New fabric, new project and family time

Well what can I say, I have been a naughty girl again. Yes you guessed it I have bought more fabric…

Yes, more fabric

You (meaning my husband) will be glad to know it was from the bargain box/bucket so I feel justified in buying fabric that I had no specific plans for. Well I would only regret it latter if I did not buy it and I HATE to regret anything.

plain but cute

Maybe I am going through a beige phase

oh so glittery

I decided to abandon one of the projects I had started some time ago, do you remember the top I had cut out?

It would have been so pretty

After cutting it out I hit a brick wall, the fabric is very thin and see-through so I did not want to add interfacing as you would be able to see it. But because that would mean moving away from the pattern I couldn’t figure out where to go from there, when I say I have abandoned it what I mean is I have put it away until I have a bit more clothes making under my belt as I have decided it is a bit beyond me.

But I still like the pattern and now thanks to my bargain I have some material to give the pattern a whirl. So I started again

Attempt number two

I have cut out all the pieces and have stared at the instructions for what felt like an eternity, I am sure it is in another language.

I hope to try and finish the top this week.

In other (slightly less interesting) news:

I have seen a great deal of recipes for play dough online recently and seeing as my son has been on summer break from nursery for the last two weeks I decided to try one of the recipes out, I tried this one:

http://www.thefabulousmomsguide.com/2012/05/how-to-make-play-dough-play-doh-3/

I was not very organised as I had no food colouring or cream of tartar but it worked out fine and my son had so much fun

our equipment

and I got to do a bit of this:

relax and have a cuppa

so a success all round.

Still quilting

I have been working on the quilt for my son this last week but because I had no clear pattern it has changed almost daily. I think I have finally decided on the layout now.

I had decided to have every square like this

Dinosaur patch

But I soon realised it would be too complicated and was in the realms of never being finished so I decided to simplify it and have every other patch as a plain coloured square until I found the bus

one large square

I just couldn’t cut it up, I had already cut up a cute red car and regretted it so I decided to leave it whole and try my hand at appliqué. I have attempted appliqué once before but it did not go very well, they say practice makes perfect right? I will need a great deal of practice.

So with this patch in mind I laid out some of the quilt out to see if I liked the look of it

a rough idea of the layout

layout

It is not a quiet quilt, it has lots of character and is bright and cheerful just like my son.

I am hoping to finish it soon. However in the last week we have all had colds again in our house and now my little guy is on holiday from nursery for two weeks so we are all hands on deck.

On a very smiley note we had his end of year report from nursery and we were amazed to find he knows his primary colours, he has kept this well hidden from us as when we talk to him about colours everything is green! oh the cheeky little monkey 🙂

My first pillowcase

No mid progress Monday this week as I had a friend over for dinner last night, so no sewing was even attempted BUT I did manage to fit a bit in today.

When I made my son his curtains I had a huge amount of fabric left over and my intention was to always make him a couple of bedding sets (yes I had that much fabric) as I had bought two different types of fabric for his bedroom, but I lost confidence and never tackled it. Since my mini success with the make-up cases I finally thought “why not?”

I have started with a pillow case, so maybe it is a mid progress monday!

the left over fabric

Mid progress

Ta dah

The only thing (if I had to be picky) is the opening is a bit gappy

A little bit of a gap

But hey I can live with it seeing as it is my first one!

Fabric finds

You will be glad to know this post contains no make-up bags, mainly because I have run out of wadding!

So a couple of weeks ago I bought these two fabrics, thinking they would be good for lining something, like a make-up case maybe (well I only said the post contained no make-up bags not that I wouldn’t mention them at all)

Fabric buys

 

I also found some nice fabric at the nearly new sale that was held at my work

little gems

I must be favouring polka dots.

But look at the silk thread

Vintage find?

I am so pleased with my finds (if you hadn’t noticed)

Today we had a family jaunt out to Brick lane market, Spitalfields market and Spitalfields city farm. In all the traveling I didn’t find one fabric shop, sigh.

I have been crafting a little, I was knitting some more of the scarf (in the hope I might finish it this year) when I noticed a mistake about 15 lines down, I may have mentioned I can not fix mistakes and have to take it to work for someone else to fix, well I still can not fix mistakes! so it will be going in for some cosmetic surgery tomorrow. I tried to live with the mistake (whatever it is, I have no idea what I have done) but it just keeps catching my eye.

 

Make up bag and some more fabric

I attempted another make up bag on Tuesday, I decided to change it up a bit and this is what I came up with

Make up bag front

Make up bag attempt number 2

The lining

I am quite pleased with the result, I just don’t think the pink lining worked. I have decided I may try some free hand machine embroidery for the next case and if that works well I may just be making some for Christmas presents, well it is not long now you know!

We had a nearly new sale at work today, I work with older people and some of the clothes donated had such pretty patterns/flowers

Pretty clothing, I like the colours on this one

 

I kept thinking things like:

That would make a nice cushion

Ohh look at that! that just has to be made into a make up case

Maybe that could be part of a quilt (No you are right I have still not finished a quilt even though I have three on the go!)

I showed some considerable restraint and just bought 3 pieces of fabric, alas I have no photo of them yet so again I am going to say watch this space.