Craft fair, friends and creativity

A couple of weeks ago I came across the events page on the Bedruthan Hotel and Spa website - https://www.bedruthan.com/arts-events/ Initially I only saw the workshops and shared the link with friends asking if they had tried any of the workshops there, it was then I realised the workshops I was looking at were organised as part of the Modern Makers: Craft and Design fair. A road trip was planned with 5 of us going in the end.

It was great to have a mooch (I love that word - mooch) over 3 floors of stalls and stands, artists displaying and selling their work. It was great to see other peoples creativity and writing this the next day I'm gutted I have work later as my brain is overflowing with ideas!

We also booked in on one of the workshops which was fab, lovely and relaxed. We went for the

Decorate a Wooden Hanging Heart Workshop with Lyn Glover. I thoroughly enjoyed it, sharing ideas with others, all starting with the same base but all coming out with beautiful and very different designs. 

Here's mine: 

We already have the Midcentury and Vintage fair in mind for our next road trip in October and of course who can resist a good Christmas Craft Fair in November. 

https://www.bedruthan.com/fairs-at-bedruthan/ 

I also have to say the views were just amazing from the hotel, and such a gorgeous sunny day too. 

Can't wait until next time. Thank you ladies for a lovely day :)

April - Marizion, Mousehole, sunshine and Ice cream

Today was a gorgeously sunny day and so we decided to get out and make the most of it. After collecting the other half from St Austell way, I headed back down the A30, past home. A quick stop for petrol and we carried on down to Marizion, one of our favourite spots.

We love a good panorama

One of our favourite things about Marizion is if its too chilly to sit on or stroll across the beach, or my feet are not behaving themselves enough to allow a little walk, we can park up facing the sea. This means we can enjoy our picnic in the warmth of the car whilst admiring the views of Mounts Bay - the best of both worlds. Don't get me wrong we love the outdoors and try to get out into it as much as possibly, but on clear chilly days or even stormy days its nice to watch the sea from the warmth of the car.

After eating our packed lunch and braving a little sit outside on the wall (boy was that wind chilly), we headed further west to Mousehole for an ice cream.

A little more sheltered from the wind it was nice in the sunshine and even managed to park and walk down into the village - yay for another achievement. Here we indulged in a small ice cream each (well mango and passion fruit sorbet for me - which was delicious!). All in all a lovely day in the sun!

Only a short post today as off to a craft fair tomorrow and may feel the need to write about it later...

Bunting - double sided this time! OOooooOO

If you have read my bunny bunting post and baby quilt post you will notice I am on a bit of a sewing run at the moment, and I'm loving it!

The bunny bunting, taken from a blog post I saw a link for on Facebook turned out well and I'm really pleased with it. You may remember me saying that I had originally picked out a browny/grey linen - this is that, I did promise it wouldn't go to waste.

I had already picked out the red and white spotty fabric and decided to do hearts - a nice simple shape to applique. 

I also gave the stitching around the appliqued shape a go this time rather than relying on the iron on interfacing. I was a bit nervous about stitching round to begin with but am really pleased...

... once you find the right speed for you on your machine, you're away. I found too slow was as equally hard as too fast, a fair speed meant the fabric flowed through the machine better for me and easier to control curves.

I decided I couldn't leave it there though and set about a cherry design on the reverse, making the bunting double sided. Again I printed and then traced cherry shapes onto interfacing. I traced the same shape multiple times, fairly close together.

TOP  TIP - Before ironing this on to my red fabric I put two tears into each traced shape, this makes removing the backing paper SOOOOO much easier!!

I then ironed the strip of traced  shapes on to the relevant coloured fabric and began cutting out.

The tears put in the interfacing before ironing made removing the backing paper MUCH MUCH easier and no frayed fabric edges trying to get just the backing paper off and not the glue too.

  For the cherry stem I started by marking the shape (an upside down y shape) I wanted in HB pencil. I then followed this line on my machine to make the stem.

Next I cut out the leaves out (using the same process as with the cherries - I traced the shape I wanted on to some interfacing and ironed on to the reverse of the fabric), peeled off the backing paper, place on to the bunting and ironed into place.

 

I then stitched around the edge (as the green thread was still in the machine) before changing thread and stitching around the cherries. After doing one flag I decided that I needed to not only outline the pair of cherries but define the line separating the cherries. The photo below shows the reverse of the flag with the cherries on to give you an idea of the stitching.

I then placed one cherry flag and one heart flag right sides together and sewed down the two sides to the point to form the 'bunt' (as I believe they are called). I trimmed the point before turning in the right way (I found one of my partners golf tees perfect for making the point pointy when turning in the right way - pointy enough to be precise whilst not going through the fabric or seam as a pencil would). Once I had sewn all the 'bunts'I pressed then - they look much better and more bunting like once pressed.

A quick trim to the tops and I pinned each 'bunt' in between the bias binding, leaving a 10cm gap between 'bunts'. I then stitched with the machine right across including between the 'bunts'.

And here is the finished product:

I did for a short time debate whether to alternate the designs (cherry bunt, heart bunt, cherry bunt etc.) but decided that the whole point of having designs on both sides was to have reversible bunting. By alternating the designs, when I turned it round it would look the same (fine if you're going to hang it somewhere where both sides can be seen) and therefore by putting all hearts one side and all cherries the other I could reverse it for a change.



I've loved making the bunting and have learnt lots. I could happily make plenty more in different colours and designs. If you have made any bunting I'd love to hear about it in the comments below, even a piccy if technology allows.

Bunny Bunting

I saw this link on Facebook a few weeks ago and fell in love the idea of bunny bunting. http://www.poppiesandpolkadots.co.uk/spring-easter-bunny-bunting-a-quick-easy-how-to/

I haven't worked with linen before but decided to give it a go. I picked out a browny/grey from my go to fabric shop to begin with but later spotted a charcoal grey elsewhere that would be more effective with the patterned fabric I picked out for the bunnies. (Don't worry this fabric definitely didn't get wasted - keep your eyes peeled for a future bunting post.) I would say when you're buying fabric however if the shop is reliable at cutting the fabric square/straight you only need to buy 40cm - beware not all fabric shops are very good at this, I find quilting shops cut more precisely whereas general fabric shops are more of a cut and rip kind of measure.

 

 Perfecting my rotary cutting skills I managed to confidently measure and cut my bunting triangles. I then printed the template on the above blog and traced it multiple times on to some double sided iron on interfacing. This made cutting easier and more accurate. I also got more shapes out of the fabric as could think about placing. It also made attaching the bunnies to the bunting easy - peel off the backing paper, place on bunting triangle and iron on - simples!
A tip to make peeling the backing paper off easier - before ironing the webbing/interfacing onto the fabric rip into the design. Once ironed on and cut out, peel from the rip - It makes getting hold of the backing paper easier and makes sure you just peel off the backing paper and not the glue too. 

 

The pom poms on this pom pom trim were the perfect size for bunny tails and brought a short strip. I cut the pom poms off the trim and stitched each one by hand to make sure they were secure - totally worth it for the effect. 

 Being my first attempt at bunting and over enthusiastic to produce something I didn't stitch round the bunnies - I will next time. Instead I went straight on to pinning the 2 triangles for each flag (one with bunny and one plain) right sides together and stitched down one side to the point and up the other, leaving the top unsewn.

 

 Using bias binding to finish the top means you don't need to stitch the top of the bunting triangles as they are sandwiched in the binding. Taking care to leave some bias at the beginning I carefully attached the first flag and continued to stitch over a 10cm (so there is a nice row of even stitching all the way along the bias binding) before inserting the next flag. 6 flags gives approximately 1.5m of bunting.

My only regret, is in my haste to see them finished, I did not sew around the bunnies before attaching the tails and making up the flags/bunts. This lesson has been learnt as you will see in the next post, keep a look out for more bunting!

Pinwheel baby quilt - part 1: The front Panel

I recently spotted and fell in love with the Mon Ami charm pack by Moda. I often find patterns or colours I don't like in a charm pack which puts me off buying, or using (there is a stock of at least 4 charm packs at the back of the cupboard somewhere). But there isn't a fabric I dislike in this pack.

Inspired in my local quilting shop I decided that I didn't want to just go with squares but instead challenge myself with something a bit more effective.

I decided to go for this pinwheel design.

I started by cutting all the squares in the charm pack in half diagonally, so that each square gives you 2 triangles. For a quilt this size you actually only need to choose and cut 18 squares from the charm pack. I then cut some 5" strips of cream and then cut these into 5" squares and again cut these in half diagonally, to give 2 triangles. 

I set myself up with my machine in front of me, a stack of white triangles to my left and a stack of patterned triangles to the right. I then worked my way through the pile, taking one cream triangle and one patterned triangle and sewing them together to make a square.

With a lovely pile of now squares, I set to with the iron - this has to be my top tip! Ironing really a makes a difference!!

 I then experimented with laying these squares out to form 2 by 2 squares.

 Once I decided on the layout, I stitched the squares together in pairs.

I then lined the seams up to complete the 'bigger square'.

 Here again I got the iron out - press the seams to prevent bobbling and wherever possible always iron the seams to the side where the fabric is darkest (e.g so they lie against the back of the patterns fabric rather than the cream) as this will stop them being visible through lighter fabrics. 
I then lay these 'big squares' out on the bed to get an overall layout I was happy with and then set about stitching the 'big squares' into 3 rows of 3, taking care to line up seams as accurately as possible.

Again I gave them all a press here - it makes lining seams up easier, and set about joining the 3 rows together to make the 'square' centre panel.

At this stage I took a little trip to my local quilting shop (Simply All Sorts), with the completed centre panel neatly folded in my bag to search for an appropriate border fabric. I settled on this pink with cream striped through it - All In A Day by Anni Downs – Peach/Pink Stripe.

 

I then added a strip of cream to each side and will finish the front with another round of the pink. 

To be continued ...

Keep you eye out for part 2 in which I will make the back piece and do all the top stitching detail.

 

Window Pane Scarf

My LYS (Local Yarn Shop - Mine is WeKnitYouCanToo) stocks some beautiful yarns dyed right here in Cornwall, Perran Yarns and I have to be honest I am a little bit in love with them. The colours are amazing, every time a new batch comes into the shop I fall in love. So many beautiful colourways. These are special yarns for special projects, the kind of yarn you buy yourself as a birthday treat or when you're making a gift for someone you really like.

Now the item I am blogging about today all came about from one of these skeins of yarn. I wanted to make a Christmas gift for someone with some of this gorgeous yarn. I knew my LYS owner was about to make a trip to Perran Yarns to stock up and so put in a request for something made up of blues and with a little bit of wow. I was not disappointed! She returned with a beautiful 4ply skein of 'Ocean' a mix of blue with sparkle running through. Now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not a bling person and sparkle has to be tasteful in my books. This was perfect!!

The next question was what do make with that, a scarf of some kind, but something a little bit different, a little bit special. I had really enjoyed my feathers and fans snood but that was DK and not suited for a 4ply, so I began the hunt. Computer mouse in hand I began the Ravelry search. I love Ravelry, it is not only bookmarked but featured on my toolbar for easy access. After a little deliberation I settled on the Windowpane Scarf by Adrienne Lash, it's simple but effective, especially with variegated yarn (as I could see from the pictures of scarves others had made using this pattern - thats a really bonus of Ravelry, you can see other peoples makes). It took me a 3 days which I was pretty pleased about.

                 

      

I couldn't be more pleased with the finished product! I felt happy giving this as a gift (of course I would have loved to keep it for myself - but that's just an excuse to buy some more lovely yarn and make another one, isn't it?).

Perran Yarns

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