Noah's Ark for Baby Sol

Now, this goes back a looooong way. A friend of the family had a baby waaaay back in September. I meant to complete this for his birth. Then for Christmas. Then... well. It could be for his first Birthday, but that feels like cheating him out of a present somehow! So here it is, only seven and a half months late!

It was a long stitch done from a kit, so I can't take all that much credit for it. It's a lovely design, though, and I hope that it gets hung in his bedroom somewhere if mum and he like it. I personally love the bright colours and the animals. (I also mastered the art of French knots somewhere along the line - wahey! Although I have a strong suspicion that I have forgotten already...)

Then, it was just backing it (recognise the starry material from my first tote bag?) and putting a cane through the top to hang.

Welcome to the world, baby Sol.

(Even if it's really late!)

A Case for Tilly

Now, after ploughing through some difficult projects and travelling hundreds of miles up and down the country, I really felt that Tilly needed somewhere else to live other than the cardboard box and polystyrene which she came in. A sewing machine cover was in order - and it had to be patchwork of course.

J and I looked at a sort of pattern online for the basic idea (thanks very much to Debbie at her blog) but it wasn't quite right, so we had to make up our own pattern. I'll try and show you what we did, but it was all quite complicated (for me at least!) and took a LOT longer than I thought it would do. It took the whole week at home!

Right, here we go.

1) Measure out the sewing machine and construct a paper pattern from the measurements. You want two side panels with rounded edges (this was done by drawing round a mug), a panel for the bottom, and then a long thin piece reaching from either side of the base, in two halves. This will have a zip in the end. It's difficult to explain. Here were our pieces. Remember to leave seam allowances, as well as room to include pockets etc.

2) Now you have an idea of the size, you can start with the patchwork. The main structural part of the bag is from linen and this quite odd material that J found; it is fluffy on one side and very thick brown faux-leather type stuff on the other. The patchwork panels will be quilted to this and the linen.

Start with your materials. I had a beautiful Amy Butler charm pack, but you can do it properly and use old odds and sods.

Aren't they beautiful materials? I decided to do a simple square patchwork pattern, so cut each into four and started building a design.

It took a surprising amount of rearranging until I was happy. Then, in came to Tilly to stitch it all together. 

(Sorry about the light.)

My cutting is still not very precise so some of the corners didn't meet...

But the overall effect was fine.

3) Quilt your patchwork to the backing - in my case the very thick fluffy/hard brown material. This is quite a few layers of fabric, and Tilly needed a bit of help from J and A's machine to get through them. She made a valiant effort though!

I did very simple stitching lines ina bright blue thread, just following the seam lines, letting the fabrics shine through.

4) Make the bottom panel by stitching 2 pieces of canvas the same size together to make a pocket to slide a slightly smaller piece of your very thick material inside.

5) Prepare the lining ready to be included. I hemmed and stitched 4 squares of the fabric that hadn't been cut up to serve as pockets.

6) You can now start to see the bag coming together! Each side is to be sewed to the bottom panel, right sides to right sides.

7) Now consider your handle. I used webbing, which is good and strong. Pin it into place and stitch up to where you want the handles to fold. Make sure the straps aren't twisted when you sew. I used the same thread colour as for the quilting.

8) More complicated sewing (at least it felt like it to me!) Get your template for the long strip and create two pieces, folded in half so when they meet they will be the width of the panel you need. The folded edges will be at the middle, and these are used to conceal the zip a bit, which wasn't very pretty. Spray them with starch spray (which we just happened to have at home for some reason!) to give them a bit more strength.

9) Sew in the zip. There are lots of tutorials online for this, and I don't think mine is a very good example of this, so I won't try and teach it!

10) Add some patchwork to the top of the zip panels. I did triangles instead to add a bit of variety, and, to save time, stitched with a zig zag stitch rather than more hemming.

11) Stitch the two zip panels to the rest of the bag, right sides to right sides. Somehow, constructing this 3D shape is really difficult to get your head round. So, remember not only to 'measure twice, cut once,' but also to 'pin a million times, and sew once!'

12) Sew, by hand, the bottom of the zip panels together (the zip shouldn't go to the very bottom of the bag) and put a few strong stitches at either end of the zip so it can't unzip fully.

13) Now - neatening up on the inside! Oversew the linen so none of the brown material is showing. This has to be done by hand and may take longer than you think.

14) You should have a completed bag! (Unless I've missed out some steps, which wouldn't surprise me.) Turn it right ways round and admire.

Want to see?

TA DA! Pretty pleased with myself, I have to say, although a LOT of help was had by A and J. It's their project as much as mine really. A three way project - but that's quite nice really!

And Tilly fits nicely inside with lots of room for boxes of cotton, pins and needles etc.

Tilly has a bag fit for her now and she definitely deserves it for all her hard work!

Happy Birthday Coombe Cottages and co and GIVEAWAY!

So it's been a whole year since our little blog started out. We've had plenty of page views, but no one has left any comments apart from people we know in the 'real world.' As a celebration, we're hosting a little giveaway! So if you are a lurker, or stumbling across is for the first time, please please leave a comment!

So, what we have to give away is... 

A bookmark! Seems like an appropriate prize as most of the posts on this blog are either about reading or crafts - this combines the two! The material is part of the stash that we got from the knitting and stitching show, and although it's very simple, it looks quite sweet (I hope!)

To be in for a chance to win, please leave a comment on this page and we'll choose at random the winner! If you aren't someone we know in person (if there are any) then please leave your email address so we can contact you. We'll send it to you, wherever you are, whatever country!

Please help us celebrate our blog birthday!

Good luck!

Xx

Knitting and Stitching Show 2014

Following a few years of indecisiveness, E and A were finally brave enough to visit the knitting and stitching show! It was held in Olympia this year and the huge venue was jam packed!

We saw...

Quilts...

Beautiful fabric...

Buttons...

More quilts...

Blue fabric, specially for A...

More quilts (I love this one)...

Ribbons...

More buttons...

And lots more besides!

The booking system wasn't great, so we didn't get to the workshop we'd originally intended, but we did one workshop at a stall, and one that we managed to book on the day. So, after our first peruse around the place, we settled at a stand to do some decoupage. (Side note: not entirely sure what decoupage has to do with knitting or stitching, but never mind.) A chose a star to decorate and E worked on a coaster. It's surprisingly easy - A decided that this was her type of craft - fast, inexact and using lots of glue! (Actually, she was instructed to use less! But A's conviction is that PVA sticks the world together, and that hasn't changed.) want to see?

Our second workshop was very different. Sarah is part of a movement called craftivism and we spent a quiet hour stitching mini protest banners. A noticed that the slow process of stitching letters made the meaning of the words really sunk in a different way. More on this later, and the movement of craftivism, later. 

And, of course they did some shopping! 

Good haul, eh? Most of the things here have destinations in mind, so watch this space for more crafty activities...

This is also our one blog-aversary today! Our little blog is one year old today! Wow. So, as a celebration of our birthday, if you are reading this please, please leave a comment so we can say hello. I hope people have seen a little of our CCC life.

Xx

What an ipad really needs

Is of course a beautiful case.

As you may have noticed, the inhabitants of 2CC are recently into sewing. We are generally keen on making, (against the universal trend, I found myself hearing from the Prof of Making at UCL on Material World the other night).

My lovely iPad's lovely jacket started life as a shirt:

another shirt that I don't have a picture of, and to tart it up, a gold shawl found in a charity shop that cost £4 for one by one point four metres of glistening gold silk. No, I don't suppose it really is silk at all, but something synthetic. 

When initially cut up they looked like this:

and then this:

There is a wonderful website called the Missouri Quilt Company, where a very enthusiastic lady with a lovely accent, (very American but pronounces her T's as T's, so I imagine this to be a Missouri way of speaking), shows ways of putting bits of material together so they look better than they started. 

Following her directions, we then got to this:

The poor ipad has been living in a Jiffy bag for the last few months, and I thought it would miss this, so I opened the bag out and quilted the patchwork to one side, and the pocket part of the shirt to the other:

Finally, E brought back an excellent earthenware button, almost willow pattern, from the Kitting and 

Stitching Show at Olympia yesterday:

and look how well they go together:

What do you think?

Sleepytime Blanket for Baby J

After finishing baby A's blanket I was rearing to make another one, this time for a friend of mine who gave birth at the beginning of March in Northern Ireland. It was rather a hard labour, but both mummy T and baby J are well and healthy.

We knew he was going to be a boy, so I decided to go down the very traditional route and make a blue themed blanket. I also used quite stiff backing, so it is more like a play mat than a blanket, although it can be used for either.

I was really inspired by some wonderful fabric from Plush Addict.

Isn't it amazing? I LOVE the little deer and the bees, although the second fabric up from the bottom was a bit weird. I didn't use that one. The rest was going to be scraps, so I drew out a rough plan for how I wanted it to look.

Some scraps were left over from baby A's blanket, some were from Coombe Cottage's material box, and some were from some charity shop clothes. They made a really nice selection of mostly boyish colours.

First I made the diagonal patterns. Each diamond was a quarter of a charm pack size (I'm learning the lingo!) Charm packs are 5 by 5 inches, so my quarter squares were 2.5 by 2.5 inches. Obviously this includes the includes seam allowances, so in the finished project they are smaller than this.

Here is me laying out the squares:

The green colours from my leftover fabric really add a nice element. I'm very into blue so I was worried they'd be too dull and spoil it, but it all worked out fine.

Then Tilly and I stitched them together in diagonal rows, like this;

Coming together, isn't it? This is always the exciting part of a project, when what's in your head begins to take shape. I made another panel the same, and then cut out the larger panels, tacking them together.

Isn't the 'Bambi' fabric wonderful? I love it! And i still have quite a lot left over... More projects to come, no doubt!

Then I pinned it to the backing - I used a wadding that had material on one side, which is easier to do, but the finished item won't be as pliable. Here it is pinned:

I know that it's a bit lopsided and everything, but I think the overall effect is okay. THEN, it was time to sew it together and to do the quilting! I did 'real' quilting this time- basically just sewed all of the diagonal lines to make sure thquilting didn't slip. Tilly struggled a bit getting through the quite thick layer of fabric (she's only little after all!) but we managed.

Do you want to see the finished product? Here goes...

TA DA! Yes, it still looks lopsided, but it is handmade after all.

With my Brave Little Bird label all stitched in.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with it, despite all its imperfections. And I think that Baby J likes it too:

He's only two weeks old - look how big he is! And how beautiful! Wishing Mummy T and Baby J all the love in the world

Hope you've enjoyed my blanket too, dear readers. Leave a comment if you want to.

Xx

Sewing Adventures: A Tote Bag

Do you all remember my sewing machine? Here she is:

She has now been christened Tilly, short for Mathilda. (I'm not sure why this is her name, it just worked out that way!) So, the other part of my rather wonderful Christmas present this year was a course at Beckenham Crafty Bees on learning to use your machine, and to make a tote bag in an afternoon! I actually made the blanket for baby A before the course, so I already knew the ropes, but the pattern for the tote bag was very satisfying and we also learnt about proper seam allowances and clever things like that.

We started with the lining and the moved onto the outer layer. It has a pocket and everything! It was a really well run session - a good balance of assistance and doing things yourself, and we got to keep the pattern at the end so I can recreate as many bags as I like. The most exciting part was turning it inside out. Want to see?

Tada!

(Sorry for the poor photos.) It's taken me a long time to write this one up, but I had to wait until after Little M's birthday as this was her present. So now Tilly's little creation is many miles away as Little M is in Czech-land. Very exciting!

Stay tuned for more adventures with Tilly and lots more books!

I can't give out the pattern here, as it belongs to Beckenham Crafty bees but here is their website - they offer lots of different sewing and other arty courses.

xx