Eleanor's Melman Quilt

My Little. Lady l-o-v-e-s Melman from the Madagascar films.

Such a long time ago (November 2012!) I told you about an end of bolt purchase from Eternal Maker, it is Michael Miller, Giraffe Love fabric.

I then had to buy some co-ordinating fabrics, some I bought with the Giraffe fabric and some a month or so later including Minky or Plush fabric for the reverse, also bought from the Eternal Maker.

I wanted to try something different and went for the Trellis quilt by The Jungs.

I then used white fabric for the trellis and borders.  I told you about the saga for that here, back in May 2014!

The top border I decided to make deeper than first intended as Little Lady had said that she wanted something 'rainbow' in her quilt and as there are seven colours of the rainbow and seven letters in her name....something sprang from that!

Using a variety of fabrics with a rainbow similarity, I decided to appliqué her name using lime green embroidery floss to blanket stitch.

It turned out like this......

(Please excuse it's screwed up appearance - it's getting LOTS of use)

With such a large quilt and a small amount of Giraffe Love, I used a calculator on Quilters Paradise. It is brilliant!  It is to calculate how much border to buy, but I put in the width of my purchased fabric, the length and width of my quilt top and then changed the border width until I knew I had sufficient fabric to cut a particular width of border and went with that!  It worked.  Slightly backwards I know, but it worked!

Having chosen the lovely, snuggly minky or plush fabric for the back, I needed to find a good tutorial on how to sew it successfully.

I turned to Pinterest and found a tutorial by Allison at Cluck Cluck Sew for quilting Minky, tips on sewing with Minky by Amy at The English Geek, a simple Minky Blanket Tutorial by Jenny at iCraft and a self-binding tutorial by Ashley at Make It & Love It.

When I laid my top out on my Minky, I discovered that I had JUST enough.  That would mean no self bind, and to be honest, I didn't want to do too much quilting as the prospect of ruining this quilt was too much to bear after all this time.  So I decided to use the simplest method by Jenny at iCraft of putting right sides together, sewing almost the whole way round and pulling the quilt through the gap and top stitching the seam all round to neaten and close the turning gap.

I asked The Hubs to amuse Little Lady for the day whilst I got down to some serious, concentrated sewing.

I used my label printing technique to print a label for my quilt and sewed that onto the Minky before I began, like this.......

I then cracked on with the main quilt joining the back and top and then top stitching around the edge, closing the turning gap on the way.

Want to see......?

OK, so here is my finished quilt.

Ta-daah........

I love the trellis effect and the Giraffe Love fabric................

And although I haven't quilted it, the simple Plush application to the back looks good......

What do you think...I'm SOOOOOO pleased and Little Lady is over the moon too!

I'm going to leave it for the moment and see if it needs quilting, I'm sort of hoping not so that there is no chance of messing it up after all the traumas and hard work...we'll see.

Little Lady has slept under it every night since, she is SO pleased with it.  Bless her.

I'll be back soon with another sewing ta-dah, a crochet update and quite possibly a crochet ta-dah too....it's all go here I tell you.  And in-between all that making, there has been some buying too....ooooops!

Hope your day is a good one and that you are getting done the things you need to get done and maybe a few you'd just like to take time over and enjoy.

Until the next time, toodle-pip,
Love
Nora
xxxx

It's Been 3 Weeks.....

...since I last blogged....boy has it been busy here!

We had a. Lovely Easter weekend including an egg hunt in the garden.....

Both The Hubs and I had the week after Easter off, so we were able to relax for a few days before his Mam &Dad came to stay for 11 nights.

While they were here Mam and Little Lady both celebrated their birthdays.

For Little Lady the celebrations spanned the whole weekend with a bimble around town and lunch out at Ask Italian (her favourite restaurant) on Saturday and on Sunday, breakfast in Granny & Grumps bed with lots of present and card opening.

We were going to buy Little Lady a new bike, but Daddy & Grumps managed to mend her old one.

So for her main present she had her quilt! (Yes, more on that VERY soon!)

And from the cat a Tooth Faerie Cushion....... (Made that too!)

Auntie (Crafty Friend) arrived with a bag of presents, all crafting related...stickers, glue, glitter, pens, pipe cleaners, felt shapes.....wonderful!

A new bubble machine arrived too...great hit.

The Frozen themed cake went down very well too (thanks to Mr Tesco!)....

We're planning a shopping trip to spend her birthday money and I think the price of a new bike will be going into her savings account for a rainy day.

Over the 3 weeks I managed to escape away for odd moments to crochet.....I'll catch you up on that soon.

It is nice to be back and I'm looking forward to catching up with you all in the next few weeks.

Until the next time, take care,
Love
Nora
xxxx

Finished Quilts....... With Labels!

So once my labels were printed using the method in my last post, I was finally able to photograph and gift!

My Crafty Friend, Carol, had her quilt last year, but when I explained that I had sussed the label conundrum, she returned the quilt so that I could add a label...so here is the quilt....

...and the label.....

I've also FINALLY finished my cousins Arsenal Quilt, I told you about it here and after the pining marathon and then the hours watching TV and quilting it with buttons, I reached the point of binding.

I had previously cut the binding but wished I had waited and cut it wider to cover the variation in the yarn squares (some had been sewn more tightly than others).

No matter, I simply unfolded it and used it like bias tape by sewing a single edge to the edge of my quilt with an almost 1cm seam allowance to cover all the ins and outs.  Once I'd sewn all round I turned it to the back and hand stitched the binding down as usual.  This also took hours!

But I think the result along with the label was well worth investing the time and I hope my cousin likes it!

What do you think?

Huge isn't it!?

This picture shows the button quilting, binding and homemade label!

More makes coming soon, until then, take care
Nora
xxxx

Using Freezer Paper to Print Your Own Labels...Ta-Dah!

It's taken me a while to get to this with a lot of mistakes and accidental discoveries along the way, but finally, I think, I have it!

I like making personalised gifts, so to be able to print my own labels and photos would be great.

I have purchased ready prepared fabric for printing on, but found it SO expensive, then through a mix of experimenting and getting it mostly wrong a lot of the time, I had a lightbulb moment that was confirmed during a foray on Pinterest where I found articles about exactly this!

This is a Ta-Dah technique rather than a Ta-Dah item!

I bought some white 100% cotton fabric.  It's not the thickest in the world, but it will work.  It is 150cm wide and I bought 30cm which is the height of a piece of A4 paper, this should give me around 7 A4 sheets at 21p each!

Slightly better value than this which I had previously purchased from Panduro Hobby at £19.90 for 5 sheets!

In addition I used Reynolds Freezer Paper from Amazon which I picked up for £5.76 (free P&P!), so at 12.1m, this equates to around 10p per A4 sheet of my printable fabric 'paper'......

I only needed my iron to attach the 2!  I took apiece of printer paper for a size guage and once I had ironed the shiny side of the freezer paper to my cotton, cut a rough A4 size.

I then went to my cutting mat and using my largest ruler and trusty rotary cutter, still keeping the printer paper as a guide, cut my bonded fabric and freezer paper to A4 size.

Here it is......

So that I knew which way to load my paper, I printed my labels onto plain paper having first marked it with a cross for orientation.....

When it emerged, the cross was on the back, so this told me that I would have to load my paper fabric side down, freezer paper uppermost.

Which I did and then pressed print!

This is what came out................

PERFECT!

Using my mat, ruler and rotary cutter, I cut my labels to size...........

And here is the finished label, ready to be sewn onto Little Lady's quilt!

All 31 pence of it!  (In fact cheaper as I could have got 4 labels out of one piece of A4!)

I have used this technique to print more labels which I shall be sharing with you shortly.

Hope this proves useful, any questions then please ask!

See you soon,

Nora

xxxx

Belle's Summersville Stars Quilt

Waaaaaaaay back sometime whenever,  I bought a Summersville Jelly Roll, I have no record of having blogged about it, so I'm not sure when that was!  BUT....I did find a photo of it with 2.5" red cut squares....look....

I bought it partly because my Teenage Daughter likes Summersville and partly because I'd never used a jelly roll before.

It sat for a while until I decided what to do with it.

Finally I decided upon a 1600 quilt after finding plenty on Pinterest.  For this quilt you simply join all the strips in one looooong length and then cut 18-20inches off one end to stagger the joins, fold in half and sew raw edges together, fold again and sew the length and keep going like this until you have the size of quilt required.

I chose to pop a red square between each strip as they are sewn in the first long length.......

And I don't have a pieced top to show you as I got too excited and just kept pushing on!!!

For my backing I decided to use IKEA Britten Nummer fabric......

It's lovely and wide to start with, so no joins.  The background colour is also similar to the organic cotton batting I found in my stash during my January declutter!  Now there's a stroke of good planning *wink, wink*.

It wasn't until I had pinned the top, batting and backing together that I decided to to stitch just inside and outside each red square, a sort of stitch in the ditch I think.  It looks like this......

My quilt didn't turn out as random as other 1600 quilts I've seen, but I'm using the empty space to my advantage.

My daughter loves stars, so my other thought was to quilt a star shape in the spaces.......

Finally my binding is a bias binding made, from the same red fabric I used for the squares and my new Clove Bias Binding Maker.  Here it is made and ready to be applied.......

I made a label after being inspired by this post about using using cotton and freezer paper and popping it through an inkjet printer.  I chose a free border image from the internet and used Word 2003 with a text box to write inside it.  This is how the label looks,........

Then it was onto the binding.  I machined it onto the front of the quilt, right sides together and then turned to the back and hand stitched it in place with tiny stitches...look....

Purely by accident I found a great way to hold the binding in place.......

Little Lady's hair slide that was staring at me from the coffee table....suddenly the light bulb came on and there we are!

So the final quilt is all finished and was given to her today for her 16th birthday, here's a snap of Teenage Daughter and Little Lady snuggling straight after it was opened.......

So all that is left for me to say is HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BEAUTIFUL BELLE!!!

I'll be back very soon.

Until then, toodle-oooo,
Nora
xxxx

Yarn treat

My Mum is always stuck for ideas for me at birthday or Christmas time, the latter The Hubs and I usually get a nice bottle of wine and some German biscuits.  But for my birthday I get money.

This year I had spotted a rather lovely project in Simply Crochet issue 25.....

This poncho.....

Whilst I like the colours, I think they could make me look a bit crazy or like mutton dressed as lamb!! So I decided to take a look at the other colour options available.

In the same magazine was an offer from Wool Warehouse for a discount on their Drops Nepal yarn used in the project, so, along I popped to their website.

After a lot of deliberating over colour selection, I came up with this......

As grey and beige make me look grey or beige, I went for the only other mid tone there was...the blue green (second left).  I chose the other colours based on darks and lights of complimentary colours plus cream to lighten it up.

I thought I had ordered the main colour plus 2 balls of each colour, but as it turned out I only ordered one of the dark purple!

I couldn't find my 7mm hook so the cowl was made using a 6.5mm.....

I'm glad I did or the cowl would have been too floppy for my liking.  When I had to change down for the main body, I did stick with the 6 mm as recommended.

I have thought that I may not go for a fringe quite as long as the one pictured if at all, but I can't decide 'til I get there.

I also need to add  more rounds and think I may also turn the poncho sideways so that the points are on my arms and the front and back run straight across as I want it long enough to cover my arms. If I make it long enough for my arms and leave the points front and back, they will be down to my knees!

It also means that by turning it sideways, it will be like a cape and I can sew the arms together ( to make an underarm seam of sorts) which might give it more shape....again we'll see!

So here is progress so far.........

Just look at that granny stripe loveliness up close...........

The Simply Crochet Poncho has 15 rounds made with 9 balls (plus 9 more for  the main colour).  To make it longer I knew I would need more yarn, so....yes, I have ordered some more.

I shall keep you abreast of progress, until then happy hooking!
Love
Nora
xxxx

Birthday and Christmas presents......only the craft ones!

My birthday and Christmas are only 4 weeks apart, so a years worth of wishing comes to fruition in a short time!

My husband very wisely refers to my Amazon Wishlist for present ideas and usually picks a good selection like, a book, something practical for sewing and something unrelated to craft.

This year was no exception.  I'm still getting the subscription to Sewing World which I love.

In addition I also received a new blade for my rotary cutter.....

A French curve to help my journey towards making clothes that fit.....

He also got me a make your own knickers kit by Flo-Jo......

... from the Fluffatorium (couldn't resist showing it to you) when we visited a couple of months ago....

I also got this fabulous book.....

A quilt book which is not my style at all, but is very lovely and has sparked lots of ideas.....

And from Crafty Friend, this book......

I used an excerpt from Prima Makes to make this little rag doll for The Hubs newest cousin for Christmas.....

(Bad quality photo taken on my Hudl, in bad light on a 

hotel bed as we were rushing out to a Christening (as I remembered

 that I had forgotten to photograph of it at home!) Doh!)

It was such a lovely project that Crafty Friend thought I might like the whole book....she's not wrong!

With my birthday money I treated myself to a Zàkka book.............

And also some yarn for a special project (using Mums money)......

I also decided to get back into reading so bought myself these (using Mums money)...........

And to brighten my day (as I had LOTS of flowers for my Birthday and too few vases to put them in, Crafty Friend also bought me this lovely jug........

Look at the colours.........

The peach coloured flower reminded me of my hand embroidered runner picked up on eBay, look...............

.....and on closer inspection, the dark green leaves and red and blue flowers!

I was truly spoilt rotten.....and loved it!

Thank you, thank you, thank you lovely peeps xxx

I shall be getting on with some clear outs, updates and Ta-Dah's very soon but for now I'm off to get on with some more crafting, I'll catch up with you soon.

Love
Nora
xxxx