An Apple Quilt

The sun is shining which means I can finally take a photo of Mabel's quilt. Happily  hanging on the line gently swaying in the breeze it looks beautiful.

Made for Mabel by my talented mother, this quilt was a special Christmas gift. Created using a  Moda jelly roll  called 'little apples collection' by Aneela Hoey this quilt has been called 'Apple Quilt'. Jelly rolls are a rather fabulous circle of fabric pre cut into strips to sew into something special.

Grandma even sewed apples around the side decorating between Mabel's name.

Look at the sweet little binding around the side.

As we have sat snuggled into the quilt we have looked at the "pretty people" and talked about our favourite. 

Ruby loves the "hula hoop girl and the mummy one".

 I absolutely love the colours and the slightly vintage feel to the sweet little characters.

The different blocks look beautiful together.

The best thing about it, of course, is snuggling up into it when you feel a little bit tired. Remembering all the love that went into every stitch.

It probably feels even better if it is stolen from your sister!

A Christmas gift to treasure.

Have you got a treasured handmade gift?

Knitting a kyoto

So the baby is almost one and there has been a distinct lack of knitted loveliness in her life. A birthday approaching and a super sweet pattern found, I plan to rectify this. Here is the cute cardigan I am hoping she will be wearing on her first birthday.  I hope writing this will give me the motivation to blow the dust of my needles.

These sweet booties were  the last thing I knitted for her; escaping from the builders last year I made these before she was here. 

Whilst grocery shopping late last night I found some rather lovely craft books and wool amidst the lemonade and work boots, Aldi is a little random at times.  This purple wool with a hint of sparkle will be a huge hit with her older sister if not appreciated by the smallest one. Three balls of wool for a fiver makes me a happy knitter and feel slightly less guilty about buying another craft book. I think the Kyoto pattern will look super sweet in the turquoise wool.

The pressure is on to finish her cardigan in a fortnight, maybe I will just sew her a super fast birthday spring skirt instead!


Are you a deadline crafter or does that take away the relaxation side of making for you?

A skirt for spring

The sun is shining, flowers are emerging from winter and the children are enjoying   running around the garden. We are all remembering how much happier life feels in Spring. Inspired by the BBC's Sewing Bee I decided to make something spring like for my girl. She loves dressing up and was quite insistent on her fabric choice, pink and pretty were the order of the day.

Hunting through my spare fabric collection she decided upon a sweet little cotton paisley piece, I have no idea where it came from but it was a perfect choice.

I didn't follow a pattern and just made it up as I went along but it was such a simple elastic skirt it made up very quickly. Exactly the sort of sewing I love.

I sewed the rectangle of fabric (about 40 cm by 80 cm but that is very approximate) together to form a tube, sewing right sides together.

I then found a piece of 3 cm wide elastic which amazingly was exactly the right size to fit round her skinny waist with a piece left over to sew together.

To form a simple waist band I zig zag stitched around the top of the skirt to stop it unravelling and then folded it over using the elastic as a guide.  I stitched around the skirt leaving a small gap to insert     the elastic, threaded the elastic through using a hair grip to make the job easier and then finished stitching the gap.  No prizes for my seamstress abilities but I was more motivated to finish in the short time I had.

I sewed it to the right side above the hem and then turned  it under.

To appeal to small girl's love of all things pretty I added some red ric rac to the bottom. Initially I was planning to sew it on as decoration but inspiration hit me and I managed to sew it onto the right side of the skirt a few centimetres above the unfinished bottom edge. This meant that when I turned the hem up (which I did by hand) the ric rac also turned which hid the sewing line and looked very pretty at the bottom of the sweet skirt.

Inside the skirt pinned and ready to hem

The ric rac from the outside  (neat) and inside (seam showing)

The entire skirt took about half an hour to make including pressing the seams. If I had known it would have been that quick I would have made more of an effort and hemmed the waist band by hand to give a far neater edge inside.

My model is at the park enjoying the sun so I can only leave you with the picture. I know she will love it and I am so inspired to make more.

Just in  time   she returned happy and dirty  from her play and enjoyed modelling her new skirt.

I really like how it hangs on her, a perfect play skirt.

Have you been inspired by the Sewing Bee? 

What have you made recently?