Bat Wing top (Butterick B5564)

Don't you hate it when clothes look better on the dress makers dummy than they do on you?!

I found this fabulous 'vintage' knit fabric at a car boot sale last week (although who am I kidding, maybe it is just some fabric from spotlight that's been stored badly for a couple of years). It was an uncut length of about 3 yards. It was a bit musty, and when I got home I realised that it actually had quite a few silver fish holes in it.

Still, there was enough of it to work around the holes and cut out the pieces I needed for this Butterick pattern (B5564). Its nice isn't it? Gosh it had me scratching my head. I even had to turn off my audiobook so I could concentrate properly! The bat wings have a series of asymmetrical pleats in them and they join to the main body in a way that is kind of weird. Actually now that I look at it, its not really that different to a raglan t-shirt. I wish I had figured that out when I was sewing it up!

 After the bat wings got sewn some little modesty panels get attached inside the sleeves. Don't want anyone seeing your boobies when you lift your arm!

All up its a pretty nice looking shape. I am not sure that its the right shape FOR ME though. I just don't fill it quite like {insert name of my dressmakers dummy here} does. Unfortunately for me my squashy bits don't get smoothed out by a shell of hard plastic. I might wear it out tomorrow and see if I get any compliments from my girlfriends.

I did however have more love for this new top. Its the same pattern I used here, and this time I used a stripey knit (and I remembered to match the stripes up at the shoulder seams!). I drafted this pattern myself from a much loved store bought t-shirt. I think this is definitely my 'go to' pattern when I want to stock up on new clothes.

Ahhhh coverpro- how I love thee.

ummmm giant cigarette bolsters

Do you remember this quilt? I finished it in November 2011 and I have been promising matching cushions ever since. I had various bits and bobs of fabric left over, and felt confident that I would be able to puzzle them all together to get a good half dozen cushions out of them.

Jill asked for 2 bolsters, so I had to ponder that for a while, and had a go at making one in different fabric. It worked out well and Elizabeth no has it on her bed. There were a couple of fat quarters left of the Japanese fabric, so these were put aside to use for the bolsters.

Then I spent a fair while working out how to turn the small odd sized bits into 3 matching cushions (by a fair while I mean a few months!).

Finally it came to to just knuckle down and sew. My geeky Internet craft group decided to hold a challenge on Anzac day; Set yourself a sewing task and finish it in 24 hours. Most of the girls picked a quilt (because we are a quilting group) but I picked the bolsters and cushions as my task. I started shortly after brekkie and spent 8 hours sewing (with various breaks).  In that time I got the two bolsters completely finished and nutted out the cushion fronts and backs.

The cushions fronts actually look like scrappy pieces, but apart from the central block (which were left over from the quilt), the 3 cushions are identical. For the outer border I stitched together all the last remaining random bits of Japanese fabric and then cut them into 3 strips- a strip for each cushion. So if you look carefully you will see that each cushion has the same exactly the same scrappy sashing, orientated in the same way around central blocks.

The touches of purple here and there are where I have introduced left over pieces of the backing fabric from the quilt. I used a bed sheet for the backing- and boy can you really notice sewing with a polycotton compared to nice quilters cotton! It was only after I finished the bolsters did I realise how much they looked like giant cigarettes! I think its an ironic touch to have a giant cigarette on the bed of a staunch reformed smoker!

During the Anzac day I was foiled from completing my 24 hour challenge because I FORGOT TO BUY ZIPPERS! I mean, how stupid is that?! Considering I only sewed for 8 hours on Anzac day before the zippers were required I could easily have finished the challenge! The next day, I went straight to Spotlight bought 3 grey zippers and finished the cushions off.

My kids being silly:

Kids Clothes Week Challenge- Camo pants

Elsie Marley is hosting a challenge this week- the aim of which is to spend at least one hour a day creating kids clothes. I wont be joining in for the entire week (too may quilty projects to work on!)  but thought it might be fun to get involved just for one day.

I already had these pants cut out for George, so it only took me about an hour to sew up. Easy peasy.

 Front view.

They are nice and easy to sew. I've done them a heap of times.

 Back View.

The fabric is from my stash- a grey cammo print that I would have got at either Spotlight or Textile Traders.

The pattern is Burda 9793. I like this pattern because the elastic waistband makes it straight forward to sew up.

 But they still look smart because of the inset front pockets and faux fly.

And a curved bum pocket on the back.

I am not really a big fan of Camo print, and I am not even really sure why I bought this fabric for my stash. George, however, loves his new 'soldier' pants.

Seven Swoon

 I am inching closer and closer to my goal of 9 giant swoon blocks. Each time I finish one of my MonSwoon blocks I declare its my favourite. But this time I think I might mean it.

All seven blocks. Two more to go and then I get to wrangle metres of sashing under the machine.

--April Blocks--

This month my quilt bee group are making blocks for Bec. She sent us each some fabric cuts from Denise Schmidt's Picnics and Fairgrounds range and asked us to make 10.5" blocks based on a log cabin design.

We could do any interpretation of a log cabin we liked, using just her fabric or adding in from our own stash if we wanted to.

I did a bit of googling around and found a few that I thought might be fun.

My first block was a spiral design based on this image. I cut my strips at 1.5" so that they appear 1" wide in the finished block. I just kept adding spirals until I hit 10.5" wide. I measured and trimmed each time I added a strip to make sure I wasn't going wonky.

I was intending to use one of the DS fabrics against a white background, but then I thought it might be more fun to add something in from my stash (besides, as you will see below I had white fabric planned for another block). I chose a polka dot... because... well I just love polka dots and this one seemed to compliment the DS range nicely.

My second block was based on this unusual knot design I found while surfing the net for ideas. This one took a lot of thinking, as I had to piece some strips before I joined them to the log cabin. Even then I still don't think its strictly a proper log cabin- it started out as a courthouse steps block that morphed into a log cabin once I got my sewing groove on.

I had intended to use just one DS fabric against the white (as per the original picture) but at the last minute decided I should use up more of the ones that Bec sent to me.

My understanding is that 'traditionally' a log cabin block has a red centre and has 2 colours/values on each half of the block (see here).  So even though we were only supposed to make 2 blocks for Bec I was also keen to try out a 'proper' log cabin.

I failed right at the beginning though, as I couldn't resist using this scrap of fabric for the centre, instead of red. I love it so much and it matched in with the DS nicely. Plus Bec is a farm girl! It seemed too perfect NOT to use.  There are RED hens in there. Does that count?

The farm girl centre piece is 3.0" (cut 3.5") and then I added 1" strips of fabric until the block was 10.5" square. I sorted the strips into reds (with yellow hints) and blues (with green hints). I have most of the Picnics and Fairgrounds range myself, so I just added in from my own stash for this block.

All I managed this week was these 3 blocks so it was a pretty quiet week here at studio tin whistle. I cant wait to see the other blocks that Bec receives.

Four five six Swoon

I've just had a lovely week away with the kids down at my sister farm. Over the last few years I gone there every Easter. This year I decided to take some sewing with me. I thought the kids were old enough to not need quite so much supervision and entertaining. I reckon its time I got to have a little fun too?!

I took 3 projects with me, the most portable ones I had. Swoon was an obvious choice as I had already precut all the fabric. I managed to get 3 blocks done:

I thought I would try and photograph them so as to also show off little bits of the farm and bush.

I set up a lovely little Swoony corner, using the window, some sticky tape and a small piece of wadding as a temporary design wall. I took a small cutting mat and 6.5" square ruler to trim blocks. In addition to that I packed scissors, rotary cutter, pins and an unpicker. And obviously the sewing machine! I packed very light but it was perfect and I didn't feel as though I lacked any implements.

Here are my 6 completed blocks. I have 3 more to go and then I can start sashing them. I will use 5" sashing I think, with a wider 10" border around the entire quilt to take it up to 100" square. I will be sending this one out to be quilted. I'd love to see what a professional quilter could do with it.

During the evenings I managed to prepare about 70 2" hexagons and then stitched 44 of them together into two blocks. These are 12 and 13 of the 15 I need for my hexagon quilt.

I think I will power on with this one... complete handstitching last two blocks in April and then finish the entire quilt as my May entry for the 12WIPS in 2012 challenge.

On a whim

A colour blocked, scrappy/I Spy version of the Fit For A Princess pattern. 'Cept I used 8.5" main blocks and 5" charms for the corner pieces.

Can you tell I'm on a mission to use up my collection of I Spy charms?

A bonus micro quilt from the left over triangles

Denim mini quilt

This week I made a little mini quilt using the last of  my charms from the moody blues denim quilt.

I used some of the charms to make half triangle squares, using light and dark shades of denim. I then using the remaining charms to create a modern zigzag quilt.

 Like the larger denim quilt I used bright orange binding.

To quilt I stitched zigzags across the quilt. I used orange thread on the dark denim, and different shades of blue on the lighter denim. The lighter denim is more heavily quilted than the darker denim.

 I had a cut of Heather Ross goldfish that seemed just perfect for the backing.

The finished quilt is 30" x 36".