Category: Gifts

Personalised Notebook Covers

Next week is the last week of the school year here, before the long summer holidays. So I have been making presents for W’s teachers.

I decided upon notebook covers, thinking that they seemed like nice, quick and simple things to make. Nice – yes, they do look nice. Quick – no, they took me about a week. Simple – not at all, the first one was unpicked and redone three times!

Luckily you can’t tell that it was unpicked so many times now it’s finished.

I was following a pattern. The pattern and I did not get on. I stamped my feet and complained a lot that the pattern did not work, and then went back to the beginning and reread to make sure I wasn’t being stupid and missing something obvious. But no, it wasn’t me, and I was never going to end up with the finished cover I wanted by sticking to it, so I ended up abandoning it and trawling the internet looking for different techniques that other people had used.

Finally I same across a tutorial on a blog called Stitch by Stitch, which reading through I could see exactly how it would work, and from then on the job got a whole lot easier!

I pieced the outer cover fabric together to give them the solid red spine. This allowed me to embroider the names onto them where they could be easily read.

They do look very pretty now they are finished, and they’re even finished with a week to spare! W has given his approval, so hopefully his teachers will like them too  🙂

Hedgehog Cushion

Following the success of my Dalek cushion, I decided to also make a cushion for my brother’s birthday.

When I read about the Hazel hedgehog quilt along on gnomeangel.com is sounded like the perfect idea to use for a cushion, especially since my brother has spiky hair like a hedgehog!

Hazel Hedgehog QAL on GnomeAngel.com

 

I didn’t finish my cushion in time to link up with the QAL, but did finish it in time for his birthday.

The cushion inner is an ikea one, which is larger than a standard cushion, and just the right side to fit two hedgehogs side by side.

The pattern is the Hazel Hedgehog pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. I used shades of blue and teal with a cream background to match the sofa in my brother’s living room.

To quilt it I outlined each hedgehog, and then continued outlining at regular intervals until I reached the edge.

The cushion was a hit, and is now living on my brother’s sofa 🙂

I really enjoyed making the hedgehogs. They are easy to make and look really effective in three colours, so I may have to try making some more in the future. Maybe enough to make a hedgehog quilt!

 

 

I’m linking up with And Sew We Craft Together

And Sew We Craft

Dr Who Dalek Cushion

About 18 months ago I bought a selection of blue and grey fabrics to make a Christmas present for my husband:

I ran out of time to make it then, and then we moved and had a baby …

But it finally got made and he got it for his birthday last month!

We are big Dr Who fans in our house, and when I saw the Dr Who patterns by Whims and Fancies I knew that that was what I wanted to make.

I chose the Dalek pattern. It was more complicated than any of the paper piecing patterns I’d followed before, with 19 sections to make and then join together. But I did it, and a Dalek was made:

The final step was to turn it into a cushion.

The cushion insert is one from ikea, which is a nice big 50cm square – much smaller and the picture would start to get lost in the curves to the edges.

I had some Dr Who print fabric that I had left from making shorts a while ago, and that was perfect to border the Dalek picture:

The back is a simple envelope opening, also in the Dr Who print:

He’s very pleased with his cushion and it’s now sitting on our sofa 🙂

 

 

I’m linking up with And Sew We Craft Together

And Sew We Craft