Christmas stuffing…

Posted on 3rd December 2012 by perfectly4med

It’s no secret that I have become completely bah humbug about Christmas. So it was with a heavy heart I accepted a commission to make a dozen Christmas Tree decorations this weekend. For our tree. So you see why I didn’t turn down the commission! They’re a little rough and ready, but since they’re generally only lit up by fairy lights, who’s going to notice? 😉

I used a heart shaped die to cut the fabric using my Big Shot before putting right sides together, sandwiching 12″ of ribbon in a loop between them and pinning it so the tips of the ribbon peep out of the top. I machine sewed round the edge, leaving an inch gap along one side, and then turned the whole thing inside out before stuffing and sewing the gap closed. I haven’t flame proofed them – might be worth a thought if you have a can of flame retardant spray close by.

Reversible canvas bag

Posted on 11th December 2011 by perfectly4med

I’ve got the sewing bug sooo bad! But that’s ok as it justifies getting the new sewing machine 😉

This afternoon I decided to make myself a stained glass window bag to carry all my quilting paraphernalia to and from future workshops. I didn’t have a pattern to follow, and worked it out as I went – there was only one minor glitch along the way fixing the handles, but got that sorted without too much unpicking. I’ve somehow made it reversible, but who’d want to hide the colour side? After three hours ironing, sewing and cogitating, here’s the results:

And I thought I’d made it big enough – but no, it’s an inch too small (16 inches square) after all the folds and seams were a smidge imprecise. The next one should be quicker 🙂

Another designer handbag

Posted on 7th December 2011 by perfectly4med

Here’s something else I ran up on my new sewing machine – a designer handbag using the Blossom Shoulder Bag pattern from Amy Butler’s Style Stitches book. The fabric is not one of hers though – I got hold of some mid-weight home decoration cotton prints locally. This one isn’t for sale, but I’m happy to take orders 😉

Quilt No. 2

Posted on 7th December 2011 by perfectly4med

So buoyed up by my first patchwork quilt, I embarked on my second – and bought a new sewing machine (Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.0) as well! This is a quilt-as-you-go jelly roll rail fence pattern, as described in Popular Patchwork magazine (p.31, September 2011). I chose a batik fabric jelly roll from The Fabric Guild. The binding strips are a Hoffmann print, and the backing a dark brown batik double-width cotton, also from The Fabric Guild. Wadding is 80/20 cotton/polyester.

Apologies for the quality of the image – I’m finding photographing large quilts quite tricky! It is 52×61 inches in size, and is for sale – here’s the listing on eBay!

My first quilt – Jelly Roll Sampler

Posted on 13th November 2011 by perfectly4med

There’s been a bit of a lull in postings – sorry about that! My creativity has had no such lull, so here’s a quick update of my activities…

I finally finished my first quilt – it’s a Jelly Roll Sampler, made with ‘Grace’ by 3 sisters for Moda. Each block took about an hour to make, with the sashing and border taking an afternoon, the basting and quilting another afternoon and the binding another four hours. I’m rather pleased with the outcome, and it’s now gracing our ‘guest’ sofa 🙂

It took me a while to decide on a quilting pattern, helped by the need to wait for an even feed foot for my 12 year old Singer 1012 to arrive in the post! Here’s a close up:

Next for quilting is another Jelly Roll in brown and grey batiks, made to a quilt-as-you-go pattern. It’ll be a while as I’m making another handbag as a Christmas gift…

I’ve got the sewing machine out…

Posted on 29th August 2011 by perfectly4med

I’m still doing bits ‘n’ bobs for the dining room, including sewing napkins yesterday. Since the table was clear, the sewing machine was out and I was up at silly o’clock this morning, I decided to sew up a Cath Kidston shoulder bag kit from her book ‘sew!’ Two and a half hours later, and a break for sewing machine maintenance, the bag was complete. Not bad for a novice machinist!