handmade by Mary Emmens

February check-in – Fabriholics Anonymous

Published on 24/02/2014 by Mary in fabric, Fabricholics Anonymous, thrifting and Vintage. 10 Comments

Time for a review of February’s fabric acquisitions…

A whole lot of vintage sheets:

Fortunately these are allowed as without them my Etsy shop would close and I would have no money to spend on ~~fabric~~ holidays.

Some from the charity shop and some from the car boot:

All quite lovely and being chopped up for sale:

I had a little bit of a mishap and bought this:

It was from the car boot and it wasn’t until I got home that I realised it is not actually a vintage sheet but a gorgeous 33″ (selvedge to selvedge) x 120″ piece of brushed cotton/flannel. It will be brilliant for pyjama bottoms or quilt back and for 50p (US$0.83) you can understand why it was an easy mistake to make!

I have also acquired some quilting fabrics by the way of swaps. These were from Pennydog, I sent her Kaffe Fassett woven stripes in return:

And this bundle was from Lily’s Quilts in return for some emergency Kona White.

So another great month if you don’t count the mishap! I’ve not been craving fabric, but I have ordered 2 metres of Botanics Widescreen for a quilt back, that too was allowed to make the quilt for my brothers wedding gift. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent hardly any time browsing fabric shops online and have just deleted any fabric emails, newletters before reading about special offers etc, it’s given me more time to sew, more about that another day!

Linking up with:

Don’t get shirty

Published on 22/02/2014 by Mary in Paper piecing. 8 Comments

I feel like I’ve fallen off the blogging wagon, time has been short, I tend to share my in progress and finished makes over on instagram (if you’re interested I’m memmens), it’s quick and easy and doesn’t eat into my sewing time!

To get me back into the swing of it (I’m not promising though) I thought I’d show you some paper piecing, I’ve made a few paper pieced shirts over the last couple of months:

I bought the pattern ‘Shirts’ from Pink Chalk Fabrics with a gift certificate I won from Quiet Play in the round up of the And Sew On BOM. It seemed appropriate to buy a paper pieced pattern after completing a paper pieced BOM.

Lee over at May Chappell has organised a shirt swap which I planned to join in but having only made three shirts it didn’t seem worth it. But this week Lee mentioned that she was thinking about round 2 so I got a bit motivated and made one more shirt!

I’d love to know if you have paper pieced and what was the first pattern you tried? I’m teaching a day workshop in a couple of months to some ladies who have never paper pieced before so was wondering how others had started.

Linking up with:

Sunday Stash #7

Published on 09/02/2014 by Mary in fabric, Sunday Stash and swap. 9 Comments

A couple of weeks ago Lynne put out an emergency call for a couple of yards of Kona white that she urgently needed, I had a yard in my stash untouched so put it in the post to her the next morning. In return she sent me some fabrics from her stash:

Oh yes that is Vintage Happy that you spy, I had seen that Lynne had been stitching up some secret projects with it and so I ~~begged~~ asked that if she had any scraps to spare could I please rehome them. I was happy to wait until Lynne had finished her projects and she sent me her leftovers and some other lovely fabrics! Well worth helping someone out in their hour of need! Thanks Lynne.

I think I mentioned that I’d also swapped some fabrics with Kerry and here is what she sent me:

A vintage sheet piece in a gorgeous colour, some mirrorball dots, skulls, dogs, hippos and spots. I have secret plans for some of them – I’ll show you if I ever manage to pull them off! Thanks Kerry.

I did go to the local Craft4Crafters show last weekend and there weren’t many stalls selling fabric so temptation wasn’t great but I did purchase some zips from Little Laura’s Haberdashery:

The zips were much cheaper than I’ve seen them before, they had them in the V&A shop last summer for £5 each! One was for Jo so that cuts my spending down again! I’m hoping to find time soon to add them to the outside of some pouches.

So while my Fabriholics Anonymous pledge still stands I have managed to acquire fabric to add to my stash!

Linking up with:

Which is actually not there but here this week.

A goal for February – #ALYoF

Published on 04/02/2014 by Mary in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Patchwork, projects and Quilts. 9 Comments

Life seems to be revolving around this quilt but it will get finished!

This month my goal is to get all the blocks made up.

This morning I sorted all the small flying geese into sets of 4.

Now they are sat in piles on my cutting table taunting me, begging to be stitched into blocks. Once in blocks of 4 I will add a large flying geese block to the top so it looks like this:

So by the time I link up at the end of February I hope to have 72 blocks that look like that!

Linking up with:

A review of January (and December!)

Published on 03/02/2014 by Mary in creative, Patchwork and Scraps. 8 Comments

There was obviously too much going on at the start of the year for me to find time to review December, I got as far as looking at photo’s but that was it. So I made a couple of infinity scarves (photo’s 1 and 6) one for me and one for my (almost) sister in law.

Mine is voile and velveteen (swapped with the lovely Jan – thanks) and the other was flannel and voile, all Anna Maria Horner prints:

A pair of oven gloves for me – yes I know how to treat myself, seriously though the old pair were rather past it and it is a simple pleasure to have such a fancy new pair! I used Adrienne’s tutorial and it worked a treat.

I used denim for the ‘dirty’ side and it’s great, nice and hardwearing, all I want now is another pair for when these are in the wash!

I made a string block cushion cover for my niece using Molli Sparkles String Piecing Without a Foundation tutorial:

For my youngest niece I made a memory game and bag to keep all the pieces in:

January looked a bit like this:

Economy blocks, lots of work on the wedding quilt, mini art folios for birthday gifts, lone star cushion, paper pieced shirts and a bee block.

However my favourite piece of sewing was not my own but I am still quite proud:

My eldest daughter has been wanting to sew and at last I have been feeling well enough to let her get on with it, so the other weekend she picked fabric scraps, stitched them together, quilted them and turned the panels in to a pencil case for herself:

I helped her with the zip but other than that she pretty much got on and did herself. We’d welcome suggestions for other projects she can tackle next.

Linking up with:

Economising?

Published on 29/01/2014 by Mary in Patchwork, projects and Scraps. 13 Comments

I mentioned yesterday that I’d made my first economy block at the weekend. Yesterday I wasn’t in the best of moods but in between trying to drink cups of tea and other stuff I managed to make this little lot:

I am delighted to tell you that all these fabrics aside from donated pieces are from my scrap boxes. Going through the boxes I realised that they truly are scraps boxes with not many pieces being 4″ square which is the largest piece needed for these blocks but I stuck to my plan and didn’t use anything from stash.

I’m going to turn the blocks into a table runner 3 x 7 so need to make another 2 blocks. My plan is for a reversible runner with 3 lone stars (if my maths is correct) on the other side, then it will serve well as a sample for a workshop that is being planned.

I’ll be linking up with Sarah at the end of the month:

Check-in time – yes I’m a fabriholic!

Published on 28/01/2014 by Mary in Fabricholics Anonymous. 5 Comments

You may remember if you’re a regular reader that at the very beginning of the year I made a commitment to no fabric purchases.

To keep us on the straight and narrow there is a monthly check-in; time for reflection, confession (really?) or to weep at the thought of no new fabric.

Ok so maybe that was a bit dramatic, I for one have had a great month; I like a challenge and I have bought absolutely no fabric this month. But there are ways and means; this dropped through my letter box one day:

Oh yes that is Mousey Mouse by Lizzy House (don’t you just love that rhyme?) and some Seaside by October Afternoon and Dear Stella – lucky me. Or maybe I should confess that actually the very lovely Jo sent it to me for the Dress a Girl Around the World event I’m organising in a few weeks time. I’ve said it now so I can’t just sneak this all off in to my own stash, there will be pictures of dresses before the end of February I hope.

I had an envelope of gorgeous squares from Fran after she put out a request for a swap for her economy blocks, I sent her a pile of squares too:

This weekend I found time to make my first block too. In fact those lovely ducks are from the #greatukfabricdestash my friend Jo bought them as part of a scrap bag and I begged the ducks from her, in return she chose something from my scrap boxes.

On the subject of destash, I rehomed some of my stash last week on IG, it was so good to sort through my stash (it’s looking much tidier) and I hope that the fabric is off to responsible fabric lovers who will sew with it! (no pressure ladies!).

After the destash I also did a fabric swap of some of my unsold fabrics with Pennydog – I’m just waiting for mine to arrive. There are still some fabrics left in my IG photostream if you fancy looking.

So all in all a pretty great month for moving fabric on and new stuff – can’t wait to see what February brings!

Geese, flying everywhere

Published on 26/01/2014 by Mary in A Lovely Year of Finishes, Patchwork and Quilts. 14 Comments

I started the month with this:

and 4.5 metres of Kona Snow with the goal to complete all the cutting for a quilt top.

My sewing space now contains this pile of flying geese, all trimmed, approximately 70 large and 224 small:

This pile awaiting trimming;

I’m hoping that this is the last lot that need stitching:

And a test block I made to make sure my plan was going to work!

So, yes I met my goal for the month, I won’t say it was tedious and boring but it’s been a struggle, more on that another day!

Linking up with:

Not Sunday Stash

Published on 19/01/2014 by Mary in fabric and Scraps. 7 Comments

If you use Instagram it probably hasn’t escaped your notice that there is something happening tonight called #greatukfabricdestash.

Basically it’s an opportunity to get your hands on more fabric for a price, it might be great value, it might be rare and there might be fighting and heart attacks if you want Heather Ross (none of that here though). Here’s a peek of what I’m destashing:

Books and precuts:

Fat quarters, half yards:

Patterns:

There is even a little bundle of fat 16ths!

Scraps;

If you want to join in here’s the plan taken from lovestrawberrypatch IG feed:

My pile of stuff is all ready but I’m not buying as yesterday’s exercise of sorting through my stash reminded me of what and how much I have! Oh yes and there is the small matter of Fabriholics Anonymous!

Gifts for Jo

Published on 17/01/2014 by Mary in fabric, gifts, Paper piecing, Patchwork and Scraps. 16 Comments

Last week a good friend of mine Jo celebrated a milestone birthday, she’s someone you might know and blogs over here. I knew her before she really started sewing so she might blame me for her addiction but I can live with that.

On Saturday night Emily, Susy, Jo and I went out for dinner to celebrate Jo’s birthday, we had done some secret sewing and presented her with this:

Call it what you like; a table runner, mini quilt or wall hanging. We each made a block reflecting some of Jo’s interests. If you didn’t guess, Emily made the bike book, I stitched the sewing one and Susy the cake (pattern from Patchwork Please).

Photo’s nicked from Jo’s IG

Susy very kindly took delivery of the blocks and put them together, quilted and bound – thanks.

For a while I’ve wanted to make a lone star, I was again reminded of this during the Cushions for Christmas blog hop. I thought that I could make one up and turn it into a gift for Jo’s birthday from our family. So the week before Jo’s birthday I printed off the pattern (free here). Bethan helped choose fabrics from my scrap boxes that we thought were ‘Jo’ and I got stitching. Like me Jo has 3 children and I know how grubby things can get so rather than use a white background fabric I used a grey which also felt like a Jo colour!

There are scraps in there too from Catrin from a swap I joined.

I machine quilted around the star using Aurifil 2530.

After thinking that I didn’t have an invisible zip I was trying to get my head into gear to put in a concealed zip (across the back with a flap over rather than invisible in the seam) when I searched again and the invisible zip became visible – phew!

On Sunday morning our family went to Jo’s for breakfast along with another family, something we try to do fairly regularly and the girls were very keen to give the present.