Sunday 30 December 2012

Xmas cushion

And now my blog knows my sister is married, andbecause the giftis given, I can safely postthe xmas present I made him - a tractor cushion! He drives a tractor and when we saw the panel fabric in Pumpkin Patch I had to buy it. I did have a temporary loss of memory on how to put in a zip so it's a little dodgy but heseemed quite pleased.

Another sock monkey

My sister got married in February and having seen my husband's wedding socks sock monkey asked for one made from one of her socks and one of her husband's socks from the big day. It took me a while but they got it for xmas. The challenge was the complete mis-match of socks: a pastel ankle sock and a sports sock. Completely different sizes! I had to trim the tail because the original was way too long and looked ridiculous. But overall quite cute.

Sunday 23 December 2012

Christmas decorations 2

Last year's Secret Santa present from work was a little set of tree decorations to make. I finally got round to making them so that they could adorn our festive twigs this year. Very cute.

Christmas decorations 1

As a gift to all the members of my department I made quilted decorations. I found the design in American Patchworking and Quilting and bought a fab pack of fat quarters at the Pumpkin Patch in Hailsham with cute snowmen and snowflakes. It took quite a while to got 17 of these done but I'm pretty pleased with them.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Not sewing but ...

Over the past couple of years I've become rubbish at sending Christmas cards. I went through a phase if making my own but have run out of time recently.

In January we spent the day at Kew Gardens - an amazing botanical gardens in South West London. There is a long walkway that has holly bushes of many varieties and I took lots of pics with the good intention if making cards.

As usual, I completely forgot about thus until last weekend when we met some friends at Kew for lunch. Thankfully (!) I was also rubbish at making our thank you cards from our wedding four years ago so still had a stack if plain cards and envelopes.

I printed the pics on a standard colour printer on standard paper and bought some festive ribbon from Morley's in Brixton (although 2m only managed 5 cards ... Gonna have to buy more!) Very simple design but looks pretty good. Inside I've used 'happy christmas' and holly hand stamped bought years ago from the Paper Mill at Gunwharf Quay (sadly now closed)




Monday 10 December 2012

Catch up 2

This one took FOREVER! But I think it looks pretty cool. It was a birthday present for my sister, who I love dearly. The design came from scrap quilts, a magazine from the editors of easy quilts - it's an American magazine. I wa attracted to the magazine as I have so much fabric, and particularly lots of scraps. I used a fat quaryer my sister bought me (I think for my birhday) as the central feature of each block and then bu ilt it up with a range of scraps. The backing fabric is fantastic, although you can't see it from this pic, it's a pacman design (no pacman thoug, just lots of little ghosties!) I can't remember where I bougt it but you can see it here

This one did take a long time and the hubby got a bit sick of the panels being laid out across the living room floor  ...

Sunday 9 December 2012

catch up 1

Didn't do very well with catching up did I? So over the next week or so I aim to try to catch up.

Let's start with tableware! I made this patchwork table runner and placemats a few months ago.  Our living room is blues and browns so I wanted something to dress the dining table in the same colours. I think the design came from Sew Hip magazine, but I'm not sure now  ...

They wer pretty easy to make and look pretty good.  I love the swirly chocolatey brown in there - I think all the fabrics were bought from Pumpkin Patch in Hailsham.