me and ma: April 2010

Friday, 30 April 2010

T,SHIRTS FOR THE GIRLS...

It was only when I cleared out the two little ones wardrobes last week, put away the winter clothes and brought out last years Summer ones, that I realised just how much they have grown, particularly Hebe. Hebe's outgrown clothes obviously get passed down to Clemmie, but quite often the tops are stained with goodness knows what and end up being cut up and recycled for various things, so she ends up with a real mismatch of clothing..

So, I decided that a bit of dressmaking (if you can call it that !) was in line...

I made a couple of these little cotton skirts which were very easy to make and use very little fabric. I think they will be great to just throw on in the Summer..

I also made co-ordinating T.shirts to go with the skirts..

Hebe asked for T.shirt's with a BIG flower and a BIG apple, so who was I to argue..

Clemmie asked for a strawberry and a spotty apple....

Next week some little cotton trousers....

After making Hebe's pump bag earlier this week one of the children I have after school asked her Mum if I could make one for her...always happy to oblige...

Wednesday, 28 April 2010

HOW TO MAKE A PUMPBAG - TUTORIAL...

Our third child Hebe starts school full time in September, she has not really mentioned it to that extent, so neither have we, but just lately she has been starting sentences with "When I go to big school", she was talking about P.E., and I said she would need a pump bag to put her P.E. kit in, and that conversation brought us to this...

I started with three fat quarters of Amy Butler 'Love' collection, I bought these in a fabric pack from http://www.saintsandpinners.com./ I only used a 16cm/6" strip off each fat quarter, so I reckon I can get a couple of cot quilts out of what is left.

The pump bag can be made to any size. I made mine with patterned fabric to the front and a plain linen for the back.

1. Cut three pieces of fabric the width you would like your pump bag to be. (You can obviously use
a solid piece of fabric if you wish). Sew these three pieces together and press the seams open.

2. Cut out a further three pieces to the size of this front piece, one out of your backing fabric (in my case
linen) and two from your lining fabric (green cotton).

3. Place the front fabric panel and the backing piece right sides together and sew around three sides STOP
6CM FROM THE TOP EDGE..

4. Sew the two lining pieces together in the same way, but you do not need to stop short this time, keep going
to the top.

6. I wanted to put Hebe's name on her bag, so I traced the letters onto Bondaweb, remember to trace them

backwards so they will be the right way round when you cut them out..

I printed these letters from http://www.scribd.com/ and use them time and time again for different things, if you turn the sheet over and trace over the letter outlines it ensures that your letters will be the right way when you trace onto your bondaweb..

Iron on to chosen fabric, cut out, peel off the paper backing and then iron them on where you want them.

I cut out a rectangle of linen, frayed the edges and ironed the letters to it..

I should have sewed this piece on before sewing the front panel to the back, but forgot and sewed it after.

7. Turn the main bag piece the right way out, push out the corners and press. Top stitch down either side
    and across the bottom of the slit you left open at the top of the bag. Now press over a 4cm hem to the
    inside all around the top edge of the main bag and just a smidgen over 4cm hem around the top edge of the
    lining piece. THE MAIN BAG HEM TURNS DOWN INWARDS TO THE WRONGSIDE AND
   THE LINING HEM TURNS OUTWARDS (THE LING SHOULD STILL BE INSIDE OUT).

8. Slip the lining inside the main bag, and pin all around the top edge matching side seams and top edges.

Topstitch all around the top edge of the bag, and then again 2cm underneath this row of stitches..

9. I wanted to make fabric drawstrings rather than use cord (cord would be fine, and quicker!). To make

fabric drawstrings I cut 5cm wide strips which I joined with a diagonal seam. press a seam down the

centre of the strip and then open out and press the sides into the middle, finally fold over the outside

edges so the meet and sew along the full length. BE AWARE OF HOW LONG YOU MAKE THIS

DRAWSTRING YOU DON'T WANT A CHILD TO BE ABLE TO PUT IT OVER THEIR HEAD.

Making the diagonal seams..Sew along the drawn line, trim and press the seam open..

10. Finally thread your drawstring/cord through the channel you have created, tie the ends together and knot each individual ties end..

THE FINISHED PUMPBAG...

Hebe is very happy with her new bag, especially as it has her name on and I am sure she will be able to recognise it easily amongst all the other P.E. bags...

Monday, 26 April 2010

HOW TO MAKE A HOUR GLASS QUILT - PART TWO

Right, where were we, that's right we had cut out all the hour glass pieces and 'pieced' them into blocks. This is the part where the rotary cutter (and I really think that you need one, it would be a bit of a nightmare with a pair of scissors) gets a right old work out....

You need to trim the blocks to get rid of any messy bits, and there will be a lot....

If you have a ruler with a 45 degree cross on it, then it makes life so much easier as you can line it up with the cross on the block when you trim...

This does take quite a while, but gives a better chance of the blocks lining up when you come to piece them..

Here are my blocks all trimmed and ready to piece into strips..

I pieced mine in rows of seven, matching them so a patterned/coloured triangle is always next to a white triangle....

I really like the ~~finished~~ part finished quilt top, the colours are great together and combined with the white give it a fresh modern look...

So, just the border, quilting and binding to do !

This is the most complicated quilt I have tackled to date, and it took a long time to prepare the blocks, would I do it again ?, probably, but I wouldn't be in to much of a hurry......

Wednesday, 21 April 2010

HOW TO MAKE HOURGLASS BLOCKS..

I have wanted to have a go at making an hour glass block quilt for a while, and then I was further inspired when I saw an hour glass quilt made by Rita at redpepperquilts.com.

I started by cutting 14cm squares from both patterned (or in this case coloured) and plain white cotton fabric...

Then I placed the white on top of the print/coloured fabric and drew a line from corner to corner...

Sew on each side of this line, I used the width of the sewing machine foot as a guide...

With your rotary cutter/scissors cut along the line that you drew, then without moving the block cut diagonally across in the opposite direction (again corner to corner)...

Open up each piece and press the seam towards the coloured/darker side...

Put two pieces together matching the seams, and you should have two blocks like this...

Now its only a matter of cutting, pressing and sewing all these ones together !!

I might get on a bit better if I did not have my little 'helper' Clemmie asking "Can I just use this bit Mummy ?" !

TO BE CONTINUED....

I was featured in a post about 'Lovely Linen' written by Karen at blondedesign.blogspot.com she picked her favourite linen from Folksy and she chose one of my cushions !, see them here meandma.folksy.com (You can also see the Summer dresses that I listed yesterday). !

I have finished two, yes two ! quilts this week, well actually, one was a remake of a quilt I made about six months ago for Hebe, I have learnt so much about quilting in those six months, how to quilt, bind, which batting/wadding to use (I use Hobbs Heirloom Premium Batting which I buy from here cottonpatch.co.uk, there are many different types of batting, but I have found this one lovely to sew with). I did not 'quilt' or bind the original quilt and used a summer weight duvet as the inner ! (told you I have learnt a lot), it did not actually look that bad...

But after unpicking it all and quilting and binding it properly, it now looks like this...

So much better, don't you think ?...

The second quilt is a commission for a little boys Christening...Had a couple of problems with this one, being given the wrong spelling of the name and realising when it was at the binding stay did not help, but hey ho these things are sent to test us, and I am very pleased with the finished result...

View of the back...

Lovely bound edges...

I am putting together some information about machine sewing binding, I know the purists amongst quilters would NEVER do it this way, but I actually like the finish and it saves SO much time !

More of that to come, til next time...