The Craft Room – Page 14 – Handmade by Jodie

Zoo Animals BOM – April and May

Hurray, I completed my May goal! (I was #65 on the link up)

I have been joining in with the Zoo BOM from Quietplay, but had gotten behind, and my goal this month was to complete the last two blocks to catch up.

These are all the blocks we will have done when we finish.

I was missing the walrus and the giraffe.

First up I made my walrus. I think my paper piecing must be improving as the three sections of his head line up quite well.

Then I completed my giraffe at the weekend whilst watching Eurovision. I wasn’t too sure about the colours, but he looks pretty giraffey now he’s done!

I wonder which animal we’ll be making next month?!

I’m linking up with And Sew We Craft Together

Patchwork Minky Playmat

This playmat has been a long time in the making! I started it last year, and every time I thought “I’ll finish it this month,” it never seemed to happen. But finally it’s done, and I’m so pleased with how it turned out!

It is made from 62 minky squares in seven different colours/prints, and one rectangle with an embroidered name.

I’m no good with random, so I organised the different colours and prints so that mostly there was the same one at either end of a row and all the rest in that row were different, and so that there was none of the same colour touching.

Cutting the squares took up quite a bit of time. Sewing the rows was fairly quick. When the top was done I thought “it’s nearly finished!” but that was in about February, so completing the top was clearly not as near the finish as I thought!

I had a large piece of minky dimple dot that I wanted to use for the back, but when I came to use it I found that it was not big enough. All of the rest of the minky pieces I had were shorter than the width of the blanket, so strips of those wasn’t an option either. I solved the dilemma by creating stripes diagonally. It makes for an interesting back panel:

Quilting two layers of minky is not at all fun! It has a mind of its own and doesn’t want to play along, but after a lot of unpicking I finally showed it who was boss! I used straight lines either sides of all the seams.

It seemed obvious to bind the blanket with minky since that’s what all the rest was made with. I can safely say that I won’t be doing that again anytime soon! Trying to sew it down by hand is very much like crocheting with furry or eyelash yarn – you can’t see what you’re doing. It took me a whole week to finish the binding.

Somebody tried to grab a hold of it before the binding was all finished because it’s all soft and snuggly:

But finally it’s finished – hooray!

And the mini one is getting lots of use out of it. He likes to sit and play on it 🙂

I’m linking up with And Sew We Craft Together

Bag of the Month 2015 – January

This year I signed up to the Bag of the Month Club, where you receive a new bag sewing pattern every month from January to June. The bags from last years club looked really good and I thought it would be a way to try out patterns that I possibly wouldn’t have chosen had I seen them beforehand.

January’s bag was called the Companion Carpet Bag, designed by Sewing Patterns by Mrs H. I did actually start it in January, but saved it for my sister’s birthday in March, and then we went away for a month, and somehow the photos have only just made their way from the camera and onto the laptop ready to be uploaded!

I chose an upholstery weight spotty fabric to make it in that has been in the cupboard for several years waiting to be made into something. There is a layer of fleece inside to give it shape which I quilted in place first. It is lined with cotton and contains a layer of plastic canvas at the bottom to make a rigid base.

The handles are leather and were bought ready made. I sewed them on by hand with extra strong black thread.

I like the frame that is the main feature of this bag. It opens so you can see everything inside. It stays open when you open it, and stays closed when it’s shut! It was actually a lot easier to install than I was expecting, although it did take two of us to hold it and screw the little screws back in once we’d slotted it into the channel!

On the bottom are 4 bag feet. I’m not convinced that they do a lot, but they do make it look quite nice.

I think it turned out well and my sister was pleased with it 🙂

Now just to finish the rest of the bags!

I’m linking up with And Sew We Craft Together

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!

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

A Lovely Year of Finishes 2015 – May Plans

The idea is that during the first week of the month we make our plans for what we intend to finish, and during the last week of the month we show off our finished items.

This month I need to play catch up with my blocks of the month, as we were away for the first half of April and I haven’t done any work on them since we got back (other than printing the patterns and looking out fabric for them).

So my plan for this month is to complete my April and May paper pieced zoo blocks – a walrus and a giraffe.

A Lovely Year of Finishes 2015 – March Plans

So the idea is that during the first week of the month we make our plans for what we intend to finish, and during the last week of the month we show off our finished items.

However, February’s plans didn’t go so well. I think I was perhaps a bit overambitious!

I started the month with this:

And planned to finish it by the end of the month.

I got a lot further than I probably would have if I hadn’t been working towards this as a goal, but it wasn’t finished in the month. The top is completed, but the back needs piecing, it needs quilting and it needs binding.

At the moment it looks like this:

I am pleased with how it’s looking and think it will look great when it is finished. So I am carrying over the same plan to this month. To complete my baby blanket. Hopefully this is the month it will be finished!

Zoo Animals BOM – March

I’m taking part in the zoo animals paper piecing block of the month by Quiet Play.

This month’s block was a polar bear.

The same as I did for the penguin, I used blue for the background rather than the white I used for my flamingo. The grey of the body is more of what was left over from the Dalek cushion.

I have also learnt my lesson from the previous blocks when joining sections together. I have found that when joining the sections together, if you do this with a very small stitch straight away, as you use within the sections themselves, that if you make a mistake and the pieces aren’t exactly aligned it is almost impossible to separate them and try again without destroying the paper and losing the line you need to sew on. So this time I tried sewing with a longer tacking stitch to check everything was in the right place, before going over it again with smaller stitches. This seemed to work well and I think my finished block looks good 🙂

Three down, six to go!

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

Zoo Animals BOM – February

I’m taking part in the zoo animals paper piecing block of the month by Quiet Play.

This month’s block was a baby penguin.

It went very well. I was determined to only use fabric that I already had, and was lucky to have some blue and grey left over from another project (that I’ll post as soon as I get the pictures uploaded onto the computer!).

I had originally planned to use white as the background, the same as I did for the flamingo, but it wasn’t going to work with the grey. And looking at the blocks still to come, a white polar bear with a white background?! So I think now that I’ll have white for some of them and possibly blue for all that white won’t work for.

I think the eye is looking good and I’m getting better at lining up the seams sewing the sections together.

I’m looking forward to Sunday and finding out which animal will be next!

Kids Clothes Week Feb 2015

I’ve missed out on the last few KCWs, but am back in time for the first of this year!

I didn’t quite manage an hour every day, but caught up with some extra time at the end. I always overestimate how much I will get done in a week, and this time was no exception. I started making 5 pairs of trousers, but only completely finished the first pair during the week, and have been finishing off bits on the others for the past week. But now they’re all done and the mini one has a whole load of extra clothes added to his wardrobe!