Happy Easter

The Easter long weekend is almost over here in Australia and it has been joyful watching the delight on my boys small faces when they find one of the little eggs that keep turning up in random places ;)

Every Easter I usually try and do some sewing for my God-daughters and Sons. But since my overhaul last month I still haven't managed any quality sewing. Oh I did sew two border seams on the binary code I mentioned last month but that took me the next several days to recover from. And I have fixed some of my Husband's work pants that had split seams or fallen hems but those I pinned whilst standing up and the part I needed to fix was only a couple of inches long. Not fun sewing but at least they're not hanging around making me feel guilty any longer!

So I thought I'd share a couple of sweet little rabbit bags I made last year.

Itty Bitty Bunny Bag - Easter Bag- Rabbit Bag

Itty Bitty Bunny Bag - Easter Bag- Rabbit Bag

I used fabrics from the Reunion line by Sweetwater for Moda Fabrics.

Easter Rabbit Bag - in Progress

Rabbit Bag - Embroidery close Up

Easter Rabbit Bag - Back

and a pattern called Itty Bitty Bunny Bag that I found at my LQS.

Itty Bitty Bunny Bag - Easter Bag- Rabbit Bag Purse

They were simple to make and I kind of wish I was young enough to still carry one...

 Happy Easter to All. xx

Oh and since I was going to post this yesterday and didn't( I blame the rabbit), I'm now linking up to Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet over at Lilys Quilts. I would offer some refreshments but I figure you'll all still be full of chocolate and not need any ☺

Christmas crafts and Teacher gifts

The end of term and the end of this year has come around so fast. I hope 2012 goes a little slower. This week BB and LB have helped me make some gifts for their teachers/carers.  We've made some little bags with hand drawn pictures to tuck some chocolates and a kid made Christmas decoration in.

   

I got BB to draw a picture for each bag. I did ask for a flower and got a landscape, but apparently you can't just have a flower, it needs ground to grow on and then sky above :) So the flowers were a fair bit smaller than I was envisaging but they are very much BB's style and that's the important part. Earlier in the term I had asked him to find out each teachers favourite colour and he helped pick fabric he thought they would like for the lining, I just tried to get him to stick to a small scale print as the bags are only about 6.5" finished.

Linen Bag and Lining Pieces

Kids Craft - Linen Teacher Bags

 

For LB since he is a bit more of an, ah, shall we say, abstract drawer, I made a stencil out of Freezer paper, which I ironed on and then got him to colour in. (Don't tell BB but I think its my favourite...shh.)



Christmas Tree Bag Stencil - In Progress



Christmas Tree Bag Stencil - Finished


Apart from the fact I forgot to top-stitch the handles on every single bag(a moment which included a fair amount of swearing), I think they turned out totally cute, but of course I am completely biased :)




Teacher Gifts - Personalised Linen Bags

We've also been keeping small boys amused by making some Christmas trees out of paper.  Very simple. We traced different size circles, cut them out, then cut each in half and curled and stapled them.  A little mix and match and a bead on top and they are will be finished.  Ready to be beaded and threaded on a garland later this week.




Kids Christmas Craft - Paper Trees

I've also been working on the Secret Squirrel quilt. It seems to be taking forever(no one remembers when I wanted to finish this by do they? Phew!) which hopefully means I'm about halfway through.  Even allowing for quilting I am hoping to have it ready to give to her in January.  For anyone having an awards ceremony in January this may or may not be for you ;)



Dresen Quilt Piecing in Progress

When I drove past the fabric shop last week these fabrics just happened to jump into the car ready to make some bunting for my goddaughter for Christmas.



Fabric for Girls Bunting

So much to do yet and I'm running out of days. I hope your Christmas plans are on schedule!

Make your own Christmas Wreath!

English Paper Piecing Quilt-Along!

Now before you get all excited, quilt-along, in this case, means that its going to take A-LONG time to make the quilt.  Get it? Or is that just really bad quilter humour? : )

Ahem, moving on.  I've been wanting to try English Paper Piecing(EPP) for a while now and I've managed to convince Katie, my Sister and Faye(my Mother- in-Law) to play too. Faye is going to do her favourite shape, the hexagon, in a 1 1/4" Size(the length of one side), my Sister is also doing hexagons but the 1/2" size, while Katie will be using 1/2" shapes but I'm not sure yet which ones. 

I'm going to use the 60 degree diamonds in the 1" size.  That's small enough for me! I've chosen some solid fabric to give it a more modern feel.

Fabric for English Paper Piecing

The colours in this photo above(at least on my laptop) are very close to the real colours, in the other ones below, not so much. So feel free to scroll back up to compare. 

You'll notice I've now added a light green to the selection, and now I'm not sure I need the purple but I'm just going to see how it goes. (See how relaxed I am Katie!)

Diamond Peeper, 60 degree Diamond Paper Pieces

For my paper pieces, I chose a 190gsm card, so that its fairly stiff and I can tack the fabric around it, rather than tacking through the paper and then having to unpick all those stitches later. Later I'll have a look at some places I've bookmarked that use this method and I'll share them with you.

 

I also purchased a 1" diamond peeper(that's the pink thing) which you can use for fussy cutting your fabric.  I am using solids for this project  so I didn't really need it but it was really handy to use when cutting my strips to size.

I'm also using my hole punch to punch holes in all the little pieces.  That's so once a shape is surrounded by pieces sewn to it, I can just pop it out and then re-use it.

60 degree Diamonds

I've now cut all my fabric.  Look at all those little stacks, aren't they cute! they just say play with me...

60 Degree Diamond Layout

So I did.  One day I might actually sew some. 

Sunshine and Simple Abundance

There was another beautiful day here last week. Perfect sunshine, lovely fabric(Simple Abundance by Bonnie and Camille for Moda),

and some time to cut it up uninterrupted!

I have a plan for this fabric, I just can't reveal it yet!!

I cut up 20 Fat Quarters and there was only that tiny pile of threads down at the bottom left from each one. Well, aside from the one where I made one teeny tiny mistake.....