Very Useful Bags For Babies

Sarah's friends have been having babies! To welcome them into the world she has enlisted me to make them a VUBFB (Very Useful Bag For Baby). I've made many of these over the last couple of years, all different and unique.

This is a photograph of a bag in its final stages. You might recognise the patchwork pieces as leftovers from my Snowball quilt of the last post!

This is a bag for Mats. I really like the hot air balloon fabric and the different colour felt letters work perfectly.

And this is the most recent one, all ready to be posted. Hopefully May will find it useful too.

A Snowball Quilt

When Calum's mum gave me a bag of fabric she saved from her friend's clear-out, I knew I had to use it to make her a quilt. She's not had a great year and so deserved a special gift this Christmas, something that showed that although we don't see her as often as we'd like we think of her and something that could keep her cosy in the colder evenings.

I have a huge board of quilt ideas and inspiration on my pinterest page  and had been wanting to try the snowball pattern for a while. I bought a few more fat quarters from the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexander Palace and was away. It took several weeks to cut out the hundreds (literally!) of small squares to make up the snowball corners, but once done the sewing was a breeze.

I hand quilted the layers together using an off-white pearl thread and the backing is a single piece of soft green fabric. The binding is a woollen green tartan.

I love the combination of greens and pinks and the mix of fabrics (quilting and dress), some are woollen, some stretchy and some shiny! 

Personalised T-shirts

I suddenly realised I hadn't got several of our younger friends their Christmas gifts. The perfect solution? A personalised t-shirt. H&M have some lovely organic cotton long sleeve tops and I searched through my fabric stash to find the perfect match for each little person!

I sketched out the letter templates and then simply zig zag stitched the letters to the tops, keeping my needle in the down position to manoeuvre round corners and bends.

I think they worked out well! I just hope the recipients like them as much as I do!

Sneaky Peek!

I don't think I'm spoiling the festive spirit by sharing a gift I've made for Sophie - she has yet to work out how to browse blogs yet (play games on the iPad - yes!). I also wanted to share something as its been so long since last time, mainly as I've been busy on another Christmas gift that I'm not sharing until its been opened and my other projects have been curtains - not that exciting!

So this is one of Sophie's gifts - a lovely dress-up tutu!

I followed the instructions in the wonderful 'Little Things to Sew' from Oliver + S - a book i've been waiting to use for ages!

I know these tutus often retail for £30 - £40 in frou frou shops but a first ever trip to Goldhawk Road resulted in all the tulle and ribbon i needed with change from a tenner!

I chose a mix of tulle in gold, yellow and pinks with the gold being the top layer so that it has a warm, soft pink haze effect. The grosgrain ribbon is 1 1/2in wide and draws it together perfectly.

The best thing, it took no time at all to make and will last for a while - and then I'll just make another one!

Kimono Pyjamas

My visit to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace saw me being remarkably restrained in my fabric buying but I couldn't resist a metre of this lovely, pink, mustard and brown floral fabric for just £4. It was quite clearly destined as pyjamas for Sophie and after a flick through my books I settled on Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. I choose the Kimono top and Huck Finn Pants to make Sophie's Pyjamas but as the pattern didn't go up to her size I needed to adapt them. 

I started by drawing out the pattern pieces onto wallpaper lining paper (cheap and strong!). I then took a top and measured it and added the necessary extra width and length to the pattern pieces. I did the same for the trousers.

Once cut out the sewing together only took a short while. I made my own bias binding using some soft brown and white dot fabric.

I adapted the trousers to have a tie waist and so sewed two horizontal button holes in the middles of the waistband before making a double channel for the tie. The tie was made from left over bias binding.

They were so easy to do and took less than a metre of the main fabric that I shall be making more soon and increasing the pattern as she grows!

Captain Findlay

I seem to have started a tradition of making Finn a dressing up costume for his birthday, when he was two he got the epic dinosaur and the last year it was the super hero cape and mask. This year I went light touch with this pirate ensemble...

I bought some lovely thick black felt from eBay and found a template on Pinterest. A quick sketch and embroider of a skull and crossed cutlass and it was done. The eye patch has a simple, hand stitched pleat to create a 3D shape and the some thin elastic - I would have preferred black elastic but had none in!

The lovely cutlass is from Cox & Cox - there are cheaper out there but this is good quality and hopefully will last more than one swashbuckle!

Books and Blooms

Last week was the wedding of my dear friend Judy to the lovely Stuart and obviously my gift needed to be a quilt! Using their love of books as inspiration, I designed a simple bookshelf pattern and attacked my scraps. I 'knocked over' a couple of the books and had some lying in piles to resemble the higgledy-piggledy collect of books I own rather than Jude's more disciplined approach to her library!

I matched the binding to the backing - just a single piece of fabric to suggest the structure of the shelf itself. I hand quilted using white perle cotton and sewed swirls, loops and zig zags to suggest book titles.

Although I'd made the top before the big house move I ended up sewing the binding on at 1am the night before the flowers....

Judy had been very clear at the start of the wedding planning process, that this was to be a simple, easy and fun wedding. She set herself a short (in wedding world terms) timeframe and looked at what she felt was really important - not favours and bows on chairs, but the right people around and the chance to make some special memories.

Her approach to the flowers reflected this. We'd talked a few months previously about how much I'd like to help her and set the morning of the day before to make bouquets, table settings and button-holes.

Judy made a flying visit to a supermarket on the way to my house and purchased about £100 of flowers (along with some rescue remedy to calm the nerves!). She had already ordered some small cube shaped vases, floral tape and wire. With a cuppa, the radio on and pinterest for inspiration we were ready!

We started with her bouquet, stripping the thorns and additional leaves and putting one flower at a time into her hand until the perfect bouquet was there! We wrapped it in the floral wire and then the tape - perfect!

These are the six table arrangements we made.

And finally the centre piece with lots of tree from my new garden to add some structure and green.

The day itself was full of dancing, good food & drink and the chance to chat with old and new friends. I can't wait to plan mine now....