A Lovely Year of Finishes 2015 – February Plans

A Lovely Year of Finishes

In a bid to get things finished and reduce my pile of things half done, I’m joining in with this year’s ‘A Lovely Year of Finishes’.

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.

I missed January as I didn’t find out about it until a couple of weeks ago, so am starting with February, but am looking forward to joining in and getting things finished 🙂

 

In February, I plan to finish this baby patchwork blanket. I started cutting out the squares and got more than halfway, but haven’t got any further since Christmas, and want it sewn up and in use by the end of the month!

Zoo Animals BOM – January

Quiet Play Zoo BOM

 

I want to get back into sewing this year, so have decided to join in with a few quilt alongs and block of the month projects.

Paper piecing isn’t something I’ve done an awful lot of in the past. In fact I’ve only done one piece of paper piecing before – a digger for a bag for my nephew.

I’m hoping to get better at it this year by taking part in this paper piecing block of the month by Quiet Play.

This month’s block was a flamingo.

I think it went quite well. Not all the seams line up perfectly, but it does look like a flamingo. And I do have eight blocks to go over the coming months to improve!

Comfort Blankets

It’s been quite a while since I last made comfort blankets. They were the first thing I started making on my sewing machine. I made some for my niece and my son, and then for friends before making and selling them for a time. It was quite nice to go back and make some more.

The first I made in an owl print, with owls and words on the reverse: 

The second I made in a dino print, with plain navy on the reverse: 

And the third one I made with a monkey print on both sides, smaller than the others with a strap to attach to a buggy or pram:

They’re all ready to be snuggled 🙂

Nursing Cover

The day before N was born I finished off making a nursing cover, to keep in my changing bag to use whilst feeding out and about. He’s now getting on for four months, and I’m only now taking photos and uploading them – a bit behind!

I searched the internet and used a couple of free tutorials to help make it.

It’s the most awkward thing to photograph as you can’t see the shape of it when you lay it flat, but I used a lovely elephant print that I’d been saving for something baby related: 

It has a piece of boning material across the top to hold it’s shape so you can see the baby. This is the stuff they use in corsets or around big skirts.

The strap has a pair of rings to thread through so that you can adjust the length.

And this is the finished cover:

New Baby Teddy

My brother and sister-in-law have a new baby, so I wanted to make them a gift.

I bought a DMC teddy blanket in Hobbycraft, which had a bib made from aida fabric that you can cross stitch onto.

I wanted to stitch the baby’s name onto the teddy, so started by getting out my graph paper and a coloured pencil to work out how to fit it in and what size letters would work best.

Then I picked out a nice blue thread and stitched it on.

I hope they like it!

Teacher Christmas Gifts

Last August W started P1 at our local Primary School. So this Christmas was the first that I needed to find a gift for him to take for his teacher.

I decided to make a pouch. I used this tutorial from Noodlehead, and followed the medium sizing for the pattern.

I think it looks quite Christmassy in dark red and cream cotton:

And then I filled it with chocolates and other goodies!

12 Days of Christmas Charity Hats

This year was my third year of taking part in the annual 12 days of Christmas charity hat challenge – making 12 premature baby hats in 12 days to donate to charity.

We were given lots of different patterns to choose from to make our hats, but one in particular appealed to me, so I used the same pattern for all my hats.

I chose a range of colours to make my hats in. Each one should fit a baby weighing around 3-5lb.

They are being sent to a local charity who will send them to hospital baby units where they are needed.

Hashtag Quilt Blocks

Molli Sparkles is making quilts for the families of the victims of the Sydney siege last week.

He shared the tutorial for this block and will make several rainbow hashtag quilts from all the blocks sent in.

These are the blocks that I have made and are on their long journey off to Australia.

We can make. And our makes can show people we care and are thinking of them, even when there’s very little else we can do to help. To find out more, read the FAQ over on Molli Sparkle’s blog

Fabric Advent Calendar

Earlier this year I went to a sewing show at the NEC, Birmingham. A day trip there and back from Scotland – lots of time spent on the train that day!

Whilst there I bought a fabric panel to make an advent calendar. My Mum has one that she made a long time ago, and I have always wanted to make one too.

There were two pieces to it. One section was the front panel, and the other contained five sections to make the rows of pockets.

Each row contains five pockets, so to make the calendar you had to fold and press and sew them down onto the front panel.

Once I got started the front was very easy to make. There was actually a lot more ironing and folding and matching up than there was actual sewing.

Once the front was finished I then needed to back it to make it a finished calendar. It suggested putting a layer of wadding in the middle to give it strength once items are put in the pockets.

So I made a quilt sandwich of the front panel, wadding and a backing piece of plain fabric, and sewed them together, adding straight lines of quilting around each rectangle of pockets.

You can see the quilting more easily on the back.

Since I’d made it like a quilt, rather than putting wrong sides together and turning and topstitching, I needed to add binding to finish the edges.

I made my own binding using a plain red fabric. It really finishes it off and makes it look good 🙂

My advent calendar is now in use, with chocolate in each of the pockets. It is still flat for now though, rather than hung on the wall.

The last step will be to add a pole to the top to hang it from. I do have the pole. It just hasn’t made it onto the calendar just yet! Never mind though, once it is finally finished it will have plenty more advents to be hung on the wall in years to come!