Hello ..................

It is a long, long time since I last blogged and sometimes life in general takes precedence over creativity (and blogging) but here is what I have been doing so far this year .................

Between Christmas & New Year I made myself a bag. It was ok but not being terribly familiar with the particular style of patchwork used, placement of the pieces could have been better (discovered when it was too late to do anything about it). However, having seen mine, a friend asked if I could make her one. Using the pattern from Easy Japanese Quilt Style I changed the placement of the ties a little, added an extra set (obscured by the photo) to enable the bag to be tied in different ways and inserted an internal zipped pocket



I was also asked if I could make a "pinky" backpack for said friend's toddler grandchild. Hmmmm, the nearest quilting shop had no kiddy/girly fabrics in pink so I selected a range of fabric that I thought I could put together without looking too grannyish and together with the plain dark pink in my box at home am rather pleased with the result ................

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Not actually knowing the child, I wanted to be sure the size and practicality would be about right so searched the net for something modelled on a real child and found this pattern to which I added a lining (made as a separate "bag" then stitched in) and velcro fastening.

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And we now have another little patchwork pig ....................

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I hope to catch up properly with reading all my favourite blogs and get working on one of my own designs which I have been playing around with the last couple of days.

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Wishing everybody a happy, healthy and creative 2010

More Texture

Continuing with my textural cushions theme, I've achieved the effecct I wanted but it's scruffy! After 3 or 4 stitches, the fabric starts to twist and fold haphazardly under the stitching and it's noticeable. Does it matter? Controlled scruffiness it ok but I don't think I can do scruffy! Perhaps a more loosely woven fabric would be better?


To get away from stressing over that, I decided to do something "quick & easy" from my scrapbag. I found the pattern for the pig here

It wasn't particulary easy - I had some trouble matching up the gusset to the body parts due to the darts at the tops of the legs - nor was it very quick but that was me! Personally, I would prefer a more elongated body for a pig and the ears could do with folding forwards a bit - they're a bit long aren't they? I widened the ears in the pattern to make turning easier and folded them in a bit when stitching to the body.

In answer to Chris's comment, I don't have a very large stash of fabrics but what I do have is mostly bright .........