Sunday Stash on a Monday

Hi Everyone,

Even though it's Monday I thought I'd post some photos of some delicious fabric I received this week along with some of some Yuletide gorgeousness that I've been hoarding for a few weeks. I did take the photos last night, so technically it is still a Sunday Stash.

This is the backing fabric that I bought for my kaleidoscope quilt. Hopefully I will be finished that by the end of the week and can upload the photos of the finished quilt top - I am currently in phase two of the unpicking stage! I love birds as a motif on fabric and when the Fat Quarter Shop put this on sale I just had to have it.


This is a couple of fat quarter packs of Faye Burgos Christmas fabrics. I plan to make Christmas sacks for my family out of them. If you check back in a couple of weeks I should have the tutorial posted.

These are my favourite fabrics out of the packs:


And last, but definitely not least is this delicious fabric from the Sturbridge VillageIV range by Judie Rothermel. In real life the red is more of a rich ruby colour (the flash has destroyed the true hue) and I can't wait to use it in a quilt I have floating around in my head.


I have finished my apron for the September Apron Challenge, so watch this space - I am hoping that tomorrow is a nice day and I can take some photos of the apron in action for you.

Bye for now,

Shontelle.

Sunday Stash

Hello Again,

Well the day at Hettie's was lovely. I didn't make much of a headway into the Weekender Bag (so called because it takes a weekend to cut out :)), but I did manage to cut out all of the outer and most of the lining. We are going to Kangaroo Island for a family getaway in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping to finish it by then so I can appear organized and sophisticated on the ferry journey.

I thought I'd give you an update on the apron challenge. Not many takers so far - surely there must be some apron lovers out there? I bought the fabric for mine today and thought I'd share it with you.


I love the floral fabric and have been admiring it for months wondering what to do with it. I think that the apron is the perfect project and the colours are just perfect for spring. I was planning to get eloborate and applique a bird on the pocket and make it reversible with another bird embroidered on the other side....but I had a stern word with myself and decided to pull my head in. I don't know how to applique and there are only 10 more days left in the month. So it will be plain but pretty.

This week I have also aquired these fabrics-

They are for a quilt that I have floating around in my head. The pink and green are from Hettie's and the lavender and blue are from The Patchwork Apple. I still need a couple more pinks, greens and some yellow which I will hopefully pick up at the Quilt and Craft Fair in November.

I also managed (finally! after looking everywhere - should have just gone to Hettie's first) to find some plain homespuns to go with the Sherri Berri Christmas charm pack I bought a few weeks ago.


I bought it to make this advent calendar designed by Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson.


The pattern is free to download from her blog or from Sew, Mama, Sew. I am itching to make it, but I have about 20 projects ahead of it on my list. At least I have got the fabric I need and I know that it is sitting there waiting for me.

Lastly, I was thrilled to see this hanging up at Hettie's today -

It is a quilt called 'Starburst' that I designed for our June retreat. Lorraine is stocking my patterns and it made me feel a bit giddy to see it displayed in her beautiful shop.

Bye for now,

Shontelle.

A different kind of Church

Hi everyone,

I am so excited! Today I am having the day off!! My friend Amy's mum owns this fabulous shop:


and today we are going to have it all to ourselves. Bliss! I can't wait to have the opportunity to look at the fabric without any distractions (although this could be dangerous to the credit balance) and then spend the day sewing with my friends in the big workroom.

To complete the projects I have planned for today I think that I'd need a 48hour working week - but we'll see how we go.

I have a few things to tidy up (binding, labels etc) and some fabric selections to make. But my main aim is to make a headway into transforming this lovely fabric:




into this lovely bag:

I think I am dreaming, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

Happy stitching,

Shontelle.

Hi ho hi ho it's off to unpick I go!

Hola!

I have been making a kaleidoscope quilt for a workshop I have been asked to take in October. I decided to make the quilt in my favourite fabrics (reproductions) and in my favourite colour (blue). We are screaming towards the deadline but I wasn't stressing, it was all going well and I thought that I'd have it bowled over by Sunday (fool that I am). I got home from Tuesday night sewing with all of the blocks ironed and ready to go. I placed the blocks on the floor and stood back to inspect the quilt. To my horror the lovely light blue that looked great in my stash read white when placed in the quilt and in my opinion broke up the circular effect of the kaleidoscope blocks.



I thought about it for a few minutes but in my heart I knew that if I was to be happy with the finished quilt there was really only one option. So I took a deep breath and reached for my Clover quick unpick and settled in for the long haul. I did some last night while watching 'Being Erica' on ABC iview (how good is that, by the way!) and the rest this morning sitting on my swing, listening to the rain.

Happy stiching all (or in my case - unpicking!)

Shontelle.

PS. I am hoping to post my fabric choices and some design options tomorrow for the apron challenge. It has taken me a while, but I think that I have finally come up with a design.

September Apron Challenge

Ah, aprons, I love them. I am by nature a disorganised mess machine (sadly my daughter is following in my footsteps) but when I am wearing an apron I feel as though I have a tighter reign on life; there is the illusion of order and organisation in my chaotic existence, and I am all for illusions! My cousin Ellie and I have decided to have an apron challenge in September and we were wondering if anyone else out there in the blogosphere would like to join us?

The rules are simple. Design and make and apron in September and blog about it. If you email me a link to your blog then I can make a blogroll of fellow apron lovers and we can all check out each other's creations. What do you say? Let's grab some ric-rac and go!

August MIA

Hi Everyone,

I have been a terrible blogger lately but with good reason. Do you remember this smiling budding craft enthusiast?


Well thanks to a motorist who failed to look to her right while he was cycling past, he now looks like this....



They say that it never rains but pours and that is the case in our household. The pictures are a bit too gruesome to display to the unsuspecting public but I had an operation a couple of weeks ago to remove a gremlin that was growing inside of me. I am on the mend though and have been busily creating things for our daughter's second birthday.

Does anybody remember this book? When I was little it was the birthday cake bible and weeks before my birthday I would pore over it deciding on which cake I wanted.


If you can get your hands on one it is a winner!!! Here are the cakes I made for my Pixie out of it.
The original had a mouse made out of a prune (who wants a prune on a kid's birthday cake? Madness!), but Greg came up with the idea of turing a jube into a mouse. His arm may be broken but there's nothing wrong upstairs! Stupid me made the mistake of showing the cake to Scarlett when she woke up....I had to make an extra mouse for her immediately or the world would have ended. Ah, the humble jube - breakfast of champions!


The second cake is a butterfly. It is just a round cake cut into three pieces and then cemented together with vienna cream, licorice and smarties. I have to say, I had loads of fun making them and it is worth trying to dig up a copy of the birthday cake book. The Women's Weekly have brought out more recent birthday cake books, but they are not a patch on the original.

So, my baby is now two. Today she was sleeping on me in the car while Greg was jogging Chi-style around the park and I was reminded of how she felt on my body in this photo....


How she got from that to this....

Will never cease to amaze me.

It is show week this week here in Adelaide. We are going and I can't wait. I hope that everyone's week is as full of fairy floss, ferris wheels and farmyard animals as mine will be.

Until next time,

Shontelle.

iPhone cover tutorial

Hi Everyone,

During our quarantine period I designed and made this:


It is the snug little home that protects The Precious (my iPhone). I promised a tutorial and finally - here it is.

Cut a 12.5" x 3.5" piece of fabric for the outer (this is the fabric with the coquettish kittens) and a piece of wadding (I used cotton) and a piece of lining fabric slightly larger than the outer.

Make a sandwich with the wrong side of the lining fabric facing towards you, then place the wadding on top of it and finally the fabric for the outer on top of that right side towards you. Now pin it all together ready to quilt it.

Using your walking foot, quilt the sandwich using whatever design you prefer. I just did straight vertical lines lining my walking foot up with the edge of the fabric for the first row and then with the stitching for each subsequent row.

Photo of quilting.

When the quilting is finished it will look like this. You now need to trim the excess lining fabric and wadding off with your rotary cutter until it looks like this:




Neatly trimmed unit (how cute are those cats?)

Turn your piece of quilted fabric over so the liner is towards you and using a circle template (I used a ramekin - but anything circular will do) draw a semi-circle around the top inside edge of your fabric. Take care when determining which end is the top - this is especially important if you are using a directional print like I did (I found this out the hard way - to my shame there was some swearing). Then, with your scissors trim around this line.


Now it's time to add the velcro. I used sticky velcro dots. Place one on the lining fabric - the centre of the dot should be 3/4" from the top edge. The centre of the other dot should in the middle of the outer fabric 1 1/4" from the top edge.

Sew the dots in place - they will not adhere to the fabric (take it from one who found out the hard way)

Now for the binding,

Cut one 3 3/4" x 1 1/4" strip of fabric. Iron both ends in a 1/4" as shown in the photo above. Then iron the strip in half and then iron the raw edges in towards the centre press mark. It should now look like the photo below.


Note the snazzy new ironing board cover! I couldn't live with the shame of the old over-loved one anymore and had to make an emergency trip to BigW to replace it.




Place the binding as indicated in the photo above and using a co-ordinating thread stitch in place. I like to put my stitches as close to the edge of the binding as possible . (It's not clear from the photos, but of course you need to stretch your quilted fabric out into a long strip for this step or your opening to the iPhone cover would be stitched shut - hopefully the photo below showing the first cover I made will clarify this)




Next, with the right side of the lining facing you fold the straight bottom edge up 5" towards the top as illustrated in the photo above.


Using a 1/4" seam stitch both sides of the cover down as illustrated above.



Next construct a binding in exactly the same way as you did earlier, but this time it should measure 17" x 1 1/4". Keep one half of the binding folded over and pin this half in place as shown in the photo and carefully sew it in place using a matching thread. Take care with the pinning - you may need to ease in some of the fullness of the binding around the curved edges. I hope that the following photos make this process all clear.


Sewing the binding down.Your binding should now look like this on the back of the iPhone cover.

The front will look like this.

Secure the front of the binding with binding clips or pins.

Hand-stitch your binding in place.


Now all that is left to do is sew on a cute decorative button if you feel so inclined, insert your iPhone and enjoy. This pattern could easily be adapted for other devices like blackberries or even for a pencil case or sunglasses case.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial - don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Also, if you do make one I'd love to see a photo of your finished product and finally if you do make one feel free to sell it - go forth and craft with impunity!

Until next time,

Shontelle