Precious

A precious gift set for a precious baby!

I managed to get these finished in good time, after all. The set comprises a swaddling blanket:

A burp cloth:

A traditional bib:

and a bandana style bib:

These are made entirely from organic cotton with organic flannel on the reverse of the blanket and an organic cotton/bamboo blend on the back of the bibs and burp cloth.

I blogged about the making of the traditional bib here.

I chose the word precious for a very special reason. This set is a Christmas gift for my niece, who is expecting her first baby in February. It's the first baby in the family and we're all very excited. At her second scan, however, it was found that this little one is not growing how we would have hoped. The simplest way to describe it is to say that her heart has developed back to front. From the moment  she is born, she will have to stay a very, very long time in hospital whilst they operate to try to put her heart to rights. She will need many operations as she grows.

I pondered for a long time, trying to decide what would be an apt gift for this very precious little girl.

Hospitals are wonderful places that perform life saving miracles for many, but for a new mum, they are not home. The more things of her own that this little one can be wrapped in during her long stay in hospital, the more comfortable and comforted my niece and her husband will feel. There will be chemicals a-plenty surrounding this little baby, most of them life saving, but the fewer there are in the cloth in contact with her skin, the better in my opinion.

So, hopefully with this little set, they will be able to swaddle her, cuddle her, nestle and feed her, knowing there is some nice organic goodness, right close by. I'm sure they'll need no reminding just how precious she is, but it's embroidered there, right on her bib, just to take care of any low moments that come along in the difficult weeks and months ahead.

I can't wait to see their faces when they open this on Boxing Day. I'm already planning a great many more items, but I'll gift them one at a time, as and when they're needed. (after all, it's a good excuse to buy more organic cotton!!)

As luck would have it, the topic for this month's challenge over at le-challenge is "precious", so I'm definitely linking up today!!

A Gift Set for a Precious Baby

I have been busy cutting into my stash of organic cotton. Oh happy me !! I'm making Christmas gifts for my niece who is expecting her first child at the beginning of February. First up is the receiving blanket, which I have finished.

It's 27"x35' and has two layers - The top is part of the organic Safari Soiree range by Birch Fabrics. That fluorescent looking red is really a coral colour. It was such a dark day when I took this photo I had to do some serious adjusting, which has distorted the colours somewhat!

The base is also organic. It's brushed cotton, which will be lovely and soft and cosy and warm against a newborn's skin.

We know the baby is going to be a girl, but my niece does't want a pink overload, so I thought these giraffes were perfect. I have a bit of a thing for giraffes anyway, and the heart shaped trees are so cute, I couldn't resist choosing this fabric.

I shall be making some burp cloths to match, and I'm part way through making a bib. The top half of the bib is solid white organic cotton and the bottom will be the giraffe fabric.

I typed the word "precious" into a Word document, printed it off and then traced it onto the fabric using a water erasable pen.

I'm embroidering it with a simple back stitch using a coral pink thread.

If I did this again, I would work the embroidery before I cut out the neck shaping of the bib. I had to be very, very careful not to distort the fabric as I secured it in the embroidery hoop.

I've deliberately cut the strip of fabric for the bottom so that I can make the seam line along the top of the green bunting, and if it works like I want it to, and I don't mess it up (!!), the grey heart tree will be in the centre of the bib. 

That's the plan, anyway.

The embroidery is done, so hopefully this will be finished in the next couple of days. It is my entry for Le Challenge  - a monthly challenge which accepts any kind of handcrafted items. This month's theme is "Precious" and the challenge date is the 15th. The items do have to be finished ones to count though, so I'd better get a wriggle on !!

Linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Mariner's Compass Cushion

Sometimes, no matter how carefully you prepare, things just don't go the way you planned.

When the June theme for Le Challenge was announced, I decided upon an idea (the theme is Maritime) and ordered some fabric from the US. I had plenty of time, and was fully expecting it to be here when I returned from Toronto, but, alas, it wasn't! A few emails later and the company informed me that my parcel had, for some unknown reason, been returned to them. They promised to re-send it, but this, of course, meant I had to completely re-think my project for the challenge. (This was Tuesday, so I only had 3 days in which to make something!!) I spent a day and a half dithering, wondering what I could make in the time, and then suddenly it struck me - a Mariners Compass block! I have wanted to have a go at one of these for a long time, but I certainly couldn't make a quilt in a day and a half. I settled on a cushion, found a paper piecing template and used fabric from my stash.

Time was short. I had to stay focussed and concentrate. No time for mistakes!

So, I selected my fabrics....maybe not my first choice, but what I had on hand....

I colour coded on an extra template and kept it prominently displayed on my desk

I made a list of which colour each numbered segment was, and kept that on my desk too

By the end of Thursday night 3 segments were done, and by Friday lunchtime all 8 were complete

Yes, the seam ripper did come out a couple of times, but they were only small mistakes !

Joining the segments together was a little tricky. Just how was I to cope with all those seams coming together at the centre?

They don't sit as perfectly as I would have liked, but under the circumstances, it could have been a lot worse.

I decided I didn't have enough time to make a cushion front and quilt it, as I had originally planned, so I decided to appliqué the compass onto an existing cushion cover.

Hmmm, Was this going to work? I only had a 1/4" seam allowance on the compass, and a lot of seams to turn smoothly under. No time for errors.

I decided to follow a technique used by Sarah Fielke in her latest book "Hand Quilted with Love"

                                       
You cut a cardboard template the size of the finished piece and place it on the wrong side of the applique. You then wrap tin foil around them and iron, pressing the seam allowance smoothly under.

I do recommend using good quality tin foil. Mine was from the "value range" and had a tendency to tear as I was pressing the edges as hard as I could with the iron. But nonetheless, considering all those seams, I think I got a pretty smooth curve to my circle.

Sarah suggests using applique glue to secure your piece to the background whilst you hand sew in place, but I prefer not to use chemicals where possible, so it was good old fashioned pins for me.

The cushion was finished by 7 pm - just in time to sit in the evening sun and enjoy a little celebratory drink (In the middle of all this fast sewing my son and his girlfriend had phoned me from their holiday in Cornwall to tell me they had got engaged !!!)

Cheers !!

Needles and Pins on Little Bird Wings

I have made a little bird pincushion! She is for  Le Challenge, a monthly crafty challenge which is organised by Lucy and Nat, and this month's theme is "Wings".

I knew as soon as I read the challenge theme that I wanted to make a bird pincushion, partly I suppose, because I have a bit of a thing for little stuffed fabric birds, and also because I needed a new pincushion that would sit comfortably on the arm of the sofa

My little bird is so proud of her wings that she lets me store my needles there.

She has a nice flat bottom (if only I could say the same!) so that she sits still amongst  all the crafty paraphernalia on my desk and she is firmly stuffed with Polyester filling so that pins push easily into her back.

 I have added an additional felt layer to the underside of each wing so that I can store needles there to keep them separate from the pins.

The wings are attached with spotty heart shaped buttons and the eyes are really tiny flower shape buttons - the type that you buy for scrapbooking and card making.

I embellished the tail with short lengths of ric rac, folded in half and sewn into the tail seam.

My little bird is going to get a lot of use, but when she's not needed for pins, I know she'll be very happy sitting amongst the ornamental branches in my lounge.

 I might even let her sit outside on sunny days - just as long as my cats realise she is only a stuffed bird of course!

I am hoping to get a tutorial written up so that can you have a go at making one for yourself. The technology is beating me at the moment. If anyone knows an EASY way to convert a scanned drawing into a professional looking line drawing using  Photoshop Elements or Touchdraw, please let me know. I found some tutorials but the learning curve was way too steep for me to tackle to get it done for this post. One day I'll manage it, hopefully!

Le Challenge #1 Geometrics

Finally the day has arrived when we show our entries for Le Challenge. This is a new challenge run by Nat from Made In Home and Lucy from Charm About You and the subject of the first challenge was Geometrics.You can use any craft you like in this challenge so no matter whether you are a sewer, quilter, knitter, embroiderer, paper crafter or whatever, why not take a look and possible join in with the next month's challenge.

This is my entry:

It is a table mat made using the paper piecing method if quilting. I had never done this type of piecing before so I headed along to Craftsy and found that This Free Class has a tutorial for the Circle of Flying Geese which I have had my eye on for a long time.

I had a bit of a pre-conceived idea that paper piecing was time consuming and fiddly but Amy Gibson, the tutor quickly dispelled that myth and I loved the technique. It gives such sharp and acccurate piecing lines, although I do think it's a little wasteful of fabric compared to rotary cutting piecing. I loved the technique though, and I know I'm going to using it a lot in the future.

I printed off the downloadable templates and chose my fabrics

I chose to use Klona Solids from Backstitch.  It's a very economical fabric at just £5.80 metre and there is a wide range of colours. This meant I wasn't going to stress if it all went horribly wrong - which I'm pleased to report.... it didn't! I did take the precaution of labelling all the fabrics with the numbered section they were going to be used for, and I'm very glad that I did.

First you unthread your machine and perforate all the sections of the template so they will tear off easily when the block is complete.

Next you sew you fabrics to the underside of the template along the marked lines, progressing from number 1 to number 2 etc until you have completed the block (which is actually one quarter of what you see on the finished table mat)

Once I had completed the block I treated it as a mini quilt and made a quilt sandwich with solid grey Kona on the back and wadding in the middle.

I shadow quilted around the geometric shapes, which helps define them and also produced an eye catching quilted star shape in the middle

I used some organic Happy Drawing Scribbles by Ed Emberley in Grey for the binding. I originally bought it from The Village Haberdashery but I notice that they only have a blue and green version left in stock now.

 

I like the look of the quilting on the back

 

I didn't really know where I was going to use this mat when I started, but at present it stands in pride of place on the coffee table, complete with a little bunch of knitted daffs from my pattern wehich you can find here. I'm so pleased I chose grey for the background. I started off thinking off white or black, but neither of those would have fitted in with the house as well.

 

I'm linking this post with Le Challenge and really looking forward to finding out what the next challenge will be.

Did you notice the new header and cleaner line to my blog? (Well, what else is a gal to do when it starts to rain on a Sunday afternoon when she hoped to spend it gardening?)

 

Till next time..................Julie