Friday 21 May 2010

Hand-tied Bouquets!!!

SO....it is one of my oldest friends weddings this weekend, and due to a few last minute changes of plan and supply problems from the rubbish florist I ended up hand tying 1 brides bouquet and 5 bridesmaids bouquets...



This is a bit of a rubbish picture, but you get the idea...better ones to follow after the day...but this is the brides bouquet and contains 1 peonie, a few cream roses, a few yellow roses, blue corn flowers, red anenomies and white rononculus...all very beautiful and very in keeping with the theme which is 1940's country shabby chic!!!
hope you like!!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I love this idea, a bloggers quilt festival from the comfort of your sofa and your laptop!!!





I thought I would share my favourite quilt I have made so far, for my friends Abbey and Mark and their new baby Noah.

This is the 1st quilt I made using my new machine and a Darning foot. It made free hand quilting soooooooooooo much easier and much less stressfull. I guess I should have been smart enough to know the way I was doing it with a standard foot on was wrong, but I confess, it did take me a while.


I really love giving quilts as gifts, I guess because it has taken time, has been made just for them and is unique from all other gifts...Abbey said she would take it to the hospital with her when she had him.


This is my best binding effort too, it seemed to go really well, machine stitched on the front and hand sewn on the back, hopefully it will hold up.

Friday 14 May 2010

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Life feels like it has been running away with me since I last posted, maybe it's because my car is now a write-off, so the bus is slowing me down a bit, and it's been my birthday...:-D

Amy Butler on the outside and Cath Kidson on the inside!!!

But...I have been crafting, and here are my latest creations, I had to wait till now to ensure the people who will be receiving them as gifts hopefully won't see them before they are given them tomorrow...

This fabric is from Liberty (a birthday present and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!)

The inside is Amy Butler again, plus some presents, wrapped in coordinating tissue paper!!!!

I have in no way mastered the art of the zip yet, but I am hoping that the more I do the better I will get, maybe I should watch some more tutorials on YouTube...hummmmmm...
anyway...I also made some Bunting for my birthday party, in the end, it was a MASSIVE rushed job, and I probably should have just given up and not done it, but I'm pleased I did as it is SOOOOOOO pretty!!! :-D

I used lots of different fabric, some plainer than others and some pretty busy, but all in all I love it, it cheers the kitchen up loads - I might keep it up all summer!!!

P.S. We did not paint the random 'eye' on the shed...LOL

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Much going on...rubbish me for not posting!!!

Paperchains for my birthday, just to pretty not to share...they were a kinda expensive purchase, considering they are just paper, but...they are sooo pretty, and it made 10m of paperchains, so they should look pretty on Sunday!!!

Some of the beautiful fabric I got brought back by my Mum from the states has made it on a cushion cover...It is soooo beautiful to chop up the big flowers into a small quilt seemed like sacrilege so I cut the flower out and then hand appliquéd it on...I tried various machine techniques but none seemed effective enough or worth risking a beautiful flower for.

The fabric was from Quilthome.com and designed by Anna Maria Horner from her Garden Party Range.
I just used blanket stitch and some lovely Rayon embroidery thread, I think I might secure it a but further with some more detailing in the middle as it is such a large piece of fabric, it is moving a bit...but you get the idea...
p.s. doesn't it go well with the origami cranes above it? :-)

And finally, I finished a quilt I made at least a year ago, it just needed a bit more quilting and then needed a binding. I did buy some a while ago, but annoyingly guessed about 20cms too short...so I bought some more and actually measured it this time!!! funnily enough it worked this time!!!

I have used this quilt as a practice of pretty much everything, it was the 1st quilt I machined pieced, machine quilted using stitch in the ditch and fully machine binded. LOTS of lessons learnt but it still turned out well enough for me to proudly put it on the back of the sofa!!!
Soooo that's pretty much all of the crafting that has been going on in the last week, I will endeavour to be better and post more regularly!!!