Friday, October 9, 2015

Hour basket for a baby gift

Not ANOTHER hour basket right?

And there are more, I just haven't blogged them!!


Another baby to make for and this time I was factoring in that I would be going to Brisbane for work so wanted something easy to transport. 

I was fortunate to win this car fabric on Instagram and teamed with a Kona red solid and this awesome grey inside - it made a fantastic storage basket for nappies and so forth now and can't you just imagine it filled with cars in the future? 

The pattern says you can make the basket from a fat quarter but I'm not convinced. By adding this strip at the top, I was able to make it work. Possibly due to this directional fabric? Or my own bad measurements!




Hope little Darcy likes his gift ... eventually!

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

New baby gift set



My next door neighbour had her second baby last week. We are pretty close and when I got the call, was happy to head over for a sleep over to take care of bubs big sister (she is 2!). It was a pretty exciting week with lots of playdates with my two older owlets, remembering how all consuming toddlers can be and a few sneaky little newborn cuddles - and by that I mean when he was just one day old!!! (Cue the 'nawwhhhhhs'). 

I knew I wanted to make something as she would appreciate a handmade gift. After a little online searching and checking through my stash (determined to use what I had), this is what I came up with. 

Snuggle blanket

Backed with beautiful soft minky, this little blanket is designed to wrap baby now but perhaps just snuggle with as he grows. It isn't huge and I just used what I had in terms of fabric. (I forgot to take measurements but probably around 30inches square - or 75cms). This gorgeous elephant splash fabric from Spotlight has been in my stash for a year or so. Happy to put it to good use!


Fabric basket

There was only a very narrow strip of fabric left after making the blanket and I wanted to use it all. I decided to make a little fabric basket and this time teamed it with a Kona Solid called 'Pear'. 

If anyone knows where my extensive selection of interfacing has disappeared to - I would love to know. I found a little batting and quilted it to the outside. Raided one of my Sew Box's for some thin interfacing for the lining (really need to find the medium and thicker weight interfacing I know I have!).



If you are interested in the template before I made it - the dimensions are around 13 inches high x 11 inches wide. I cut 3 inch squares from each corner (probably could have been 2.5). 



It is perfect now to fit a nappy or two, wipes and nappy bags but a good size to stash some toys as he grows. 


Elephant taggy toy

I cut out these elephant shapes months and months ago from a Flosstyle Babies First Toy pattern - see my review here. But in a HUGE fail moment, I cut four the exact same way (rather than flipping so I would have matching sides). 

In a lightening bolt moment, I thought I would make these little taggy toys. There seems to be lots of babies around me at the moment so I whipped up four at the same time. 

Miss 6 got involved and choose all the ribbons and backing minky. 

This little orange guy went with our gift next door.



How awesome is this orange?!?




And the four together - with teal, pale blue and green backs. 



I didn't bother wrapping the gift - popped it all in the basket, ribbon around and delivered next door. 




It was wonderful putting this gift set together. Do you have a go-to newborn gift to make? I have another to share with you soon!


Monday, October 5, 2015

Cotton and Steel Herringbone Quilt ... and why I will never make 120 HSTs again!



Ms Midge (aka Melissa but seriously everyone calls her Midge!) regularly hosts Charm Swaps and when I saw this one come up for Cotton and Steel - I was in!

56 people buy two fabrics, cut them into 5 inch squares, send them to Midge who sends back the 112 different squares. I had no idea what I was going to make but knew I wanted something for myself. 


I searched Pinterest for ages. I'm really not a quilter (though according to Midge - now I am!) but I really wanted to do something with these that wasn't just sewing the squares together. 

So I decided on this cool herringbone pattern and teamed it with this Charcoal Shot Cotton from Spotlight (which was used by a couple of others in the Swap group). 

I started with a couple and laid them out ....



Did a mountain of trimming (I was trimming the four sides as I don't trust myself on the two side method) ...




Ended up with about 120 squares (or HSTs - half square triangles). I didn't use them all. Oh and no pinks or reds are in my quilt - I'll make something else with those.



Decided to do a variegated pattern rather than random. Love the end result with this going from the dark blacks and navy's on the left, the blues and greens in the middle, the neutrals and multi coloured on the right. 



I know this really chopped up some of the patterns and some might say I ruined some of the charms (I couldn't bare to chop into a couple so saved them for other projects) but I think there were a few successes to. 

Little birds ...


Friendly spider!



I'm tracking down some more of this charcoal shot cotton so I can add to the top of the quilt and make it a proper queen size. Then I'm going to send it off to be professionally longarm quilted. No way am I attempting this one myself. 

So I will make HSTs again, I think I'm rather good at them now but seriously it will be a long time before I make this many for one quilt. Really not my favourite thing.

I'm pretty happy with the end result!!






Ms Midge

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