sent me a package of squares to get me started quilting and I figured that seeing as they all belonged to the same family why not make quilt #1 from the range.

But here is the first hurdle.

I need some input/help/guidance/suggestions about the matching of colours/patterns.

This is what I've got:

Here's version 2

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

OK - UPDATED! -

After your comments (and OH MY GOODNESS thank GOODNESS all your Internet goodness is feeling so charitable at the moment) I have had a couple more plays. Whaddyathink?

Version 3

Version 4

Version 5

Gremlinbat

2009-09-22T20:25:00.000+10:00

When I was working on The Cow Felix was absolutely intrigued with the whole process - the idea of a pattern, cutting it out, sewing it together, embellishing it - fascinated he was. Absolutely fascinated. So much so that he drew up his own pattern for a creature that he wanted me to make for him.

Well that pattern was a bit of a challenge due to it being the size of a 50cent piece. Well not quite, but too small for my novice hands to manipulate through the Mighty Matilda.

So, I just upscaled it and cut it out. Again, an Ikea fabric was requested. The ears are simply felt and the various buttons used come from my mum's stash.

The hand stitching along the bottom is blanket stitch, something I was very proud of myself to relearn thanks to a few different videos on YouTube!

And in the beginning...

2009-09-11T16:20:00.000+10:00

there was a cow:

Fabric from IKEA
Pattern from Meet me at Mike's: 26 crafty projects and things to make
He is the "Udderly lovely cow" project by Fliss Dodd
She recommends it is suitable for the confident beginner and should take about three hours. So naturally, having not sewed in 23 years it was the perfect project for me...
All up it probably took me about six hours, but that was including all the faffing around with setting up the machine, reading the manual, staring at the fabric and wondering where to begin and so on and so forth.

OH, and this is Matilda, my new best friend: