Productive week!

Well my week off work was rather productive as far as sewing goes! Pity that the weather was awful so i didn't get a change to go out for a wander in Northumberland somewhere and go geocaching but I did manage to get all this sewing done - a lot for me!

The first thing I work on was this cute bag that came with Patch! by Cath Kidston that I got at Christmas. Making it revealed to me that I have NO patience whatsoever for paper piecing things. i hated having to cut out fabric with scissors and then loads of paper templates then having to baste it all and then sew it together. What a faff! I much prefer using my Dresden ruler I have which cuts half these steps out and means I can rotary cut it all. Another leader from our Guide unit also had the book and made her bag about the same time as me on her new cheap sewing machine. We both had hours of fun making the puff for the middle. She managed to make her's too small and I made mine too big and as you can see had to pop an extra bit of fabric in the middle because the fabric supplied only had the print on 1 side. Oh well...

I also made myself chuckle as I sewed all the seams inside and I blindly followed the book which said to do a zig zag stitch on the seam to make it stronger. just as I turned the bag the right way around I realised not only do I have a hemming foot with my sewing machine (doh!) but it also has a pre set stitch for it! (double doh!). I'll have to remember that for my next project which is the bag fro the Make! book that I was given for my birthday by a friend.

My bag

Project number 2 was the starry quilt (yes, the one I started earlier this year that is a birthday pressie for someone who's birthday was in feb). I FINALLY got all the stars made and spent a good hour with my twin sister working out the best layout so we didn't have groups of colours or collections of the same type of star together. I guess a lot could be said for planning and not being spontaneous but where's the fun in that! My sister is  huge fan of the grey/pink/yellow star that's in the middle column 2nd down. She's requested a whole quilt of it (not demanding at all!). I on the other hand am a fan of the purple and green one in the top left corner and the green and grey one in the bottom centre. I love the idea of making a quilt with a grey background and using bright colours to really add some 'wow' to it.

As much as I love this quilt and will be proud of it when I've finished I still would have preferred it on a black background but the recipient wanted it on a creamy one. I think black would of looked fab. This quilt is all pinned now and just needs to be quilted which leads me to project number 3...

Starry Quilt - top all pieced!

Project 3 - learn to fmq on my new(ish...) sewing machine so i can quilt this quilt with stars - it seems only right for it. I sat myself down one afternoon with a couple of large quilt sandwiches and just sat playing with the tension and everything to try and get it right. It would appear that changing the stitch length to 0 has a huge impact and once I managed to get the tension right for a straight line (I have to loosen the bobbin tension every time I put a new bobbin in because my sewing machine hates me lol) I was whizzing around and actually getting rather good results fro my first attempt. The tension was perfect even around corners although my stitch length was a tad dodgy in places - all in all i think I could get the hang of it easily because it just seemed like such a natural thing to do. I bought a couple of star templates and some air vanishing pens to mark the quilt so hopefully if i get a chance this weekend I may get the quilt done. I'm so excited!

As for my other project of the week - Herman - he worked OK but not brilliantly. I blame it on the instructions I was given being in American (I have no idea what a cup is when baking - obv in real life it's what holds my tea). This time around I used a recipe that had English measurements and he looks a lot happier. I'm due to cook him this weekend so we'll see how he goes!

hopefully next time I write I'll have a quilt that just needs binding (or is finished!)