Delphine and Lottie take a trip to the seaside

Its been a busy couple of weeks but in between a trip to the theater, catching up with friends and being bridesmaid at a wedding I managed to make a skirt! I used the Delphine pattern from Love at First Stitch, and some Blavinge fabric from Ikea.

We went to Maidens in Ayrshire today as it was a lovely and sunny and I thought it was perfect opportunity to wear my new skirt and actually take some photos.  Not bad since its has been over a week since I made the skirt!  I was not too sure about the fabric at first but when paired with my Lottie blouse I think it looks quite good.

I thought it fitted really well - and was perfect for paddling!

Even quite far out!

Anyway, back to the skirt! I cut a straight size 6 from the pattern - using my normal method of baking parchment and random objects from the living room to help trace it out! 

The skirt panels went together really quickly and then it was onto the concealed zip.  Now when I purchased my new machine a couple of months ago I decided to also invest in an invisible zipper foot.  This project was ideal to give it a test run.

Here we go.......

It was really easy to use and I was very happy with how the skirt came together.  I was even more pleased when I zipped it up and realised that I had managed to match the waistband seam first go!

I did, however, end up with a bit of a bump at the top of the zip once I had sewn in the waistband lining. I don't think I had trimmed the seam allowance back enough - hopefully I will manage to sort that for my next Delphine skirt.  

I wanted to make this version of Delphine to see if the style suited me before I made some for OWOP. Given that it is only a couple of weeks away I had better get sewing and stop paddling in the sea!

Fly me to the moon!

I have been making lots of baby bunting for friends and family lately (I am at that age where babies are appearing all over the shop!) and realised that I had not made any for the OH's nephew.  Now I met the OH around the time his nephew was born, and before I had started sewing, so I think that is a valid excuse.  I figured that it was about time I rectified this but that a two and a half year old energetic wee boy would not really want a string of bunting.

Now I had been mulling over what to make for a while and then I came across this fab tutorial  for a beanbag chair by Project Nursery - Perfect!

The hunt for nice boy upholstery fabric took a while but when I stumbled across this amazing space rocket fabric from Frumble Fabrics I knew it would be perfect. It is a Japanese fabric and slightly heavier than ordinary quilting cotton so would be able to withstand a battering! I teamed it with some blue upholstery fabric that I had found in the John Lewis remnants bin.

I didn't make any changes except to cut the fabric 43" wide rather than 45" due to the width of my fabric.  I also used more beanbag stuffing than suggested as well.

How cute is this selvage with the wee rockets?  Not one for keeping my selvages but I think this may be an exception to that rule!

The sewing went quite quickly as the instructions were really easy to follow.  It went so quick that I didn't even think to take photos.  All I have is this, rather blurry, photo of the curve I had cut for the front of the bag.

Now the tutorial says this is a 30 minute make.  Well it took me a bit longer as I managed to sew my zip on the wrong way and with a small stitch and a 22" zip a lot of swearing ensued!!!  Even with this mistake I don't think it took over an hour.  Not bad for a first attempt.

Now I was a bit too impatient to wait until my OH came home to fill it up.  This was my ingenious (!) solution.  That's what you are supposed to use airers for right?!

Going up!

Needless to say quite a few of the beads escaped but overall I was pretty happy with my contraption.   That was until I realised that the beanbag liner I had purchased to keep all the beads inside would not mold to the shape of the bag!  Not wanting to add to the 'snow' all over the kitchen floor,  I just took my scissors and cut a hole in the bottom of the liner!

I zipped it all up and sewed a few stitches just under the zipper to stop my nephew from unzipping the seat and getting the filling all over the house it was done!  Looks good I think.

Perfect for a spot of light reading

Best of all though my nephew loved it :)  Job done!!

A first attempt at English Paper Piecing

Gosh I can't believe that it was nearly a month since I wrote my last blog post.  It is amazing how time zooms past sometimes!

I mentioned in my last post that we were about to have visitors.  What I didn't mention was that the visitor was my Dad and that he was here to do up my bathroom. Needless to say the house was upside down and normality was well and truly disrupted.  While I didn't have much time (or space) for doing any crafty things I had just received the first edition of Quilt Now Magazine and completely fell in love with the that Apple Sorbet quilt by Fiona Calvert from Poppy Makes.

However,  I have never done any EPP before and thought it may be a bit ambitious for a first go. Fortunately the mag also had a quick tutorial on EPP at the back using Hexagons which I thought may be a better first project. Especially since my blog browsing over the last few years seems indicate that this is a go to craft for travelling. Perfect!

Thankfully this idea came to me the night before my Dad arrived so I was able to pop out to my local fabric store on my lunchbreak and pick up this Bartholo-meow's Reef mini charm pack by Moda.  I had seen these pre-cuts a while back and thought they were very cute so this project was the perfect excuse to buy them!

It was then home to print my 1" hexagons and get basting!

It didn't take long before I had a pile of based hexagons.

I tried a few layouts before I settled on this one.

 

Then it was onto joining those hexis together, and my low tech method of keeping track what seams I was supposed to be sewing!

Which did not always go to plan - oops! Just as well the seam ripper was handy.

I also did my best to try and keep the stitches small and neat

I then realised that I didn't like the layout of the small red dotty hexagon in the top row so it was back out with the seam ripper to change the layout.  This is what I ended up with and how the blocks were being  joined together.

Finished!

Then it was onto removing the paper pieces.  I used my seam ripper for this job as it helped the papers pop out of place.

I decided that I wanted to make this into a mini wall hanging and I found this fab tutorial by Cintia from My Poppet for a hexagon table runner which kept the nice zig zag shape at the edges.

I would recommend checking out her blog for exactly how to do it but here is how well I pinned my quilt sandwich before I started sewing round the edges. I don't normally pin that heavily but this project called for it!

I then cut a slit in the back pulled through the fabric and finished off the back with this small bit of ribbon

How cute is this!  Not bad for my first EPP project and I would definitely do this again.  Don't think I would manage to make a whole quilt using the 1" hexagons but I do think I would manage that Apple Sorbet quilt. :)