The Finished Patchwork Knitting Bag

A while ago I wrote a post about the 120 hexagons of fabric and paper I was cutting out and stitching together in order to make a patchwork knitting bag. Now, a few weeks (alright, a few months) later, the end has been reached and I have one, completed knitting bag! Applaud if you will.

Once all the hexagons had been sewn by hand and in the right order – allow about 10 weeks for this -  the next job was to make the lining. As the external patchwork of the bag has more colours than a double rainbow, I decided to keep the inside simple and just use a plain, pink linen fabric. I also bought some round, plastic, wood-a-like handles from eBay that give the finished knitting bag a nice, homely touch and make it look more like the photo in the pattern!

Although I’ve been moaning about how difficult the hexagons are to sew together, it was actually the lining that proved to be the hardest part. The Cath Kidston knitting bag pattern is incredibly clear, with diagrams, right through all the patchwork-making stages. Once it’s time to cut, stitch and attach the lining, however, there are 2 bullet points, no pictures and the instructions may as well be in Russian. If you’re also stuck on this part, I recommend viewing this thread on the Sewing Forum which proved to be very useful.

And so, 12 weeks from the date of inception: my patchwork knitting bag is finished (and already full too…)!

Queen of Hearts

Never one to be sat doing nothing, probably for fear of wasting my life away or perhaps just as a nervous disposition, I always like to be looking for little projects to be getting on with. This includes knitting woolly hearts in those quiet moments at work and sticking lace to tea light holders just to pass 5 minutes on a lonely Saturday afternoon.

Anyway, one sunny evening this week I found myself in this exact predicament and so made this little string of felt hearts to hang on the living room door handle. I’d seen a similar project on Pinterest and, since I have recently bought myself a new pair of pinking shears from eBay, thought that this would be the perfect little project on which to test them out. And boy are they sharp.

I cut out 10 hearts in 5 different colours of felt, put two of them back-to-back and stitched around the edges with matching embroidery thread. I left a gap on one side of each heart so I could stuff it with wadding and make it a bit more 3D. I also left a string of embroidery thread at the point of each heart so that I could string them all together later on.

When stringing the felt hearts together I chose to thread a few heart-shaped beads out of my craft box onto the embroidery thread and at the end of the bottom heart to give it a bit more weight.

What do you think? This is a very easy craft to do and is great for using up scraps of felt. I’m considering making several more to hang on all the other door handles around the house! Perhaps I should try a different shape next time?

Lace Tea Light Holders

I never used to be a fan of candles until we bought our house yet, since then, they’ve become almost a necessity for the coffee table. I started to those buy candles that come in glass holders – you know, the Glade or Airwick varieties – and have since found myself with a rapidly-growing collection of nicely-shaped, glass jars that I just can’t bear to throw out. For now they’re on top of the bookcase with a tea light in each one, yet I can’t help but think these little glass votive holders have the potential to be so much more….

The solution? Head to Pinterest and see what everyone else is doing, of course! The result was lots of photographs of candle holders covered in lace – black lace and white lace – for wedding table decorations and for around the home. I have a whole box full of lace on my craft shelf. This is easy!

All I did was cut my piece of lace to size, attached a small amount of double-sided tape to the back of the glass, wrapped the lace around and fixed it in place. I also put some little glass beads in the bottom of some of the candle holders to give them an extra bit of sparkle when the candle is lit.

I think this craft took me the whole of 5 minutes and the finished product looks so much better than just plain  glass- I can’t wait to see what they look like in the dark!

Little Birdy Tote Bag

For the entirety of my adult life I’ve carted books, shopping and lunch around in a River Island tote bag that I think I’ve owned since time began. It’s made of cream cotton and has a print of a Singer sewing machine on the front. I love it, but being the colour and material it is, it’s just not cut out for surviving muddy puddles and rainy days (as are so common in this country).

This week, therefore, I bought some colourful, waterproof, wipe-clean, bird-print, ripstop fabric on eBay (you know, that vinyl-like material you have on the art table at primary school) which I decided, unlike the cream cotton, would be the perfect fabric for an everyday tote bag.

The pattern I used was one that I made up and is really very easy. I cut two rectangles (13.5″ x 11.5′) for the main bag and two long strips (20″ x 4″) for the handles.

To make the handles, I folded each long side of the strip into the centre and sewed them in place. I then folded the strip in half lengthways so all the rough edges were hidden and sewed all the way along the long edge.

For the main bag, I started by making a hem along one short edge of each bag piece and attached the handles 4″ in from each end using the zig-zag stitch on my machine. This was repeated for each end of both handles. Finally, I put the two bag pieces right sides together, stitched all around the edge and turned it right way round.

The project probably took me an hour in all and has left me with a unique, waterproof tote bag that I can take with me to work everyday. It’s much better than pay £15+ for a patterned one in the shops and is much more personal. Try it yourself!

Hexagonal Patchwork

I’m starting to think that I may as well change my name to Cath Kidston, as here is yet another sewing pattern of hers that I’ve decide to make. This one is perhaps more time-consuming than the rest but the end result is something that I’m sure to be proud of for years to come. After all, one of my most amazing friends bought me an Emma Bridgewater tin containing an abundance of fat quarters in beautiful, co-ordinating fabrics for my birthday, so it’d be a disservice to her if I didn’t use them for something great.

The pattern I’ve chosen is to make a knitting bag with circular, wooden handles. It requires me to cut out 60 hexagons out of paper, 60 hexagons out of fabric and then stitch them all together in a lovely patchwork pattern. Easy!

Well, easy in theory. A week later and I’ve just finished baste-stitching my fabric hexagons to their paper counterparts. And that’s before I could even begin ordering and sewing them into any sort of honeycomb-style arrangement. If I was clever I might have cheated and bought my hexagons pre-cut on Etsy, but I am neither a trickster nor a rich kid, so laboriously cutting out my own was my only option.

I’ll post again once the polygons begin to look more like their intended end result… bear with me.

Battersea Cattery Kitty Cushions

Every year, Battersea’s cattery prepares itself for an influx of kittens as pregnant cats and unwanted kittens find their way into the charity’s care. This is clearly a big issue, and so the famous animal home has been asking for help from sewers in order to make comfy Kitty Cushions for their new residents to sleep on. I am both a cat-lover and a sewer, so if there was ever the ideal project for me, then this is it.

The pattern for the Kitty Cushions is incredibly simple and just requires three pieces of fabric, a layer of wadding and a piece of ribbon. There’s even a printable kitty emblem to appliqué onto the front if you wish (which you can print off by clicking here). For my cushion I used plain, cream cotton for the back and pieces of cream, brushed cotton and leopard print velour for the front (super cosy for a little kitten). I also used gold ribbon for the loop to hang it up.

To make the kitty cushion:

1. Sew together two pieces of fabric to make the cushion front so it measures 52 x 36cm plus seam allowance.
2. Press the central seam then iron on the kitty shape (if using).
3. Take the backing fabric and place with the front, right sides together. Pin the piece of ribbon at the top left hand side to be sewn into the seam. Sew round the cushion leaving a small gap at the bottom. Turn the cushion to the right side and press.
4.  Place the piece of wadding inside the cushion and sew the gap closed. Stitch a top stitch round the outside edge of the cushion, and stitch several vertical rows of running stitch to hold the wadding in place.

And, when you’ve finished, pop it in the post (or drop it off in person) with a little handwritten note addressed to:

Kitty Cushion Appeal,
Battersea Cats and Dogs Home
4 Battersea Park Road
London
SW8 4AA

Teacup Pincushion with Tutorial

Reblogged from Mrs M Makes:

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I needed a new pincushion, so I decided to make myself one. This is how to do it:

First of all you need a teacup. As you know, my favourite colour is purple:

A saucer is nice, but not essential.
It doesn't have to cost much. I got my cup and saucer from a charity shop for not much at all:

Read more… 290 more words

Want to make your own pin cushion? This design from Mrs M Makes is (I think) the best one I've seen yet. I made my own heart-shaped pin cushion a long time ago when I first started sewing, but after seeing this I think it's time for an upgrade!

My Patchwork Table Runner

This weekend I made a lovely, patchwork table runner for the dining table in our house. We often find ourselves with nowhere to put the plate of garlic bread, bottle of ketchup or dishes of fajita ingredients so a table runner was an absolute essential.

Our dining table is also solid oak and the last thing I want is a burnt-on ring from a hot plate that’ll remind us of that night we had coriander naan bread forever.

To make the table runner, I measured the length of my table and decided on a suitable width. I picked some colour co-ordinating fabrics (I went for neutral colours with a blue and pink tones) and then cut enough patchwork squares to fit the length of the table. I didn’t use a pattern for this, I just cut the fabric according to how much of it I had in the first place. I also quite like the way the squares are less regimented and are all different sizes instead.

I sewed them all together into a long strip, cut a long piece of neutral cream fabric for the backing, and then sewed both strips right sides together (leaving a gap at one end so I could turn it from being inside out into the right way round).

To prevent the table runner from simply looking like a giant pillowcase, I also quilted the fabric along each of the patchwork seams and did a border in blue cotton all the way around the edge. And that’s it! I think it looks pretty good – and it was much cheaper than buying one. Perhaps I should make a more festive table runner next so I can change with the seasons?

How To Make Your Own Christmas Stocking

This weekend I’ve been fairly busy preparing both house and soul for this year’s Christmas; my first Christmas in our new house. Handmade is the theme – I plan to stitch as much as I can so that when the big day arrives I can marvel at my greatness and have a range of items that I can use for years to come. I’ve also created a new Christmas category – click here to see it! It’s full of all my posts that feature Christmas crafts, including Christmas cards and decorations.

Whilst you’re busy clicking, if you could all just click here and vote for my blog too, that’d be great. You don’t need to fill anything out, just click!

Anyway – this weekend I was paid a visit from my uttermost favourite, crafty friend. She brought with her a plan to make Christmas stockings, sheets of colourful material and bags of sparkly felts and threads. We are one and the same.

Everything was laid out on my dining room table (and all over the floor) and we set to work creating our homemade Christmas stockings. First we drew the pattern on baking paper, traced it onto the outer fabric and lining fabric and cut it all out. I’ve used a mixture of green and red patterned and plain Christmas fabrics (all fat quarters). If you’re doing this yourself, you’ll need 4 stocking shapes altogether – 2 for the lining and 2 for the outside (2 fat quarters in all). I decided to do different patterns on the back and front and then plain inside and for the cuff.

Next we machine-stitched the pieces together as following the pattern (a very easy tutorial that my friend found online) and turned them right side out. At this stage, the lining is pushed down into the inside so that you can fold over the top of the stocking and create a contrasting colour cuff.

And then it was time to embellish. I chose to stitch a gold ribbon around the edge of the cuff, with a line of gold braid to cover the stitching at the top. I then sewed 10 little gold bells all the way around the ribbon so that the stockings sound just like Christmas with even the slightest movement (a foolproof plan to catch Santa in the act this year no doubt). I added a piece of gold rope to the side so that we can hang them up and again covered my stitching tracks, this time with a red bow. I even cut out our initials in felt and attached them alongside a Christmas-themed button just to make sure Santa knows he’s got the right house.

If you’re looking for something super-personalised this year, I suggest giving this idea a go. The pattern is very easy to follow, they don’t use a lot of material and then end result looks great!

6 months + 12€ = 1 finished quilt

And finally, 6 months after purchasing 12€ worth of fabric in Montmartre, Paris, I’m happy (and proud) to say that my patchwork blanket is complete!

The story goes like this: I was au-pairing in Paris from February to April and spent the majority of my free time visiting places around the city. I wrote a blog about everything I did, whether it be sitting in creperies on Easter Monday or shopping for Parisian vintage items in the Marais. My favourite place, however, is Montmartre and the Barbès Rochechouart arrondissements to the North of Paris. Full to capacity with craft shops, fabric markets and little boutiques selling more sequins, feathers and buttons than you can afford, it’s easy to see why I loved it.

On one particular day I invested in a handful of fat quarters in a mixture of pink, green and orange colours. It was spring at the time and the blossom around Paris was more than beautiful, so I assume this is what inspired me. I then spent the following week cutting each piece meticulously into rectangles (168 of them to be precise).

Once I returned home to the UK, I stitched all these rectangles into squares of 4, then rows of 6, and then into one enormous sheet of patchwork. I sewed a thin layer of wadding in the middle and covered the back with a big bit of thick green cotton material. The blanket was finished by hand-sewing the bias-binding all the way around the edge (the binding that I bought in Bazar de l’Hotel de Ville on their huge craft floor). There were 5 metres of edging in total so this bit took quite a lot of time and determination.

Anyway, 6 months, a house move and a new job later my patchwork blanket is done. And just in time for the British winter to begin.