Quiet book - page 2: Pond

I wanted page 2 to have something to do with page 1 so I decided to do a fish pond with ducks.

I found some pictures of fish and ducks on the internet and printed them out the right size. I cut out 4 fish from orange felt and 3 fish from yellow felt but I wanted to reinforce them a bit. The fish would be attached with domes so I also cut out 4 fish from a stiff white cotton and ironed a bit of facing to it as well. The domes got sewn onto the cotton and ten all of that got sewn onto the felt using blanket stitch.

The water is a scrap piece of fleece which I sewed the other half of the domes to and then attached it to the page. With each page I want a piece of batting in between so I sewed the 'pond' through the page and the batting together. This is where my fabulous new machine came in great with its quilting 'walking' foot. I sewed a few wavy lines through the pond too to make it easier to pull the fish off the domes.

The ducks would be attached by velcro so, again, I reinforced them with cotton before sewing the velcro on. I learnt quickly that felt doesn't do well with heat and I have one smaller duck where I tried to iron on some facing. I guess you have to make these mistakes with materials you don't often work with to figure it out.

I decided the whole thing needed something more so I got some green brick-a-brack to be some pond reeds. These also serve as fish savers - they are attached to the fish so they don't get lost.

Finally, I used fabric paint to put a cloud and sun at the top - done!

To finish the whole page off I sewed some black bias tape around the edge. I plan to put some button holes in the sides eventually so all the pages can be joined with a metal ring. This way the pages can be separated and shared between kids.

Quilted blankie

My first attempts at embroidery with my new machine produced a few disney creations, namely Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger. I decided to piece these together in a little blanket for Chloe or some other baby of my choosing. I found some plain fabrics to match them up with - blue, yellow and green and spent a night painstakingly cutting them out.

I was able to use my new quilting foot to help me sew them up with lovely straight lines a perfect 1/4" from the edge, and then I ironed out all the seams to make them sit nice and flat.

I wanted to use satin on the back and, somewhat foolishly, decided to use the satin for a border on the front as well. After some fun making sure that the strips I cut were straight I got those sewn on as well and even got the corners looking pretty good (if I do say so myself).

Now a true quilt has binding around the edges to make it all look good, but I didn't have any binding and really couldn't be bothered making any so I went for the easy option. I cut out a piece of satin for the back and a piece of batting the same size and sewed them all together around the edges, right sides together, and turned it right sides out.

Then came the fun part, and I swear I was seeing double after this. I got out my walking foot and quilted all the seams, including a line 1/8" from the edge on the border.

It isn't perfect, but for a blankie that I just wanted to use up my embroidery pieces on, I think it's kinda cool.

New Sewing Machine!!

I am so excited. I have just spent the last few days playing with my fancy new sewing machine. My old one (a Brother Pacesetter) was a present from my parents years ago and it has done me well with the bits and pieces of sewing that I have done in that time. I finally decided that, as I am doing more sewing crafts, and would like to make more clothes for Chloe, I needed a new machine.

My darling husband came with me the first time to look at new machines. He couldn't contain his giggles as I stared wide eyed at these fancy new machines that threaded their own needles, did their own reinforcement stitches and even cut the thread themselves. I knew I was in trouble when he pointed out the fancy new Brother Innov-is 1250D. It did all the new fangled sewing stuff I had just fallen in love with as well as embroidery, and not just that it had some Disney embroidery designs.

I had a look at more machines to do my due diligence but I kept coming back to the 1250D so hubby eventually said - just go and get it. That was thursday last week and today (monday) I have felt it was the right thing to do.

So the last few days were spent making tag cloths and cubes to get used to the way it works. I even made another stethoscope cover which involves a long thin piece of material and an open ended zip - a fiddly thing at the best of times and the last one was cause for a lot of frustration and unpicking, but this one was almost too easy.

Here is my first attempt at the embroidery side. I don't think I did too bad, especially as I have never done it before. The machine pretty much does it all anyway :-)

I'm gonna have fun playing with this.....

Quiet book - page 1: Barn

I have had this in the pipeline for quite a while. I have been looking at other blogs for ideas and sketching my own in my craft book, but this is the first one I have actually done.

Firstly, I am using good old calico for the pages (I got a big piece from the scrap bin at the local David's Emporium that was from the end of a roll). I have cut them out in rectangles big enough for 2 pages and I have zigzagged the edges.

This first page comes directly from someone else's book. I promise that I have come up with a couple of my own, but this one was so cute that I had to try it first. So thanks to Jill for this one, and also the awesome templates.

I have made the barn from an old bandana; the doors, finger puppets and the bit they sit in are all felt; and obviously the trim is ribbon. I can't wait to do more now. Chloe is already having fun with this one.

Knitted Teddy Bear

Another pattern from the Australian Womens Weekly. I was half way through the cardigan when I decided that my skills were now at a level where I could attempt this cute little teddy bear. When I had first looked at the instructions I was a bit overwhelmed by all the abbreviations, but when you know a few of the stitches the abbreviations actually start to make sense. The cardigan was put on the back burner while I made this little guy up.

He is made using Cleckheaton baby cocoon 4 ply, 70% merino wool 30% nylon (so he is super soft), colour 0003.

Knitted Cardigan

This pattern was from the Australian Womens Weekly magazine. I hadn't knitted anything since I was little apart from a couple of scarves a few years back, so the thought of trying a cardigan was a bit daunting. My patient mother showed me the few stitches that I had forgotten, but I also used this website a lot which has great videos on casting on and off, as well as all the basic stitches.

I admit that I had to do the first three rows about 4 times before I got into the swing of it, but after a while it comes more naturally and you can power through the rows. The hardest part for me was 1) the buttonholes, and 2) the neckline and getting it to fit around the front and back pieces. In the end I don't think it turned out too bad.

ABC BeanBags

This was one of the first blog posts that I wanted to make by lilblueboo. There is a great tutorial on her blog to follow, though I had to make one small change - I have yet to find freezer paper like she describes to use for stencils. Instead I printed out the letters I wanted to use, cut them out, and then traced around them onto the material with a sewing pencil.

The material I chose to use was the stack of CanTeen bandannas that I had accumulated over the years. I only had to use 4 bandannas (I have about 8) and I got 8 beanbags from each one.

The material pieces that made up 1 beanbag each

The first few letters were my trial beanbags so they turned out a little bit different. It wasn't until 'D' that I decided to use 2 colours, and I decided to outline them to make them stand out a bit.

I went to my local Bin Inn and got a large bag of the smallest beans I could find. These turned out to be some little black and some little red ones (don't know their actual names). I found the pinto beans were a bit big, and the smaller ones gave a better texture.

Once I had finished them all I realised I needed somewhere to store them so I've made up this drawstring bag to put them in, using the same letter stencils to do the lettering on the front.