Finally, some sewing!

It has been PROPER HECTIC around these parts for various reasons including but not limited to:

• foster kittens
• sick foster kittens
• one foster kitten who refuses to use a litter tray
• grumpy foster mama-cat
• 2 house cats deeply confused and upset by the sudden presence of kittens
• broken cars
• new cars
• house being put on the market
• viewing other houses
• sobbing hopelessly over the thought of leaving my lovely, lovely village

That last one is the kicker, although we have good reasons for relocating.  It will all be fine.  It will.

All in all I have not sewn much, and I have felt the loss keenly.  I'm pretty sure I've never taken so long to complete a monthly Bee block as I have this month, but it was worth the waiting for because these were really, really fun to do!  They are for my Siblings Together II bee, and the pattern is by Patshyn Catrin.

She asked for bright, fresh colours for a tween/teen girl, and I discovered I already had several almost perfectly-sized scraps to make these, so pretty much the only remains went into the ticker-tape bucket for making cards and collage!  Just what the doctor ordered.

It's half term next week and the kittens are returning to the rescue centre on Wednesday so I shall be trying to eke out any sewing time available before Friday.  I can't really begrudge the time I've spent away from the machine though... not to faces like these:

From L-R, Harper, Holmes and Hopkins.  Hopkins is the dopey bugger who keeps getting sick and missing the litter tray BUT he is also dangerously cute and basically my favourite, so he gets a pass.  They all have homes to go to and I will miss them dreadfully, even if Deeley and Marsha won't.

S'nice where we live.

Trainboy is off school sick (as you can see - they have a rule that you have to keep them off school for 48 hours if they puke, even if they are right as rain the very next morning) so we put on our sunhats and walked down the canal from Marsden to Slaithwaite.

And very lovely it was too.

Bee block for May

This month for my knitting group's quilting bee we're making a Box Kite block.  Yet again I was not especially impressed with the cutting instructions I found on the site we're using to choose our blocks, so I thought I'd have a bash at a quicker method.

The block is basically 2 sets of 4 HSTs and one square.  The blocks we're making are 12.5" square, so I started by cutting one 4.5" square for the middle.  So far, so good.

Then for the HSTs, I used the following method.  I cut a square of white and a square of print at 5.25" and laid them right sides together.  I drew a diagonal line across them with vanishing marker, and sewed .25" on both sides of that line.  Like this:

Then you cut along that line, and fold out your new HSTs.  They'll be a bit too big so you can trim them down to a perfect 4.5" - line up the seam against the 45° line on your quilting ruler to make sure everything's as straightened up as possible.

Two lots of those makes 4 HSTs.  Another two with a different print and you have 8 HSTs as required, so now all you need do is arrange them into rows and sew together to look like this:

Boom!  Looks nice, doesn't it?  We're 5 blocks in so far and some of them have been right buggers; it was about time we got an easy one!

Cheerful cotton zipped pouches with spotty linings! On sale tomorrow at the Marsden Mechanics Craft Fair.

That's the etsy shop stocked, time for a new project!

Padded hangers for bridesmaid's dresses

A commission for a friend of mine.  I tell you what, she's going to have the most outrageously stylish wedding, she's got phenomenally good taste.  :D

Two finishes in one!

A wee while since, my lovely friend in Amurrika, Lauren, told me that she was going to be an aunty soon and she wanted to commission me to make a baby quilt.  Two baby quilts actually, since her brother and his wife were expecting twins.  

We discussed designs and such - the parents are librarians, so she wanted something that suggested books, and the babies were apparently Very Wriggly, and were referred to as Joey and Roo, so she fancied some kangaroo references too.  Thoughtfully, Lauren also considered that babies are not known for their natural cleanliness, so she asked if it could not have a white backing.  She even posted me a few fabrics to include, so I could get a better idea of a suitable colour palette.  I footled around in photoshop with some pictures from Google images and mocked up the following: 

It was deemed a go-er and so I set to.  Unfortunately, no-one had informed the Babies that I am not the fastest worker and they arrived about a month before I posted these off... they stayed in the NICU for a little while but are home now, and hopefully these quilts will arrive with them shortly.  

Here they are on my bed!

And here are some closeups: Right

...and Left.

The fabrics include some with Dr. Seuss characters and some Hungry Caterpillar fabrics, which I feel are books no baby should be without.  But not all books are storybooks!  My second-favourite part of making this quilt was finding this fabric, featuring cute animals doing SCIENCE.  And even better, several of them are in ladies' clothing:

Science Cat!

Science Dog!

Since the twins are both girls, I don't see any harm in getting the positive role-models in early.  No gender stereotyping here, thank you.

I found the loveliest backing fabric at the wonderful Simply Solids shop, one of my new favourite places in the world.  It is dribbly rainbows that rather nicely complimented the loopy free-hand quilting I wrestled with... not all my stitches are regular, I will admit, but damn it I tried and they definitely improved over the course of both quilts!

Finally, my very favourite part of making these was the applique kangaroos.  Because they mirror each other, like twins!  Two little kangaroo sisters sleeping quietly in their rainbow libraries.  HOW CUTE IS THAT.*

As ever, I am annoyed with myself for not finishing these before the babies arrived, but Lauren has been very understanding.  I hope she'll like them.  :)


 *VERY CUTE.  Do not argue with me on this.