Tip of the Day: Fabric Grain

What is the fabric grain? What does it mean to cut the fabric on the straight or cross grain? How to find the right grain especially if you work with tiny pieces of fabric without a directional pattern? Why do you need a bias binding? Keep reading if you would like to know the answers to these questions and hopefully by the end of this post you will learn something useful and helpful.

Tutorial: Scrappy Happy Trivet

Do you have some pretty fabric scraps that you cannot part with, but don't know what to use them for? Then this quick tutorial might be exactly what you need. Easy step-by-step instructions will help you create a sweet and useful trivet featuring all your precious scraps and make you smile every time you use it. Let's not waste any time and get sewing!

Sip Tea and EPP: Thread Conditioning

This week at out Sip Tea and EPP Party we are talking about thread conditioning. Before I go any further and share my experience, I would like to say that it is very important to do your own search, try things out and decide what works for you personally. We all use different techniques, threads, needles, fabrics, so it is extremely important not to simply follow others, but rather find what works best for you.

Pencil Block: A Note to Self

Last year I made this 5" by 5" block from a Japanese book filled with 210 Patchwork Patterns that I bought at a Kinokuniya book store a while ago. I really tried sewing this block by hand as the book suggests, but after a few attempts I simply could not get the result I was looking for. Maybe because of the lack of practice or the wrong choice of the background fabric, but after fiddling with it for a while I  switched to my sewing machine and it turned out quite well.

Revisiting the Splendid Sampler

The past week I was spending some time working on my all forgotten The Splendid Sampler quilt. At the time of the sew along, I only managed to sew 25 blocks and then I fell badly behind. I was trying to catch up and luckily printed out a few blocks, but then I gave up. Why?

Hexie Talk: Part II

I hope you enjoy making hexagons as much as I do. I have a small constantly growing stack of them sitting on my shelf waiting to be sewn into my Hexie Therapy Quilt. Once you have a few hexagons, you can start the most wonderful and satisfying part - hand sewing your hexies together. 

Hexie Talk: Part I

Lovely hexagons! Large, small, tiny ones, with cute prints, with flowers or simply plain ones. They are so much fun to make! What I love about English Paper Piecing (EPP) is that it is a highly portable way of hand sewing that does not require a lot of material and there are hundreds (if not more) ways of using finished hexies in your projects. It's a very therapeutic type of sewing as well, calming and relaxing.

Choosing my Threads

I have to say at the very beginning that this is not a review in any way and not a recommendation. It's purely my opinion and my own search in products suitable for my own needs when it comes to sewing and quilting. I always enjoy adding small stitches to my little makes. Generally I use DMC Embroidery Floss, but lately I have been using a few other threads and wanted to share my finds with you, my dear readers.

The Story of a Lonely Sock

Lonely because I have managed to finish only one by now. As I said before, after watching a few podcasts by some talented girls (Jooles of SewSweetViolet and Sandra of CherryHeart), I got inspired to knit socks. I could not wait and ran to a local craft store to get some yarn. The choice there is not that great, but I was able to find some suitable material. I bought this pretty purplish-pink yarn, pale pink and blue for my little boy. Once my little boy was tucked in bed that night, I sat down comfortably and started my knitting adventure.

Thimble Notes

About three years ago I was working on a small pillow and that's what I wrote back then: Note to Self: Thing number one: when it comes to hand sewing, DO NOT attempt to finish it all in one go. Thing number two: find a way to protect fingers so you won't end up in pain for a few days afterwards.

The Splendid Sampler: Blocks No.21 and No.22

A small update on my Splendid Sampler progress. Not much to report yet unfortunately. Other projects, everyday chores and most of all, our Little One (that I don't mind at all), take up too much of my time at the moment. But still, this small progress is better than nothing, I suppose. So...here are the two blocks I managed to finish.

Liberty Flex Frame Pouch

I need to do some shopping. Definitely. I have to buy more of these flex frames because they are great. I really enjoy making small pouches with this type of lock. The frames are quick to install and the pouches are easy to use. You can easily make cases for glasses, small purses for coins or make-up bags using one of these frames.

Baby Makes

A couple of small things have been ticked off my To Do list. The first one is a knitted baby hat. It was kind of a quick and a necessary project. It's winter here in Australia, and days are quite cool and windy. I was trying to find a baby hat to keep my little boy warm but the only hats I could find were the big ones or very thin ones, or ones that were really unattractive. Maybe I was looking in all the wrong places but anyway...

Helpful Tip: How to Cut Linen in a Straight Line

I find working on mini cross-stitch motifs very amusing at the moment. Each design doesn't take long to complete, I don't get bored and I can use all these small bits and pieces of linen and snippets of embroidery floss to create something pretty. I love working with linen, but sometimes it can be quite difficult to cut it in a perfectly straight line. Unless you have a small trick up your sleeve.

Work in Progress: A Home for Fedor

Remember Fedor, the sad Bunny? I think he might cheer up a bit now. He is getting a new home, a new place to live in, so he is moving out of that plain and boring sketch pad. I hope he likes his new cozy home as much as I like making it.

Funky, Wonky, Crazy Cat

... with a red tummy.

Here is a different style of a Funky, Wonky, Crazy Cat Lunch/Snack Bag. An applique for the tummy has been added for a splash of colour as requested by my son. To give this bag a more structured shape, a topstitch has been added to all side and bottom edges.

The flap is stitched on on the front of the bag and closes on the back with a prong snap. Note to Self: I might use a magnetic fastener next time, it would be much easier to close and open the bag. I really like them more than any other type of snaps and on top of that I have a whole bag full of them. I am off to work on something exciting. Have a wonderful weekend!

Make-Up Bags - Lessons Learnt

This is something I never made in my life before and if someone told me that I would be sewing make-up bags from scratch without a pattern (!), I would not believe that at all. Never! But now, after the bags are finished, the process seems easy enough and a lot of fun as well.

The first make-up bag I made was the one with buzzy bees. I used fusible heavy weight interfacing and was not very happy with the result. No wonder I did not like the look of it. As you can see, applying heavy weight interfacing to thin cotton (mauve) made it look like it was glued to a piece of cardboard. There are too many wrinkles on the flap of the bag and it looks very stiff. Lesson number 1 - never use heavy weight interfacing with light fabric. Find the right balance between the two, ideally the interfacing should be of the same weight or slightly lighter than the fabric you are using for the body.

The pale blue with white polka dot make-up bag is a bit smaller in size and it's soft compare to the first one. I used 100% Bamboo Batting this time around but again I made a mistake, I used a thin soft cotton for the body. Lesson number 2 - use medium weight cotton or linen for make-up bags.

I am in love with running stitch in bright contrasting colours. It gives a lovely finishing touch for the product and points out that it's handmade. I covered a button with the same cotton I used for the lining and stitched it on the flap.

Even though there were quite a few mistakes on the way, I still like the bags. I am happy with the pattern I made and going to use it again some time soon. But I really have to remember the two things I learnt - interfacing and fabric. Have you ever made any make-up bags?

Breaking Free

I am a very conservative crafter. I like all things to be symmetrical, to have clear straight lines, not too many colour combinations. At the same time I do love seeing works of other amazing crafters who experiment with colours, textures and different techniques. A very talented fabric designer Aneela Hoey is one of them. Some time ago I found her mini quilt tutorial "Girl on a Tree Swing". The appliqué is simply adorable. The pink and yellow colour combination is so sweet and the lines of a freestyle machine embroidery remind me so much of a pencil sketch. I have to admit that I don't do patchwork, it's something I will never have patience for I think. But when I saw the way Aneela created the background for the tree (raw edge appliqué), I thought it would be an easy and quick way for me, and plus I could use my scraps of fabric.

Well, as I said being a very conservative and not being able freely to experiment with different colour combinations made this project more difficult than I expected. It took me a few attempts to even start the "trying" process, the pieces of fabric didn't seem to match or fall into a place no matter how many times I moved them around. Plus, as I mentioned before I am not good at following instructions. I did not want to simply copy Aneela's work, I had to add even a tiny bit of my own creation to it.

Last year I stitched an Oak Tree with added little fabric hexagons but this piece of embroidery was lying around without being used. I liked the tree by itself but I could not think of a way of using it in any of my projects.

A few days ago I decided to give the mini quilt one more go. The scraps were piled up on the table and the creative process began. After half an hour the final colour combination was ready and it looked really pretty to me. I was surprised that all the bits and pieces, uneven stitches and raw edges did not make me cringe, they looked happy and joyful. Right at that moment I remembered about my Oak Tree and voila - my own patchwork piece was ready. And I love it!

Of course this work is far from perfect but what it did to me and my creative thinking is priceless - it made me break free from my conservative vision, it took me away from my straight lines and perfect corners, it made me want to create more things like that. Just a crazy splash of colour and a little bit of mess. I already have a few ideas in mind and cannot wait to start working on them.

Sashiko Frustration

A stitching note to self - remember what you wanted your embroidery to look like in the first place.

Have you heard about Sashiko? I had not until not long ago. I definitely saw this particular style of Japanese stitching or decorative reinforcement embroidery, as it is properly called, but I never paid much attention to it and I did not even know how it was called. Well, I was not interested in any kind of embroidery not long ago.

Working with cotton and linen fabrics in natural colour as a base for my stitching made me think about using a darker colour fabric with a white floss. After some searching I came across Sashiko technique that I instantly fell in love with. I realised how many household items I own that have some elements of Sashiko. The simplicity of the lines and the complexity of traditional designs won me over. And of course I could not wait to give it a try.

One particular pattern that caught my eye was a picture of a Bamboo, similar to an ink painting I did a long time ago. So I thought why not start with my own bamboo painting and try stitching it on indigo linen with white cotton. I absolutely ignored the fact that the embroidery I saw was done by a machine.

Well, it was a good idea that did not go that smooth after all. Why? Because I am not good at reading and following instructions, I loose patience quickly and tend to do things my own way but, unfortunately, quite often I have to redo the whole thing because of that. In this particular situation it was a good thing. I do like the look of Sashiko designs but while working on it for the first time without any instructions, I came across many problems and my frustration grew stronger with every uneven stitch. But at the same time I kept thinking that it's not really what I wanted to do in the first place. The reason why I do not call my embroidery "embroidery" but simply "stitching" because I want it to look like a sketch on fabric, one tone, maybe with a splash of colour, thin pencil-like lines. Sashiko embroidery is far from it.

So after all the hours spent in vain, I gave up and left this idea till some other time when I have a better understanding of Sashiko basics, till I have more time to experiment with new techniques but for now I will stick with my own way of embroidery or stitching how I like to call it.