Hopfaldera

Comfort Circle Christmas Swap

With the Comfort Circle of the do.Good Stitches bee (the charity bee I'm in) we had a Xmas swap. We each handmade a decoration for one of the other bee members. It was a fun swap!

This is what I made for Alexandra who lives in France. It is a Christmas house from a pattern from the Wee Wonderfuls book by Hillary Lang. The original pattern isn't Christmassy, but it is easy to adjust to any theme.

I also received a lovely package. Sarah from Great Britain cross-stitched me a very pretty Santa ornament with shiny beads.

When I was making the house for Alexandra I also made one for myself. Sometimes it is just as easy to make two of something as making one, and this way it's also easier to part with something you really like and put a lot of work into ;)

 Happy holidays everyone!!

 

 

Dalahorses

This week was all about Dalahorses for me. For the Penny Sampler we were making two Dalahorse blocks, and for the Trim the Tree ornament swap I also chose to make little Dalahorses.

For the quiltblocks I decided to make two different horses. Each one in a color of the two Dala horses I have. One is black and I got it when I was on my first vacation in Sweden when I was 7. I thought it was lost somewhere in a box, either in our own attic or in my parents' attic, but when my parents saw me working on Dalahorses last week they took an Instagram photo of the black horse that they had. I was so glad to see it! I remember that when I got to pick out the horse with my parents I chose a black horse because I found that the most realistic color. When I was 7 I thought that was important... The red and blue horses just felt very weird to me.

The other horse that I own is white. I have shown it on my blog very often. Here is the story of how this horse came to live with us.

The ornaments that I made are all very unrealistic in color. But I hope very christmassy! I made them by tracing around a wooden Dalahorse shape I got in Sweden (for free, from a craft table at one of the horse factories in Nusnäs, on which they had wooden scraps from the factory that you could paint if you were inspired by seeing all the horses being produced). For each ornament I piled three felt horses and sewed them together with perle cotton. I glued the saddle and ribbon on with fabric glue. The hanging ricrac was added while I sewed the horses together.

These packages will be on their way to my swap partners today!

 

Penny Sampler so far

I have been working hard on blocks for the Penny Sampler (an online class by Rachel of Stitched in Color). So hard that I forgot to show my progress here (on Instagram I have posting snapshots, follow me if you don't already, I'm @muriel14). Here is a previous post on the fabric I chose for my sampler.

Here's what I have been making: 

In the first month we worked on machine applique. I still have a few blocks to finish in this topic, but here are the ones I have so far.

Planning of bird blocks (I still have to make those).

Sometimes you have to prepare the background before you can applique. Here I was planning what the houses in my village block would look like. And the next photo is how they turned out. The roofs are made but not sewn on yet. It's next on my list.

Here I was planning my Spruce Forrest and the finished block in the next photo.

With these 4-Penny Patch blocks we moved onto a different type of blocks.

Our second month focuses on precise piecing. We just started this topic. First I made a practice project, the supercute Mini Churn Pouch (I should mention it is only 3 inches high, which is 7.5 cm; really tiny).

Here are all the blocks I have so far (including the almost finished ones and some other fabric that will be in the quilt). I've layed everything out the way it will be placed in the final quilt.

Right now I'm working on the little Penny Candy cross blocks. This is tiny precise piecing with the help of lots of starch.

Here is a bit more planning:

Enough to keep me busy, and very happy! This is a lot of fun!!

Two skirts finished

Woohoo, I completed my goal for May and just finished not only one but two skirts for this summer! 

It wasn't easy because I had to make adjustments to my selfmade pattern while I was sewing to make the skirts fit better and I kept having anxiety about the whole process. The only reason they are finished today is because I set the goal to finish them before the end of May. I'm happy they're done! And they fit! And I love them both!!

Some details: I made two a-line skirts with zippers in the back. I made my own custom pattern using Sew What! Skirts. The feather fabric is from Field Study linen/cotton blend by Anna Maria Horner. That skirt has a red zipper. The blue flower fabric is from Stenzo (Dutch brand) and I got it at the market last year. That one has a blue zipper. Both skirts have a facing at the top that I made 6 inches high (twice as high as the book says) to make the skirts feel less floppy (I mean you feel like you're wearing a serious piece of clothing instead of just some fabric around the waist). 

To celebrate I edited my photos in Pixlr today. As you can see, these are my skirts for 2013. There aren't going to be any more skirts this year. It's back to quilts again for me. There is just less anxiety that they have to fit...

I'm linking to the finishes party of A Lovely Year of Finishes for May.

Working on my skirt

How is it going with my goal for May, my skirt from feathery AMH fabric? I made the pattern, washed and ironed the fabric and cut out all the pieces of fabric needed for the skirt. 

So it is going pretty well. Next I have to secure the raw edges that will be at the back of the skirt. I found a great tutorial for french seams, so I'm going to make the side seams like that. I couldn't figure out how to make a french seam in the back because I also have to add the zipper there, so the back will have a different finish. I added an inch of fabric to do that. 

I also cut fabric for a second skirt. I used the fabric that I had planned to make a skirt from last year (or was it two years ago?) I had the pattern ready, so that was easy. And I'll end up with two new skirts!

I'm linking up to the mid-month check-in of A Lovely Year of Finishes.

 

P.S. To get back to my previous post: Anouk has made it to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest!! We're very excited for tomorrow's show!

Three zippers in one pouch

I joined the Triple Zip Along. It's a Flickr group with the goal of making the Triple Zipper Pouch that A Quilter's Table has made a tutorial for. The sew along started yesterday and continues until February 15 (there are prizes and everything). I found exactly three zippers of the right size in my zipper box, so I chose fabrics to go with those.

When I was making the pouch I found that shorter zippers would have sufficed (you cut about 3 inches off), so I can go back to my zipper box and choose another color combination. I think I will try another version of the pouch. Also because it wasn't too easy working with the padded outside fabric the way I padded it. The tutorial calls for fusible fleece, but I didn't have that, so I fused some flannel to the inside of my outside fabric with vliesofix. I used flannel because it was the thinnest batting I could think of, but I still found it very stiff to work with. I think I will try to reinforce the outer fabric with just another layer of regular cotton fabric for my next version and see how that works out.

Here is my finished pouch. I love it anyway!!!

No precious fabric was wasted while making this quilt block

You know how when you cut fabric for a quilt block from a larger piece from your stash you very often cut it a little bit too big, then you iron it, and then you cut your piece to the exact measurements you need. Or when you're foundation paper piecing you cut a generous piece of fabric that will definitely cover the bit in your pattern that it should cover and then later you trim the excess away. When you do these things (I do, it's very handy, you don't run the risk of accidentally cutting your fabric too small), you end up with waste. Very pretty, but useless waste.

Usually I find that no problem, it's just the way it goes. Sometimes you want to do things differently though. For instance when you only buy fat eighths of the Chicopee fabric line (like I did, to save a bit of money) or when you would like to start cutting into your Liberty Lifestyle fabric and don't want to waste a thread.

My pile of Chicopee fat 8ths

My Liberty Lifestyle fabrics, too pretty to waste

For that situation I came up with instructions and measurements for a little quilt block that is usually made by foundation paper piecing. These measurements give you no waste, except for possibly a little fluff that you cut off at the end to square up the block if you need to. You end up with a 6 1/2" block (6" finished) that doesn't have any fabric running on the bias.

This is what you need to do. First iron your fabric. If you have only fat eighths it is not such a task, otherwise drag your yardage to the ironing board and iron the corner that you're going to cut from. For the center cut a 3.5"square. For the triangles around the center cut a 4 1/4" square and cut it on both diagonals to create four triangles. Sew these triangles to the center square using a 1/4" seam allowance. For the outer triangles cut two 4" squares and cut each diagonally once to end up with four triangles in total. Sew these triangles to your block, again with a 1/4" seam allowance. Check if you need to square this up to 6 1/2 ". Done!

This way you only use a little bit of fabric to end up with something lovely! Hope I helped someone getting over the fear of cutting into those precious fabrics (fyi, my Liberty Lifestyle is still untouched...)

Fresh Sewing Day

 

Today I am linking up to Lynne's blog feature Fresh Sewing Day. Lynne taught me how to make a Union Jack pillow at the Fat Quarterly retreat in London, and look at her beautiful Jack Attack quilt that she finished last month. My Union Jack pillow is still not finished (almost, almost), but I have made other things last month. Here they are:

 

Five blocks for the Grandmother's Choice block of the week quilt along, four bee blocks, a Chicopee pillow cover in the making, and a basket totebag.

I'm also linking up to the Small Blog Meet (can't get that button to work though...). I would love to have a few new visitors here, so WELCOME if you came through that link, or otherwise. I am Muriël from The Netherlands and I love to quilt and sew. I'm part of some online bees: Bee Europa, Sew Buzzy, Cocorico, do.Good Stitches. I share a lot of my work on Flickr, and also here on my blog. Over here it's easier to give a bit more background than in the descriptions of photos on Flickr, and also to show a few more shots of the same object. You're more than welcome to visit again!

Japanese basket tote bag

When I was in New York this summer I went to the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya. They have a wonderful collection of craft books there. These are the ones I bought.

Umami, about very modern and organic looking bags, Colour Couture by Suzuko Koseki, and Machine made patchworks 02 also by Suzuko Koseki. 

This week I found the courage to try one of the patterns from Colour Couture. The book is completely in Japanese except from some titles. But luckily the measurements are written in arabic numerals a.k.a. the way I do it, and even in centimeters! The diagrams in the book are very clear and helpful too, so it was not so hard to figure out how to make what I wanted to make: a very cute and clever bag.

Here it is, all finished. It looks like a cute basket, useful for when you're buying just a few things.

But when you decide to buy more, you can unfold the inside of the bag and turn it into a full shopping bag.

For the front panel I used a piece of vintage fabric I bought from Carina who was destashing a bit. The aqua tape measure fabric I used for the back is also from New York, from Purl Soho to be specific. The rest of the fabrics I pulled from my stash.

Distraction

I was working on finishing my Union Jack pillow case from the FQ retreat in London.

Then I came to the part where I had to take the paper of the back and make decisions about what fabric to use for the sashing and the back of the pillow and I got distracted.

By a cute tutorial for a flex frame pouch that I saw on Leila's blog, and the fact that I had everything necessary to make two of those pouches (I had bought my flex frames at U-handbag), even using Liberty scraps (like Leila also does in her tutorial).

So then I spent the rest of my day making two flex frame pouches with Liberty fabrics (but not with hexies like Leila because that would have gone too far, and I am not ready for the whole hexy thing, hand sewing them and everything...). I finished both!

Aren't they lovely?! It's just incredible to me that you can actually make something like this with your own hands. Thank you, Leila, for the great tutorial and inspiration!

A succesful day I would say, even though I still haven't finished my Union Jack.