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…)!

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.

Appliqué, Patchwork & Button Cushion

After getting a bit punch-happy with my new Cath Kidston Button Factory, I’ve found myself with a china saucer full of colourful buttons and nothing to do with them. My favourite things to sew and make are cushions, so it seems only right that I make another, this time in bedroom colours and this time adorned with my floral button-haul.

The pattern I use to make my cushions is from the Cath Kidston Sew! book – the best sewing book I’ve ever bought, with easy to follow patterns and lovely pictures. It’s a simple square cushion pattern that has two panels of fabric on the back and three (or more – I’ve used 5) panels on the front.

Our bedroom is styled in teal blue and biscuit (not beige!) colours, so I went down to the Remnant House in Harrogate and bought myself some fat quarters in complementing hues. I picked three different – but matching – patterns, as I like to mix the cushion panels up a bit and go for a more patchwork-looking effect.

After sewing all the bits of fabric together according to the pattern (which I now know by heart I’ve done it that many times), I appliquéd some matching hearts onto the front, selected my handmade Cath Kidston buttons and carefully pinned a refined amount onto the front of the cushion in an agreeable arrangement. I love the finished result and it will look great in the bedroom!

I also got a bit bored and made this little stuffed, fabric heart to hang on my bedside table too. The butterfly is from an old necklace that I dismantled and safety pinned onto the ribbon. It was so quick to do, I might make one for every drawer handle!

Buttons!

It’s one of those days after Christmas where there isn’t really much to do other than spread out all your presents on the floor and look over them one-by-one. I’ve got the day off work and, because I’ve not done anything crafty since before Christmas, I decided to try something new. I made a few Christmas crafts for presents over the holidays but can’t blog about those yet because not everyone has received their gifts!

The ‘something new’ that I chose was button making. For my birthday 3 weeks ago my (favourite) Auntie bought me the Cath Kidston Button Factory, filled with Cath Kidston fabric, metal buttons and a button punch.

This box is great and the buttons are super easy to make. All you do is cut a circle of fabric, place it in the punch alongside a metal button and push down as hard as you can to seal it all together. Admittedly I’m not that strong so I had to have a bit of help from the hammer, but this little craft is the quickest thing I’ve ever done. Within seconds I already had 3, finished, Cath Kidston buttons to sew onto my cushions. Amazing!

Learning How to Knit

Knitting. Although it’s something incredibly crafty, looks remarkably like the word ‘kitten’ and is something that (clearly) has my name written all over it, knitting is just something that I’ve never got round to adding to my creative repertoire. Until now.

Last weekend I was very kindly given the Cath Kidston Knitting Book as a thank you present. Inside are 6 balls of Cath Kidston 2-ply wool in various twee colours, 2 metallic red 4.00mm knitting needles, a pattern to make a striped scarf and an instruction booklet. So far so good.

I sat myself down, selected my first wool colour and opened the instruction booklet. Enter problem number one. The picture here shows what the contents of this booklet look like. The instructions basically read ‘wrap the wool around your needle, push the needle through, create a loop and voila, a scarf’. As you can imagine, this is not very helpful.

The picture instructions remind me a bit of origami diagrams – a series of hand-drawn, 2d images with approximately 75% of the stages missed out. In fact, I got so confused I had to resort to looking on YouTube. The video I found shows you (slowly and simply) how to cast on stitches and soon had me on my way. Click here to see it!
Once I’d figured out how to cast on stitches, I consulted the scarf pattern. The pattern tells you to cast on the incredulous amount of 180 stitches which, for a beginner, is a fair few to stack up on your needle. Once you get a rhythm going it becomes much easier and you’ll soon find that you’re casting on stitches without even looking (a superpower I thought only my Grandma had).

Another thing to keep in mind when casting on is the tension. Not the tension in the atmosphere as you avidly wait for the scarf to knit itself, but the tension of the wool. As you cast on each stitch you need to tighten it so that they all look the same and you don’t end up with a scarf (or toy snake) that’s loopy at one end and tight-knit at the other. You’ll need to maintain the same tension as you continue to knit too.

Overall, this is a lovely little kit for a first timer like me (despite the confusing instructions). Subscribe to my blog to make sure you don’t miss my updates on this project!

Euphoric///Heartbreak\\\&Lavender

These past few weeks have been pretty chaotic – and with chaos comes little spare time to devote to my sewing! I’ve had spare hours (sometimes just minutes) here and there, but never enough to time to begin something PROPER; a REAL pattern, that takes a DAY or even a WEEK to complete. No. Instead I’ve turned my hand towards making some adorable little lavender bags to hang on door handles, coat hangers, or stuff in drawers. These add an instant homely feeling to any room, and luckily for me, only take about an hour to create.

The one I started with is a simple heart shape (traced from the pattern found in Cath Kidston’s book) in an ADORABLE Jemima Puddle Duck fabric I found at my local material shop, and took me about 2 minutes to sew all the way around the edge. I often struggle with rounded edges, and get pointy bits in the wrong places, but my new sewing machine took it in it’s stride and produced something quite wonderful.

I attached a ribbon to hang it up with using a little white and gold button (adding extra cuteness). I then turned it right way round, stuffed it half with toy stuffing and half with dried lavender, and then slip-stitched the opening at the bottom.

On a side note – who knew it’d be so difficult to get hold of dry lavender? No where in town seems to stock it, or have any idea where I could find it. In the end I ordered it from a seller on eBay (and am surprisingly pleased with the result!). I now have enough lavender to make at least another 8… bring on those summer birthdays!

Photoshop Hands-ome

My grandad heard on the grapevine that I had made my sister some oven gloves for university, and so put in an order for a pair right away!

I used the same pattern out of Cath Kidston’s Sew! book (where else?) and found them a lot easier to make second time round. I used a vintage blue floral cotton for the main glove, with batting in between to absorb the heat from the oven. The binding around the edge is cream cotton that I meticulously pressed into long straight pieces and then stitched all the way around on both sides. It took forever, I really should buy some more bias binding at some point. I also put a little hook at the mid-point so he can hang them up when not in use.

On a seperate note – I bought the latest issue of Cross Stitcher magazine (April 2011) this week and can’t wait to make some little monster emblems I spotted. Watch this space!

Needles and Pins

Today’s project was another pattern out of my Cath Kidston Sew! book – a lovely little needle case. I’ve started to discover that sewing needles don’t like to stay in the tray I keep them in, and tend to embed themselves in the carpet instead; not the best place to store them when there are cats roaming the house.

This pattern was very quick and easy to do. The main case and closing tab are some floral cotton folded around pieces of cardboard. I attached a press stud for the closure. Inside are 3 pieces of felt in contrasting colours, which I simply stitched down the middle with a running stitch and then (ahem) stuck into the case with double sided tape. The pattern called for bondaweb but I’ve yet to purchase any! The overall result still looks cute though, no?

Queen of the Cushion Age

Sometime I surprise myself by how amazingly creative I actually am. This is one of those moments. I was in Debenhams with my mum earlier on today, and spotted loads of colourful Union Jack cushions, ranging in price from about £25 to £65. Surely I could make something similar without such a hefty price tag?

Once home I rummaged through Grandma’s Box of Donated Material Scraps and picked out a few florals, pinks and blues that went together nicely. I mostly (make that entirely) improvised on the Union Jack pattern – I simply cut lots of long pieces of fabric, pressed the edges, and then did a long running stitch down the middle to attach them to the background floral material. On the blue pieces running vertically/horizontally I used a zig-zag stitch to make the cushion look even more exotic, and then added a strip of purple ribbon in each direction.

The back of the cushion is a plain, baby pink cotton, and the pattern comes from my Cath Kidston Sew! book which I adapted slightly for my own design. I think it took me about 3.5 hours altogether. Let the bidding commence!

All You Need Is…Glove?

My little baby sister is starting University at the weekend, so I decided to make something to send her off with. Oven gloves were obviously the first thing that sprung to mind, so that’s what I went with.

The pattern came out of the Cath Kidston Sew! book, and was very simple to follow. The gloves are made up of 2 long pieces of fabric, 2 short pieces for the mitts, and then corresponding pieces in wadding. It’s made up a bit like a fabric sandwich – a layer of floral, a layer of wadding, another layer of floral. I used blue bias binding around the edges (kindly donated by my grandma, and thank goodness for it because I didn’t actual know what bias binding was before now!).

The sewing was simple and just required a long straight line all the way around the edge on both sides. As can be seen by the photo, I had a few issues with catching material in around the curved corners, but it’s not too noticeable. Plus when was the last time you bought anything from a shop that was perfectly made?

The oven gloves are yet to be tested out, but my sister seems very pleased with them. Fab.