I made a top...that I can actually wear!!

After the great trouser disaster my confidence took a bit of a knock but I didn't want to give up on clothes. Not being one to shy away from a challenge I wanted to try something a bit more adventurous. I had found some beautiful butterfly print fabric in the sale at Always Knitting & Sewing and had gotten the pattern free with one of the many sewing magazines I am obsessed with buying. It is a fairly simple style shell top with interfacing on the inside. The first step was to cut out the pattern and transfer it to the fabric. The patterns always come with a range of sizes and styles so this bit needs a bit of concentration. I definitely need to work on my attention to detail when it comes to cutting the fabric, if you aren't precise with this step, it will drastically effect the finished item. 

Sewing the fabric pieces together involved a whole lot of concentration and I ended up googling some things that I had never heard of before. I taught myself some new skills along the way including staystitching, darts, clipping curves and understitching. The internet is a really great resource for this sort of thing and there is always a friendly blogger out there waiting to help. 

Just as I thought I was getting somewhere I realised that I had stitched both armholes the wrong way round so my trusty stitch un-picker came out again. Perseverance won through on this project and the minute I finished the hem I let out a little squeal of excitement. I had made a top...but was it wearable? 

I rushed upstairs to try it on and couldn't wipe the grin off my face when it fit and actually looked pretty good. I was so proud to have produced something that I could wear out of the house, that looked pretty great and that I had made by teaching myself. It got its debut at work the very next day! 

The great trouser disaster

When I first got my sewing machine I had brought some remnant fabric really cheap and wanted to use it for something. I found a pattern online for some casual lounging trousers and thought the dark grey jersey fabric would be perfect for them. 

The pattern gave specific instructions for the waist measurement on the trousers but I couldn't get my head around why the waist needed to be so wide so I might had fudged it a bit....surely it wouldn't matter right? Well yes, it mattered quite a lot actually, more about that later.

So the trouser pattern basically involved 2 front legs and 2 back legs and the first step was to sew each front and back together at the side seams. In my defence, I was pretty tired by this point and I managed to sew two trouser fronts as one leg and two trouser backs as another. By the time I realised my mistake it was too late, the damage had been done I had a pair of trousers that were too tight around the waist and that had one leg wider than the other 😂😂 

Thankfully I saw the funny side of it and after sharing a few photos and laughs, I put them aside and moved on to the next project. 

My first baby gift

As soon as I heard that my beautiful cousin was expecting a baby I knew i wanted to make something special. I decided on a quilt as it is something that can be used in so many ways and that can last forever. I wanted to focus on getting better at simple patchwork and knowing she was expecting a baby boy I found this gorgeous fabric bundle at Always Knitting and Sewing 

I loved the giraffe print so ordered some extra of this to really make it the feature of the quilt. 

As it was for a baby I decided to go with smaller size than my previous quilts and managed to pull this together in a weekend. I layered it with a medium wadding, backed it with a matching lemon fabric and finished with a lemon bias binding edging. 

This has a lot less mistakes than my earlier efforts and I am really pleased with how lovely it is. The Mum-to-be loved it too so a job well done! 

A grown up project

Having (semi) mastered the cape I wanted to challenge myself a bit more. On my trip to Eastleigh Sewing Centre I purchased a jelly roll to make a quilt for myself. This one was going to be bigger, more grown up and involve a bit more thought and planning. 

Instead of sewing the strips in a long line, like I had with my nieces quilt, I cut them into smaller strips and made squares of 3 strips. Once I had all of the squares I spent some time working out how I wanted them to sit together in the quilt. Had I been a bit braver I would have thought about using boarders within the quilt, but I decided to just to do straight patchwork.

When I finished sewing the squares together, the quilt wasn't quite as big as I had wanted it. As a beginner, I am still getting my head around how much fabric I need for things, especially things that I am not following a pattern for. There are lots of good books and web articles out there to help with this though. 

The finished quilt top was beautiful and I decided that I would put a thick edge around the outside in order to boost the size a bit. I had some cream fabric and some pink which I had used to create a few extra squares within the quilt, but I didn't have enough of either one to do the whole boarder, so I went with two sides pink and two in cream. I think it gives it a little something special.

As this was a bigger quilt, the quilting aspect of it was hard work. When you are quilting down the quilt, you end up having to roll up as you go and push the excess through the machine, in the gap to the right of the needle...which isn't very big. The cat also likes to "help" with my sewing, by sitting right in front of my machine 😃

I was more prepared to put some time into the edging of this quilt, I had learnt from my previous attempts and although there were still some mistakes, it looks a lot better. I even managed to get my head around how to do corners, which is harder than you might think! 

My finished quilt is beautiful and I absolutely adore it. It fits the bed, but it is mainly for curling up under on the sofa with a cup of tea.