Happy New Year

Hello everyone

I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and Happy new year to all of you.

I'm on a mission at the moment, three babies are due at work this year, and since I am on holidays wanted to get these out of the way, so I wanted to get the quilt tops out of the way first.

I have completed three quilt tops this week, both using the strip piecing technique.  One will be familiar to you (I have blogged about this before) the other was a technique that I found on Pinterest 

Now, being a bit of a perfectionist the technique here actually produced two quilt tops for me.  I could have incorporated it into one quilt.  The printed fabric in this quilt is vintage.  It's not cotton. Herein lies my contradictions, because I'm not a purist when it comes to quilting (a purist would use 100% cotton all the way through).  The vintage fabric is from my mother in law, who also was a sewer. When she departed I went through her stuff and kept most of the vintage fabric.  How could I not use it?  It gives it such an Art Deco feel.

Here is the other, a familiar quilt top to me now.

Better go and pick up my new toy, more later.....

Happy sewing everyone.

Sandra

Fabric Christmas Postcard

Is this too late in the year to begin your Christmas projects?  Probably.

I set the challenge down to my friend Ronda a few weeks back.  That challenge is to exchange quilted/appliqued Christmas cards.

I, of course, had to give it to her first before I blogged about it.  I don't usually exchange cards until after December 1, but, I had to break my own rules this year.  What's life if you can't break a rule or two now and then?

I got the inspiration from Pinterest.  I must apologise, I have modified someone else's design slightly, but I can not acknowledge them as I have not saved their idea as a pin.  If someone finds it, let me know and I will acknowledge this person.

Let us start with the finished product:

While I prefer everything to be properly finished I chose a design that, was not.  It was more naive in finish.

You will need:

Visofix
Phellon (or fusible batting)
Cotton fabric (in red, white and green)
2 buttons

These are so easy to make.  Here's how it was done:

1     Cut out two 6" x 4" rectangles for each postcard that you wish to make.
2     Cut out two pieces of stiff interfacing - 6" x 4" - attach one piece to the wrong side of the pieces          that you cut out in point 1 above.
3     Fuse Visofix to each of the red, green and white fabrics.
4     I then used my Sizzix cutter to cut a 3" red circle and a 3" white circle.
5     With the white circle I cut these freehand through the middle to make the shape shown in the              picture above. I also freehand cut the leaves.
6     Remove the backing from the Visofix and iron down onto the backing fabric, as shown in the              picture below:

7     Cut out one piece of phellon (or you could spray glue attach a piece of batting) - 6" x 4" for each        card. Attach to the rear of the front piece with the applique and sandwich the three layers                    together holding together with pins or clips.
8     I then free motioned quilted the three layers together around the plum puddings.

9     Then, using one of the embroidery motifs on my machine, found a motif resembling snow flakes        and placed these randomly above the plum puddings and the leaves, also freemotion around the          perimeter of the card.
10   Hand sew the two buttons at the base of the two leaves,

And there we have it, I finally made eight of these cards.

This will become a yearly tradition.

Give it a try, they're quite easy to make.

Happy sewing everyone.

Sandra

PS and Merry Christmas to one and all.

A-line skirt.

I'm still on my self drafted pattern quest.

In a previous post French cuffs I had self drafted this pattern with long sleeves and french cuffs, since I like to make a pattern more than once (because of the amount of time it takes to draft and get to the final stage).

This time I made it with short sleeves, why?  Hmm, didn't have enough of this fabric to make it up as a long sleeve shirt. I also decided that I wanted to use lots of mother of pearl buttons that I had purchased online:

The skirt is an A Line pattern I made up from a wool/polyester fabric I had purchased for $7 a meter.

In hindsight, I should have cut this skirt on the bias to make the check more interesting.

The skirt is fully lined.

I know it is summery looking, but the skirt is quite a winter weight.  However, it suits me because I often find when indoors during winter that it gets too hot.

Working on a quilt or two right now as gifts, so maybe my next post will be about this.  Or maybe the new Ottobre magazine would have arrived by then!

Happy sewing everyone.

Sandra

Teeny tiny zipper pouches

Christmas, birthdays, thank you gift, I had this in mind when looking for a pattern to use.

This is an excellent scrap busting project.  Good little gift to give as a thank you or to someone for Christmas or birthdays.

I got the free pattern from:  http://so-sew-easy.com/teeny-tiny-zipper-pouches-christmas/

I found the hanging clips from www.daisostore.com.au/  (not on their web site) four clips for $2.80 and are of better quality than those I purchased from a craft show recently.

The So Sew Easy site is excellent for all sorts of free and purchased patterns.  The patterns are so easy, the patterns range from tops, dresses, to gift items.

Happy sewing.

Sandra