handmade by Mary Emmens

Gearing up for Kids Clothes Week

Published on 22/04/2013 by Mary in Boys, clothing, KCWC and Upcycled. 5 Comments

You may know that this week is Kids Clothes Week (KCW). I’ve joined in this event in previous years and had quite productive weeks sewing clothes for my children.

Inspired by the thought of the week ahead and the fact that my little boy now goes to preschool on a Friday morning (as well as Mon and Tues) I decided to do some preparation work:

I pulled out my Sewing For Boys book with a plan for making another pair of Treasure Pocket Pants for the boy. I made a pair for him just over a year ago – size 2-3 years and they just about fit him now (aged 3 1/2):

In this photo from last year they are turned up and he’s wearing a washable nappy which probably helped them to stay up!

So on Friday I rummaged around in our rather full loft and found my bag of old jeans, I selected a pair of mine and a pair of Tobi’s and got cutting. I also pulled out a piece of gorgeous Ann Kelle corduroy that the lovely Fiona from Patchwork Delights sent me when she was clearing out her sewing room.

I tried to get a bit of sewing done early on Saturday morning (7am) but realised that the facings I had cut from the pattern were not long enough. I seem to remember this happening before, so after lunch I measured around the hem opening and cut my pieces to that measurement rather than the pattern piece.

So a pretty quick make and while he’s not tried them on yet he seems rather delighted that mummy has made him some more trousers!

I have more plans for the week which involve shorts for the girls and maybe some more trousers; are you joining in? what do you plan to sew?

I’m linking up to Ange’s monthly book challenge:

Vintage fabric finds – March

Published on 12/04/2013 by Mary in fabric, thrifting, Upcycled and Vintage. 8 Comments

Here’s a selection of the vintage sheets I’ve acquired this month:

I say ‘acquired’ because a some of them were gifted to me by lovely ladies at the Sewing Directory meet up in Exeter. The lovely Helen from Indianna Dreams gave me the gorgeous yellow floral print at the top right, some of the others came from a generous blog reader and local lady Sue – thanks very much ladies.

I have found a few pieces in the charity shop recently and they are making their way into vintage sheet charm packs in my etsy shop (in which I had my best ever month for sales in March – woo hoo!).

A quilt finish for Siblings Together

Published on 09/04/2013 by Mary in Girls, Patchwork, Quilts and Siblings Together. 11 Comments

So I finished this quilt a week or so ago, I just needed time to write about it!

Last year I bought some charm packs of Little Apples by Aneela Hoey from an online fabric store that was closing down, they were a bargain price and ideal for a quilt for a girl.

It took me a while to decide what to do with them. I had ideas of making 2 quilts with the 4 packs that I had, but after much sketching and calculating I decided to it would be easier to make just the one with this fabric.

I’d seen Jeni’s Patchwork Chevron Quilt and liked the idea but didn’t want to make quite such a big quilt. So I scaled it down using 4 patch blocks instead of 9 patch and this is the result:

Believe it or not we actually had sunshine one day last week so I took the opportunity to take some photo’s in the park, pegging the quilt to the fencing of the tennis courts.

The yellow fabric was left over from last years Siblings Together quilts, I used it to back the Sew Cherry quilts. I had enough left to make 3 rows of chevrons but I then decided I didn’t want a square quilt, so I ordered some more fabric, enough for another row and for the backing too.

The Klona is wide 54″ so a metre goes a bit further than other solids. The finished quilt is 54″ wide, I basted it on the floor in the half an hour or so that I had left before the dining room was shut off in the building works. Unfortunately when I’d finished basting I discovered that it had a big crease in the back, so I decided to unbaste it and add a strip of Little Apple charms in to the back which made the backing fit a bit more comfortably and basting easier (although with no dining room floor I had to take it to my mums to get it done).

I quilted the background fabric between the chevrons following the line of the chevrons.

The binding is Cross Hatch in Bus Red from Lucie Summers Summersville line, I’ve used it on another quilt that I’ve yet to blog about and I do love it as a binding fabric. I bought 3 yards of it with plans for clothing but I might just keep it as my ‘go to binding’.

So I hope that while this is my first quilt this year for Siblings Together it will not be my last, only time will tell! Oh and I must get a label from Laura Jane to finish it off.

Quilt Stats:

Size: 54″ x 72″
Fabric: Little Apples charm pack by Aneela Hoey, Klona Maize
Backing fabric: Klona Maize and Little Apples
Binding: Cross Hatch in Bus Red from Summersville collection by Lucie Summers
Quilting: Quilted by me on my machine
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Wadding 80/20
Pattern: Based on this idea by Jeni Baker

Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away

Published on 07/04/2013 by Mary in fabric. 9 Comments

*Big sigh* it’s been a tough week, it’s been very cold, the children have been on holiday from school and there have been builders working on the house. By Friday I was pretty shattered but I had Saturday to look forward to and Emily, Susy and I were off to the Spring Quilt Festival. We had a wonderful time, we bought fabric, we didn’t fight over any but did make promises to split some bargain pieces, we talked, we laughed, we critiqued the quilts on show and generally had fun. We didn’t get kicked out of the show but we were there right until the end when we met up with Katy and went out for dinner, Jo joined us too she’d be out to the show in the morning. It was a real treat to get out without the children and forget about the mess back at home – thanks ladies.

And just because no post seems complete without a photo, here is some lovely fabric that arrived here last week (sadly with a customs charge):

which made this seem a bit more bearable:

If I can summon up the energy I’ll have a couple of posts about finished quilts this week – hope you have a good week.

Do I need another bag?

Published on 03/04/2013 by Mary in A Lovely Year of Finishes and projects. 10 Comments

You may have seen recently that the talented Sara has brought out 9 new bag patterns, all available in her pattern shop .

I just happen to be a reader of Katy’s blog and last week she had a giveaway of readers choice of pattern, would you believe it I was one of the three lucky winners to win 3 patterns?

Thanks Katy and Sara for these lovely looking patterns with which I hope to make lovely looking bags! Katy did mention that she might just host a bag sew along, she’s a bit of a clever lady so if you’re interested in bag making it will certainly be worth a look.

So the patterns I picked? the Aeroplane bag, Dot Dot Dash bag and Petrillo bag:

My goal for the month of April is to get all the pieces cut for the Aeroplane bag. First of all I need to work out how the interfacing used translates into what I’ve already got or what I can easily get my hands on. The Spring Quilt Festival is on this weekend and I may be able to get some supplies from there. I’ve just ordered those bits from The Cotton Patch and I can pick up from their stand on Saturday and save the postage cost – hurrah.

Bearing in mind that the children are on holiday from school for the next 2 weeks and there is limited workspace in our house at present I think that this is a manageable goal especially as I have no idea about what fabric I might use for it!

Linking up with:

March projects

Published on 31/03/2013 by Mary in Paper piecing, Patchwork, Quilts, Upcycled and Vintage. 5 Comments

March seemed to be a really long month, mostly very cold and draughty with some sewing!

I squeezed in some paper piecing before we ‘lost’ the dining room:

Blog post about them here.

I joined in the Orbit QAL and completed the whole quilt not just the top. All made from wonderful vintage sheets.

(Read more about it here)

I started and finished 2 other quilts, here’s a quick peek of one:

The other one I don’t have any photo’s of, it’s for Siblings Together. More details on both to come.

I was able to attend the first Sewing Directory meet up which was a wonderful afternoon with a group of lovely ladies. I’ve not blogged about it but Fiona, Kerry and Rachel have. I don’t have a great deal to add to what they said, you had to be there really, but it was fun to sit and sew and chat, to catch up with friends and to meet some ladies in the flesh who I know online. There will be a bit more about it in my next vintage sheet post. It was truly great, so much so that Fiona is already onto organising the next one for Exeter in the Autumn. If there is one you can get to then I’d highly recommend it, the next one is in London on 27th April.

I squeezed in a commission for a earbud pouch, it all happened so quick and was in the post before I could take a photo, so it looked like this but with a pink zip and a pink Sherbet Pips lining:

And I may just have started cutting up leftovers from my vintage sheet charm to make a Scrappy Trips quilt.

So despite the state of our house I feel like I’ve managed to achieve quite a lot this month, for those of you who don’t know it looks a bit like this:

We have no kitchen or dining room, so are living in the living room (with the dining room table, chairs and a cupboard), the 3 children are sharing a room and the newly vacated bedroom is our temporary kitchen.

Next month? Who knows, but there is a Spring Quilt Festival next weekend which a few of us locals are planning to go to on Saturday, meeting up with Katy and showing her the sights of the south (or maybe just dinner!). If you’re local too and fancy joining us please let me know.

Linking up with:

Orbit quilt finish

Published on 25/03/2013 by Mary in charity shopping, Patchwork, Quilts, thrifting, Upcycled and Vintage. 14 Comments

On a freezing cold day I’m able to share with you a quilt finish.

This is the original fabric pull, all vintage sheets from my stash (some recently obtained from the vintage sheet FQ swap):

It changed a little and I went with the bottom floral print for the background fabric rather than the plain blue solid.

There was a fair amount of cutting to be done but thanks to Lindsey’s clever pattern which includes a quilt by number chart it was easy to put together. The pattern is currently free to download and after 1st April it will be available to buy from Lindsey.

Last night I finally finished sewing the binding on:

Finishing the binding meant that all that was needed were photographs, so despite the temperature I took a walk to the park at the end of our road and pegged the quilt to the fencing of the tennis court. I was concerned about the strength of the wind and the ability to get a decent shot but it was obviously blowing in the right direction, I think it would have stayed up without pegs!

Backed with a vintage sheet:

And the quilting? I’ve never free motion quilted a quilt so I thought ‘why not start on this one?’ For the centre of each Orbit I used pebbles:

For the outer square I did a loopy something or other:

And then for the Orbit I used parallel lines following the outer edge of the Orbit:

I’m pleased with it as a first attempt at free motion quilting (obviously the straight lines are not FMQ!), I can see how with practice it should improve.

Thanks very much to Lindsey for a great pattern (I can see myself using it again) and for hosting the QAL.

Quilt Stats:

Size: 60″ x 60″
Fabric: Vintage sheets
Backing fabric: Vintage sheet
Binding: Vintage sheet – 100% cotton candy stripes
Quilting: Quilted by me on my machine
Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Wadding 80/20
Pattern: Orbit by Lindsey Rhodes of LR Stitched

I’m linking up with:

My goal for the month was to just get the quilt top made but as building work on the house was slower than anticipated (i.e. I was not evicted from the dining room until last week) I was able to get the whole quilt finished – great big hurrah!

Not so hurrah is the cold weather and this sight at the end of today:

Yep that’s right even more of the back of our house is missing! Spring/summer please come soon, our house is so cold.

Progress?

Published on 23/03/2013 by Mary in Random. 5 Comments

It’s been a while since I posted here, we’ve been quite busy. The back of our house now looks like this:

Yes, it is cold but we do have the joy of a wood burning stove, so sometimes we cook dinner like this:

Other nights we use the camping stove in our ‘new’ kitchen (aka Bethans old bedroom).

Yesterday we celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary by going out for dinner, to somewhere warmer with an oven! If you’re local or even if you’re not I can highly recommend Belgreen. They serve tea and cake most of the week and only open in the evenings occasionally – it just happened that it was a special Italian evening last night, after delicious antipasti I had Pizza bianca – gorgonzola, rosemary and red onion, truly fantastic.

And sewing? yes there has been some of that but I’m not ready to show you yet.

Oh and if you are/were following this blog via google reader then I guess that won’t work for much longer, you can sign up to email subscription or follow via bloglovin, feedly or any other blog reader.

Adventures in paper piecing – part 3

Published on 10/03/2013 by Mary in Paper piecing and Scraps. 8 Comments

Last week I had time to take on the ‘And Sew On..’ block of the month, Just Spoolin’ Around. Each section came together nicely but that’s happened to me before, when I get to sewing the sections together and it’s not quite so easy…

This time I’m pleased to say it went pretty smoothy. I was delighted to pull all the fabric from my scraps boxes (which are currently stored under the bunk beds) except for the table which came from my dwindling Sherbet Pips stash (residing in a cupboard by the side of my bed).

It was fun to try and pick fabrics that look vaguely like they could be thread and I tried to go with the colour schemes that I used in January and February blocks:

The pattern is available free until the end of March in Kristy’s Craftsy shop (after that it will cost you).

Kristy also had a number of patterns that required testing and asked if I could help, I chose a retro kitchen scales block.

Again I used fabrics from my scraps bin. The pattern immediately made me think of the Sew Cherry line by Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet. You may recall that last year I used a FQ bundle of this line to make 2 quilts for Siblings Together:

Believe it or not I had some pretty small scraps left and just enough dots and cherries to use for the worktop and wallpaper – I was delighted!

How neat is that? Yes I made it all myself, am I proud? yes just a bit! It was a bit fiddly, those teeny pieces at bottom of the hand dial were a bit tricky but I did it.

This pattern is not up for sale just yet but there are some other retro kitchen theme patterns available in Kristy’s Craftsy shop if you’re feeling inspired and to be honest if I can do it you can too.

Vintage sheets – January/February

Published on 06/03/2013 by Mary in charity shopping, fabric, Patchwork, Quilts, thrifting and Vintage. 10 Comments

It’s been a quiet few months on the finding front. A sheet from the car boot:

A handmade duvet cover from the charity shop, this was quite expensive, especially considering the one side was plain, but still I had to have it:

A couple of pillowcases in a fairly rare dark blue print:

A gorgeous pile of pillowcases in this print:

Fortunately I also had the UK and Ireland Vintage sheet swap going on. I think in the end we had 11 swappees and 200 or so FQ’s! I was so intent on sorting and attempting to meet requests for particular colours that I neglected to take any photographs.

Here’s a photo of the bundle that Judith received back that gives you a taste of the gorgeous prints and colours we had: