Baby shoes

Julie who lives next door from me had a baby boy last Friday. We are all very excited about this new addition to their family and I made some little shoes from a pattern made by Amy Butler inher book "Little Stitches for little ones".

There are some other projects which are quite tempting. My only regret is that my own children are too old, and I think I didn't have enough time to make all the things I would have liked to make when they were baby girls.

But I'm still making some for the babies around me.

I followed the pattern in the book, done in a size 3 months in this case, but wasn't happy with the space left for the leg of the baby. I then changed the position of the velcro on the shoe, put it higher, and it works much better.

This photo with my hand is just to give you an idea of the size of the shoe. It needs to be roomy enough for the socks as well.

Now should I make another one for my young niece in France, in size 6 months...

News

I am sorry there was a gap in my posting.

I went away in France for a week and took some sewing with me, but didn't find the time to do much. Nothing finished anyway.

We came back in time for Halloween, walking the streets with my youngest, and then on 1st Nov was the Malvern Autumn Patchwork show.

I went with my friend Jane and her daughter Amanda and it was a great day. I didn't buy too much fabric in the morning, but the afternoon was more productive.

I also bought some wadding in advance as I hate chasing cotton wadding for a project, and paying a high price. In fact what happened was that near the end of the show I mentioned it near a shop and was offered to buy whatever wadding was left for £5.50 a metre. A bargain. So instead of a roll I have pieces going from 1 1/2 metres to 4 metres, but I know that some of them will be used for small projects, so it's not a problem.

I am still looking for some black fabric for one of my projects. I am running low but the rolls in the shop have a slightly different hue, and I am getting nowhere. I left my phone number with a shop and haven't heard from them after a week. Another one has something close to the right colour, is that good enough ?

I am hoping to get more sewing done now.

Oh and I have a new computer, much faster, that should help as soon as I get used to the new features.

Enjoy your sewing..

Tilda bathing lady

In the last 3 days I made this beautiful doll, from the tilda book "Sew Sunny Homestyle". There are a few other projects that tempt me for later.

I bought a fat quarter of the black with white spots fabric, from the Tilda collection, and a metre of white croquet ribbon. I already had the fabric for the skin, plain calico.

I had fun and am pleased

with the result.

Now it's your turn to try.

Here is a photo of the book, it has recently been translated in english, and I bought it straight away as I already love Tone Finnanger's other books. Here is a link to the product on Amazon uk no affiliation.

I was wondering how to do the hair but followed the explanation and it worked. I put some pins around her head and weaved the knitting thread around the pins. Then I sewed everything in place, and took the pins out.

I just need to put some colour on her cheeks.

Coasters

This is a simple project, you can use whatever size of fabric you have at home, or some remnants or bits left at the end of another project, which is what I did.

I assembled the fabric to make squares 4 1/2"

unfinished size. Then very simply you cut a square the same dimension for the back, put them right side together on a piece of wadding. As a remark I can add that I used leftover wadding, and didn't cut it until after I had sewn around my coaster. This is easier.

So you put the walking foot on the sewing machine, start 3/4 down one side of a square, and sew 1/4" all around your square, leaving a gap at the end to turn everything right side out.You cut the corners to reduce the bulk there, and turn your coaster out.

There is some hand sewing involved now, to close the gap. I use a ladder stitch that disappears in the fabric.
The last step is to quilt each square 1/4" all the way around the top. They should finish close to 4" square, but that's not very important as long as they are all a similar size.

I can say it is a quick project, but it depends how many coasters you make, and how long it takes you to make the top. You could choose to piece it with a small block, or embroider it. I had 2 bits of trees left from another year, and used them.

I chose not to be too precious about it, because I want these little coasters to be used, and washed. They will be little presents ready to go, I don't know where yet.

I love the batiks and their colours.

I hope you find this inspiring and start yours. It could become a little Christmas present...

Blog award

I was nominated by lovely Gill for the Dorset Cereals Blog award.
I don't know if I have any chance, but I ought to try to participate. As we say in french "Qui ne tente rien, n'a rien!".
So I would be very impressed and pleased if you would take a few instants to vote for me on their website : I am going to put a little banner at the bottom of my right hand side column to take you to the right place.
With lots of thanks, from Pascale.
XX

October calendar

And here is my next panel for the calendar organised by Kandy for BQL. Kandy also has a blog called"A break at home" where she posts about her sewing and her family, as well as looking after us on the group site .

This October we made some windmills, in 3D. They were easy to make and effective when finished.

Cat purse

This is a small project I started and finished yesterday. It is for my friend Chris who has 2 cats, and for whom I made a bag with the same fabric. I'm not sure if she still uses the bag, but she can use this on its own.

It is lined in a beige fabric, and I have used a thin wadding, plus my little label of course.

I am working on different things but they are either not finished yet, or I need somebody to help me to take a good photo. I'll show them soon.

September Calendar

And here we go again with my square for September in the British Quilters List Challenge for 2009.

This is a small interpretation of Log Cabin. The logs are cut at 3/4" and end up at ...oups ! 3/8" instead of 1/4". at the end my block measured 13 1/2" so had grown 1". But then when it is on the wall by itself nobody will notice.

I made my 16 log cabin squares and played with possible designs. Here are a few photos.

I chose the last design, partly because I had never done it.

And here it is pieced together.

And I wondered how to quilt it.

I opted for some kind of leaves, accentuating the diagonal lines. There are 3 in 2 corners of each little square.

They look almost like butterflies, or hearts.

Owl pencilcases

In August I was lucky to attend the Festival of Quilts in Birmimgham. I bought this fabric and have made 3 pencil cases with it.

One has gone for DD1, the second to Kandy from BQL and I'm keeping the third one for myself.

I spent Tuesday at Kandy's house and we had lots of fun. She has displayed a lot of her work around the house, and showed me where she sews. I had a little taster on EQ6 (the program to plan your quilts, but it does lots of others things as well..). And very quickly it was time for me to go pick up the girls from school.

We'll have to do it again Kandy. It was great.

House key ring

Here is a little project I started during the holidays.

I made it all by hand because I didn't have a machine there, and finished it when I came home because Iwanted to use a key fob; this way I can change the keys, or not take the little house with the keys if I have a very small bag.

It comes from this magazine, written by Veronique Requena, which went out of print because it sold so well, and has been made into a book. I am afraid it is only available in french at the moment, also I only looked on Amazon UK for an english version.

She is also the owner of the shop in Bourgogne, France, "Born to Quilt".

The pattern is pretty simple, measure your keys and the space they need, and you could adapt it to suit your needs.

DD4 new dress

You would think that having daughters I would get to sew them some clothes. But no, they are not interested any more. Not at 15, 13, 11...and then yes maybe, but really to please me, at 8. Finally.

I let DD4 choose her fabrics, and she picked one by the Japanese Lecien. She's got good taste or what. And if I bought it, I've got to use it.

I picked a raspberry pink for the fabric under. This dress is almost 2 dresses. The pattern is the same except one is longer than the other. Oh and I had to recalculate because they didn't go up to her size.

Then I zigzaged some leaves design on the front dress, and cut the holes to see the fabric of the second dress.

There is no button, zip, or other opening way to help put the dress on. And so it was good that I could try it all the way on my daughter, because when she put her arms up, it changed the width of her shoulders, and I had to make some adjustments.

The book I used is in french, " Les vetements de petite fille" by Cecile Vincent, and I loved the photos, the ideas, the colours. But I found that the explanations were a bit light, especially if you had never done anything like this. I used my own method in some parts. And there was no mention of the seam allowances, and where they should be.

It's a book to give you ideas, show you the way Cecile Vincent has done it, but you need to know how to make clothes to really be able to use it.

August Calendar

How annoying when the computer doesn't work perfectly. I had some difficulties getting the internet these last few days, and my machine is getting slower. Time to buy a new one I suppose.

I have been sewing since my last post, but had no time to post about it. But my girls will all be back at school on Tuesday, and things should get better.

I planned (in my head) a long post about our August quiltlet for the BQL challenge. So here I go.

The idea was to use 36 half square triangles, made with 2 or more colours to make a 12 " square. When I visit the British Quilters List website I can see all the variations in design and choice of colours, and it is quite amazing.

I took some photos while working to show you my technique. Just if you are interested.

I used 4 fat 8 with slight variations in colour, 2 yellows and 2 reds. I put a yellow and a red right sides together and drew squares on the back of one. They were 3" squares with one diagonal drawn down a few of them. You really need to look at the photo.

I sewed 1/4" along both sides of each diagonal. So you start at the top of your squares, put the side of your 1/4" foot along the line on the right, follow it all the way, turn and come back on the other side of the diagonal. There is no sewing on the other lines, you use them for cutting your squares, horizontally and vertically. Then cut the squares on the diagonal : you get 2 half square triangles sewn in the middle.

You have to square them up, in my case to 2 1/2".

I then played with the design of my block, trying to find something I had not seen before. I don't know if my result has a name already, but I'm quite pleased with it.

When my design was decided, I sewed the squares following Eleanor Burn's method. I took the squares 2 by 2 in a column, and sewed them together chain piecing all the way. I then added the 3rd column, and the 4th till the last squares were all attached. I realised at that point that some had moved. See on the right of the photo below. I changed that of course.

I try to alternate the way the seam allowances go, to reduce the volume that gathers at the meeting points. That was difficult to achieve in this case, but it makes the quilting easier.

I did some free motion quilting in the yellow, which got DD3 interested. She wants to try this.

There is also a photo of the back.

Instead of binding it I used a thick thread and a zigzag stitch all the way around. Cut the fabric left and sew again. I don't think the result is as finished as binding is, so will probably go back to my usual method next time.

I'll try to post more regularly now, I've got things to show you...

Festival of Quilts, Birmingham

I'm back home in England, busy with some new projects to show you shortly. I just need to take some pictures.

But I wanted to tell you about the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, which I attended last Saturday. It is only the second time I can visit since it began, mainly because I am usually on holidays in France.

This year I went with Kandy Newton, who is running the internet group British Quilters List (BQL) and whose challenges I have been making for the last 18 months. When I started I thought nobody would know if I messed around with a pattern, until I realised the designer wasn't far, and I could cross her in the street.

We hadn't really met before Saturday, but I felt really happy to know her. She is full of energy, and talent, ... and quite tall, lucky her. We didn't stop chatting and it was very interesting.

Back to the show and I must confess that I forgot a camera, but I took some notes of the kind of things I liked in the quilts I saw. Of course I didn't see all of them as I only went for the day, and was taken by all the shops and the nice people I met.

So my favourites fabric associations were, in no particular order :

- pink, green with dark blue,

- white monochrome,

- red embroidery on white,

- dark blue fabric with orange quilting,

- some beige, green plants, yellow, and water flowing,

- cream background with orange-red, brown-grey,

- japanese: cream background with light touches of colour,

- some simple background that shows well the quilting.

And I loved all the bags and little projects offered by the shops. I resisted all the books and magazines, but not the fabrics. Only one ruler bought, and no thread although I wanted to buy some.

I'm also tempted to buy a roll of wadding, and a bag with wheels to carry my sewing machine. I'll think about it until the next show, Malvern in the autumn.

As a final note I must say that the weather is very grey here in England at the moment, and it feels like autumn, Not perfect at all.

Enjoy your sewing.