Blankets for the Homeless

A friend of mine coordinates a project to provide blankets to the homeless or those staying in shelters. She recently put out a plea to get more squares knitted or crocheted, these could be in any yarn and just needed to be 6 x 6 inches in size. I was happy to oblige and raided my cupboard for all left overs that I had and began to crochet. I still have not mastered the art of being able to do a decent granny square so stuck to a simple double crochet stitch.  It was satisfying and quite quick to produce a handful for her although I was struggling to get them to be exactly 6 inches. hopefully she will have other odd sizes she can use up at some point.

This has been a great in car project when I am waiting around for the school pick up, much better than my usual routine of endless checking of e-mails and social networks!

Thought this year I would also keep track of how much I do as a bit of internal competition, I am counting at the point at which I pass things to Mrs BFTH. So far I am up to 4 blankets edged and 13 squares. My crochet techniques has improved quite a bit since I started doing this, the squares are so small that you can finish one and then try a new technique out on the next. I have just started to crochet in my starting ends as I go which saves on having to stitch them in later. 

Here is hopefully a link to the Facebook page and the website that is in the process of being built:

https://www.facebook.com/blanketsforthehomelesspeople/

http://blanketforthehomeless.weebly.com/

Enjoy 😀

Crochet Jumper

See, I knew if I wrote a list of my outstanding projects I may actually finish one and it worked!  Over the last couple of days I have finally finished my first crochet jumper.....and possibly my last :(

If I saw this jumper in a shop I would not give it a second glance, if I actually tried it on I would never buy it as it is so poorly fitting and yet this is what I have ended up with.


I used a pattern from the book "Crochet in no time" by Melody Griffiths, it was taken me a couple of years complete.  The pattern was the Frill-Edged Sweater.  I used SMC Select Brioletto yarn in burgandy which was a blend of Wool (60%) and Polyester (40%). It wasn't quite the same as what the pattern asked for but close enough.

Unfortunately I had really poor tension and was utterly rubbish at following a pattern so the jumper looks nothing like it is meant to, the neck is too big, the jumper too wide and the length not long enough.  All that combined with ridiculously shaped sleeves and the jumper is barely wearable.

I say barely wearable as despite all its faults I have put too much into this jumper not to use it so it will be my slop around the house sweater.

Quilt number 11 - Triangles

This quilt was for a colleague at work who had just had a baby.  I kept the cutting simple by using triangles, I made 6 1/2 inch squares (conveniently the width of my large ruler) and then cut them diagonally.

The fabric had to be gender neutral as as I didn't know the sex of the baby before it was born and wanted to get a head start on making it, not that is made much difference to the finishing time as it was still only completed a couple of months after the birth!

The printed fabric is from Lewis and Irenes's spring 2015 collection "Safari". I added solids of green and yellow with some makower spraytime which is my go to fabric when I need a plain fabric but want it to be just a little more interesting. It ended up being quite a low density quilt but hopefully that will be mice a soothing for the baby.

I struggled for a little while to get happy with the layout of the pieces as I was making it up as I went along but also had directional fabric.

I also added a strip of patchwork to the back as I had some squares left over. To speed up the quilting I machine quilted it in a meandering free motion style and then used did some in the ditch quilting for the first time round the border using my special foot.

Reverse of the quilt

In the ditch quilting

Table mats and table runner

This has been made for a gift for a house we are staying at in the summer in Ibiza.  Ibiza has lots of gifts with lizards on them as they can be found all over the place so I wanted to find some fabric with them one. I finally tracked down this one by Robert Kaufman and so promptly order a couple of metres of it.

I kept the design of the mats simple and could make several at a time just by cutting the dimensions across the widths of the fabrics, then piecing and cutting again.  I needed to be sure that I could get this done in time for the holiday!

Having recently been on a free motion quilting course at Hometown in Rochester I was also keen to try out some of the techniques shown, hence the row of hearts down the strips.

Crochet baby blanket

I had started this blanket when my sister was expecting a child but sadly my crochet skills were not really that great so it was left and occasionally worked on and then got stuffed to the back of the cupboard for several years, during which time the child grew up and at the time I completed it was 6 years old and I had not got enough yarn to make it a larger quilt.


I wanted my first blanket to be a traditional granny square pattern and learnt how to crochet them on a course at hometown. When I came to do it at home I soon became frustrated with continually having to change my yarn so decided that one granny square would be plenty to make an accent square (oh yes, I know that is cheating!)

I decided to use the opportunity to try out squares in several different stitches to add variety to the project and managed one more patterned square by using stripes. The yarn I used was a selection of cotton dk by Debbie Bliss, colour, 13002, 13039,13009, 13038 and crocheted using a 4mm hook.
















Once I had completed all the squares I played around with the layout on the floor in a similar way I would do with my quilt blocks before deciding on the final layout. Once decided I took a picture of it on my phone so I didn't need to number the squares and had a quick reference:









 I then crocheted it all together giving a border of a row of double crochet.  I finished it with a scalloped edge which is really quite simple but helps to bring the blanket together.

The finished item was then going to be given to my newest nephew but my son has decided that it would be his cuddle blanket while watching television.

Beach Bag

This project was started out of frustration knowing we are going on holiday in the summer and I rarely have space for anything in my bag by the time I have tried to get in towels and swimmers for all the family so I designed this bag to be larger that the average tote and have a strap that could fit comfortably over my shoulder.

Being a bag I wanted to use fabric that was thicker than normal quilters cotton and had some gorgeous fabric left over from when I made the curtains for our dining room (I ended up loving the fabric so much that we did curtains for the lounge in the same range but different colours). The fabric was from John Lewis but is made by Malabar Fabrics and is from their Chimichanga collection

I added a pocket on the outside which I stitched across part way down so that I wouldn't be stuffing it too full of rubbish and lined the bag using a curtain lining fabric. The straps to the bag are stronger than they look as I used webbed polypropylene strapping inside the lining fabric, see the link below for this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ES15J76?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

Once I had thought I had finished the bag I found I wasn't particularly pleased with the way it hung so I got some sew in magnetic bag fasteners see the link here to the ones I used:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00O0WJRR6?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

I added one to each side to bring it in slightly so it didn't gape as much and then one in the middle so it would hold it together.

I am really pleased with the way it turned out, the only slight change I would make would be to use an interfacing on the outer fabric to give it slightly more structure.

World Book Day 2015 - Gingerbread man and Peter Pan

This year the school decided that they wanted to stick to a theme of fairy tales for world book day, I was rather hoping my youngest would like the gingerbread man idea but no, he is not big on dressing up but I was glad my daughter loved the suggestion.

Gingerbread man

I attempted to make the rough pattern/sizing by having my daughter lie on a long rolled out piece of paper but drawing round her was tricky and it wasn't that successful, although I did refer to it occasionally for rough measurements when she was in bed.

 Given she had to wear the outfit all day at school  I wanted to make it easy for her to work so parts of the outfit were detachable - the head was attached with velcro and the hands were a basic mitten shape that I made a little long so that they didn't have to join the sleeve.

The fabric was thin fleece which gave some texture to the outfit and didn't fray.  I couldn't believe it when I found some large ric rac in Hometown in Rochester, it was perfect for the embellishments. My daughter wanted the look of it to be similar to the gingerbread man in Shrek so we roughly followed the colours for the face. The facial features were made from felt with the mouth aligned with her eyes for her to see through. I did cover the mouth opening with some pink netting to keep as much of her hidden as possible.

The head also had a large cardboard cut out inside to get it to stay up, I had started by putting boning round the outside but this wasn't sufficient.

There were some last minute messy alterations to the arms so that she could move freely and that was it.  It wasn't the neatest of sewing but it was effective.

Peter Pan

This outfit was so simple to make - but I did ensure I made it before the gingerbread man as I could see myself not getting round to it with all the sewing on the other outfit. The top was a basic t shirt shape, loose fitting with a belt round it to hitch it up, trousers I sort of made the pattern up using another pair of his but I didn't make the seat long enough so they did slip a bit when he sat down.  The hat was trial and error!

The descriptions for both outfits are not great, when I sew for costumes I know that I am never going to be making the same thing again so don't keep track of what I do, in addition I am always running late getting them done so barely stop for photos either!

Children's bum bag, fanny pack or whatever you would like to call it!

This was a weekend sewing project following notification from my son's school that all that children who need certain medicines (inhalers or insulin) should keep it on them at all times and the suggestion was a bum bag.  In order to make it more appealing to wear I took my son to my favourite fabric store, Hometown in Rochester, to allow him to pick out his fabric and with a little guidance to steer away from large prints and light prints he settled on the robots, Makower Fabrics Robots Dark Little Monsters Collection.

The pattern I used was one I found on pinterest from daisyjanie below:

http://daisyjanie.typepad.com/daisyjanie/2011/06/hip-pouch-sew-along-supplies-list.html

The things I would note about this pattern:

1) It does mention using canvas as the lining fabric, I didn't have any so used cotton with interfacing on my lining.

2) It is quite a small bag, I have included a photo with my rotary cutter on it so you can get an idea of size. For me it was nice that it wasn't too big for my son, being only 6 but it only just fitted the medication he needed.

I used some polka dot lining from my stash that my mother-in-law had got from India.

DaisyJanie had included some printable pattern pieces which were very helpful to use.

The pattern gives the option of using either a webbing waist band or making it out of the fabric, I chose to use the fabric made one - hopefully it will withstand the daily use of my son.

Despite my best efforts to get the robots to stand the correct way up on the waist band I lined them up on the backing fabric when attaching them forgetting that I should have really lined them up with the front panel! Sadly I only realised this late in the day when I had lost the will to unpick.

However I did need to unpick parts later as you can see when layering up the pouch to stitch it all together I had forgotten to tuck the straps inside first. Very annoying but I was on a mission to complete it.

Daisy Janie gave thorough instructions with lots of photos, I would be willing to follow another pattern again.

It would be good to see if the pattern could be enlarged easily as I do feel this could be slightly too small for general adult usage.

Anyway, take a look at the finished article below, I hope you like it :)

Drawstring bag - take two!

You may have seen my previous post about a drawstring bag I have made (see here http://jayaquiltsandcrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/drawstring-bag.html , I liked it so much that I made another as a gift bag for some presents that we were leaving for a lovely little girl whose house we stayed in while on holiday.  The pattern was based on the one from this blog: http://www.incolororder.com/2011/10/lined-drawstring-bag-tutorial.html

I found some great "london" themed fabric, London Buildings fabric by Makower, for the bag that coordinated really well with some fabric I found in my stash. I adapted the pattern that I used before (but also made a slight error in my calculations that I had to rectify as I putting it together. But in the end I was pleased with how it turned out.

This time I made the drawstring out of the fabric too and much preferred it to the ribbons that I had used on the previous one.