More Cake!

 It was a cake week again!  This time the actual birthday was celebrated with an after school tea-party and jewellery making session (oh, and a bit of a play with the hens!).

Chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing, a palisade of chocolate finger biscuits, topped with chocolate buttons and lots of other chocolates across the top.....what can I say?  It was chocalicious!

I have to be honest, not a whole lot of sewing going on again.  Just these two little samples to check that this bird design and size would be suitable for a 'district craft day' - Brownies and Guides give so much to my girls that it would be hard to turn down an invitation to run a crafting activity as part of a full day of crafting early next month.

Now I need to start on cutting out the pairs of bird shapes - lots of them!  That way the girls will be able to concentrate on the sewing and decorating rather than the cutting, and I get to protect my favourite Gingher scissors!

Hope that you are enjoying some spring crafting too!

One hour and eleven minutes

 One hour and eleven minutes is all it took to turn this UFO into a quilt ready for the binding to be hand finished!

That's not long is it?  That was enough time to cut the backing / cut and sew a 'patchwork' wadding / baste the quilt layer (spray baste - love it!) / quilt it / cut the binding / sew the binding / sew the binding onto the front of the quilt.

It does make me wonder why it had stayed up on the area of fleece that I fondly call a design wall for nearly six months!  It did take me a little longer to actually finish the binding, but it's all completed (and labelled!) now.

I'm pleased that these left over blocks from a quilt made last year have made a nice little quilt - 24" x 36".  Thanks again to Anne Bebbington for the inspiration!

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 Time to press on with other projects.  I've got another 11 on my 'to do' list at the moment, and this one was quite high up the list, and should give me an easy finish.

That long standing favourite, a disappearing nine patch. 

I was slightly perplexed that when I laid it out on the floor, I could see that I wasn't laying it out quite how I'd seen it in my mind.....

Of course!  Once I rotated the paler blocks it all made much more sense.  These blocks are now stacked by the sewing machine waiting for me to sew them together. 

The trick will be to not leave the flimsy hanging around after that, but to get straight on with the quilting.  At about 56" square it will be quite an easy size to handle.  I also have the perfect backing for it, which is 60" wide on the bolt, so won't need any seams.  I've been a bit reckless and 'splashed the cash' on 18m of it - an IKEA print on 100% cotton at a bargain price.  Too hard to resist, when I know that I'm planning to make at least 12 'giveaway' quilts this year.

The hand sewing might be still in abeyance, but I'm enjoying some simple machining at least!

Swim, Cake, Swim!

OK, I confess, there hasn't been a whole lot of crafting going on this week (and at the risk of sounding dull; ouch!  my wrists, ouch!  The bracelets (see last post!) were tough on them!).

Instead I present to you the cake that even my husband said, tactfully of, "it's one of your simpler designs, isn't it?".

He's right.  It is a simple design, but with the main oven out of action, my mind on other things, and only limited use of my hands, simple had to be the way to go!

At least I've got nearly two weeks until DD1's actual birthday, so if I can come up with some inspiration I might try something fancier than a big slab!

Made with love, and to represent the fact that she was having a swimming party - that must count for something, right?!

Hope that you are having a good week for crafting and sewing.

Sweat shop?

 Not really a sweat shop, but deciding that I needed to make 18 personalised charm bracelets as party favours may not have been the wisest decision I've ever made.  Lets just say that I won't be doing much hand sewing this week whilst my hand and wrist joints recover!

Having said that, I am happy that the bracelets (with lots of water themed charms) are looking fab and will make a bunch of 11 year girls very happy!

The only sewing I've done is to make a few bags from Benta's excellent tutorial (thanks, Benta!). 

 

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Just two shown here, as the rest have already been gifted!

Hope you all had a lovely St David's Day, and have a lovely crafty week ahead.