Fabric : Fibre : Family
The kindness of fellow needlewomen never ceases to amaze me.
Martha from Q is for Quilter, whose Kitty quilt I’m reproducing, sent me an email yesterday with more images that I hadn’t found which she thought I’d find useful. I do…and I’m thrilled.
Such kindness is makes me grateful to be part of this wonderful community… thank you Martha.
I mentioned in January that I want to return our home from its current shabby state back to a cosy, hopefully stylish, family home. This means new windows, some plastering, new flooring throughout and lots of decorating. All of which is quite an expense…and therefore is going to take some time! 😉
This is a good thing. It works nicely with my new ethos of slow, but also allows me to really ponder the style choices I’m going to make in each room. Work has already commenced with two ceilings being plastered last week. Some essential bathroom repairs are coming soon, and a new bathroom floor.
So far, so dreary! Basic stuff…not remotely exciting.
But! Once the bathroom is done, the next room on the list is The Boy’s, and then Button’s. And whilst we are gathering the resources to buy all the materials and furnishings we need, it seems sensible to make a start on the quilts.
This is much more fun.
First up…The Boy! He’s Union Flag mad! Every time we see one in a shop he dashes straight to it! So, the Union Flag is to be the leitmotif for his new Brit Boy room. And what better quilt to make for him than Busy Bee Quilt Design’s ‘Victory Garden’.
Obviously the colourway shown on the original isn’t going to work for my little chap, he’s camp, but not girly. However, Makower’s ‘London’ is just the ticket.
This is a project that Ma is going to make. I’m not that fond of machine piecing and quilting, but she loves it. Who am I to spoil her fun? 😉
For Button, who is a huge Hello Kitty fan (I haven’t met a 5-year-old girl who isn’t), we are taking our inspiration from this spectacular quilt I spied on Pinterest.
image from http://qisforquilter.com/2009/02/hello-kitty-redwork-quilt-top/
Isn’t this just so stunning?????? It’s an original design by Q is for Quilter and I just couldn’t resist it. Button has to have this quilt.
There is no pattern, so I’m shamelessly plagiarizing reverse engineering and putting my own spin on it. To start, I’ve sourced a pile of Hello Kitty images from Google and printed them out. There are tons of them out there…just Google “Hello Kitty Colouring Pages”. I’ve then reduced them by 50% to get them to a good size to make a quilt block. Each block will be 6″ square when completed.
These are then going to be traced onto fabric and embroidered. The images have been delivered to Ma this morning…she’s been champing at the bit to start the tracing. I’ll be doing the embroidery. This is going to be a wonderful joint project with Ma, she’ll be doing the pieced squares, which are going to be cream/pink/duck-egg blue…which is pretty much the colour scheme for the room.
These quilts are going to be the centrepieces of some pretty cute new bedrooms for the kids. When I’ve told them about what we’ve got in store for them, there has been a huge amount of excitement, which makes these projects even more enjoyable for me (if that’s possible!). And at the end of it, they’ll have rooms that reflect their individual personalities and are a joy for them to spend time in.
Whether they’ll keep them tidy is another matter! 😉
I’ve come over all Gene Hunt today and finally fired up the Quattro*…or, in this case, the sewing machine.
Why yes…that is The Husband’s shirt that I’m working on!
I know it’s February and I haven’t completed a single thing so far this year…but at least I’ve finally, finally made a start on some sewing.
It feels good. Despite the crappy instructions on this pattern and the fact that it’s happy for you to leave unfinished seams! I’m now making it up as I go along and so far so good.
And tonight I’ll be ‘aving ‘oops for my tea!*
* If you haven’t watched Life on Mars, and are therefore bemused by these references, what are you doing here? I suggest you go get a copy as quickly as you can and don’t surface again until you’ve finished! And you need to make sure it’s the UK version…Philip Glenister is inspired as Gene Hunt. Inspired, I tell you!
If you find that you need to alter a pattern, say by adding 3 cms of width to a shirt back and yoke to accommodate ridiculously broad shoulders, can I suggest that you remember to also alter any adjoining pattern pieces. Maybe add 3 cms to the collar stand and collar too.
Otherwise you might find yourself waking at 4am in a cold sweat having realised what you’ve done. Or not done, as the case may be.
And then spending some time that would be better spent sleeping wondering if you have enough scrap fabric to recut the adjusted collar and collar stand. And if the light sleepers in your house will be disturbed if you sneak up to the sewing loft to find out the answer to your fabric dilemma. And if you can actually be bothered to get out from underneath the super cosy duvet and quilt to shiver your way up there anyway.
I’m not saying I actually made this mistake, but if I had I’d be awfully glad that I had enough waste fabric to cut new collar and stands, and only need to buy a bit of extra interfacing tomorrow to get myself to the point where I can actually start sewing.
The wee small boy was in hospital for his first operation today. All went well and he was done and home again by lunch time.
Thankfully cannulas were not required. I am beyond grateful for this.
fake sleeping…note the half-scoffed biscuit!
He was brave and funny during the whole adventure…teasing the nurses by pretending still to be asleep. Promise of a Cadbury’s Fudge at home soon put paid to those shennagins.
We are now waiting for his next hospital date which will be to have his squints corrected. I think I’m going to be a whole lot more sanguine about that now I know he’s fine with anaesthetic.
And whilst he’s had a little snooze this afternoon I’ve finally made it into the sewing loft and have made a start on paper fitting the pattern for The Husband’s shirt.
Next stop…the toile! See….slow sewing…doing it right. It won’t last! 😉
It’s so hard to find the words for this post.
Our amazing, sparky, funny little girl celebrated her 5th birthday on Saturday.
I cannot quite come to grips with just how grown up this little poppet is.
Every single day she amazes us.
She is bold and brave, funny and charming, wild and loud, cuddly and loving.
She is so many things…all of them wonderful. It’s so difficult to find the words.
So I shall quote one of her little school friends. A five year old boy with charm and wisdom far beyond his years.
He told his mother that he adores Button because “she lights up the world”.
I couldn’t agree more. She lights up our world every second of the day.
The children have been introduced to Wallace and Gromit over the Christmas break and they are entranced.
Unfortunately, Wallace’s genius for incompetence in his creations has spilled over to my sewing loft.
I finally got the 2 pairs of upcycled jeans finished for Button this week.
You know…the ones I started in October of last year.
Just the 2 1/2 months then.
Which, whilst not a hanging offence in itself, doesn’t take into account the annoying tendency of small people to grow.
Right out of the jeans you should have finished for her 2 months ago!
Cue expletive of your own choice! I had several!
For a split second I was tempted to let The Boy wear them…but figured that floral Liberty print pocket linings probably weren’t a look he’d want to rock…and that the grandparents wouldn’t forgive me.
Thankfully, his best friend at nursery is a delightful, curly haired little moppet and these jeans will fit her perfectly.
Phew!
I love Fair Isle knits.
I love the intricacy of the designs.
I love the sense of tradition and heritage.
I love intarsia too.
Frankly, though, I’m crap at knitting either of them!
Can’t get the tension even. Can’t avoid squooshed up stitches or saggy threads or holey bits.
In April all that will change.
Lara Croft and I have done it and signed up for the Knitting with Colour workshop at baa ram ewe in Leeds.
image courtesy of baa ram ewe
We are inappropriately squeaky with excitement at the prospect. This is something I’ve wanted to crack for more years than I care to remember and LC is just the most fun to spend a day with.
I simply can’t wait.
Squeak!
PS….all the pictures of the divine knits are courtesy of the wonderful
Oh, I just can’t stop myself.
I blame the tinsel!
Little people had their dance class Christmas party last weekend and I promised the family some pictures. So here are my adorable littlies in their party finery!
I can take no credit for these costumes, they came from their elder sisters’ dressing up box. I also take no credit for the shockingly outrageous posing of my children. They love to play up to the camera.
These shots, taken whilst putting up the Christmas decorations only confirm this…
Shameless!
This week was The Boy’s Christmas singalong…he was an Elf!
Too cute!
Both of them!
Ok…I know…enough with the alliteration already! I just couldn’t resist but I will do better next time!
This post verges on showing off, but I’m so lucky and so thrilled I just had to share.
First up…my in-laws bought me Colette’s Anise jacket pattern as a congratulations for my exam results.
I have some stunningly beautiful Scottish tweed that my friend Liz gifted to me that will be perfect for this. I would share a photo of the fabric but it’s hidden under a pile of Christmas gifts at the moment. The sewing room is the acknowledged hiding place for presents pre-Christmas as it’s out of bounds for the kids unless I’m with them!
The fabric is about 20 years old and in pristine condition…and is the colour of Scottish meadows. It’s so beautiful and I knew as soon as I saw it that the only jacket I wanted to make with it was Anise.
So you can imagine the squealing that ensued Chez Stitches when the postman brought me a lovely package from The Village Haberdashery last week with this pattern in it.
It will be my first foray into tailoring of any sort, but I do have the Anise companion booklet, so I think I’m in safe hands. I just need to hunt down some lovely lining fabric to make the whole thing pop!
As if that wasn’t enough…the lovely Andrea over at Stitch Parade recently held a very generous giveaway and I won the Miz Mozelle Dress pattern by Jamie Christina!
I can’t tell you how delighted I am.
I’m planning to sew a whole raft of dresses next year and this is definitely on the list. Isn’t it so pretty! I think so far I’ve got half a dozen dress patterns that I’m simply itching to sew. I’m sure I can push it to seven to make a whole weeks worth.
So I just wanted to say a very heartfelt thank you to my in-laws and to Andrea for their kindness and generosity. I’m one very happy seamstress.