Strandom - Block of the Month sneak preview!

Ah my poor blog... neglected like my diaries of old! Hopefully not any more though.  It's been a very busy few months here, as I'm sure it has been for most of you!  I've done two workshops at The Sew Room in Alford now, so I'm semi-officially a sewing tutor :) (More details and pics soon!) 

In summer holiday terms we've been to John O'Groats and back, Dunrobin Castle (after 5 years of nearly getting there!) and a lovely wedding of dear friends of ours.

This is a sneak preview (you saw it here first!) of a Block of the Month sampler quilt series we're hoping to start very soon at The Sew Room.  I decided to play with solids for a change, which is quite fun :)

Kathelle x

Nursery for two! Decorating for a boy and a girl - Part 2 - DJ's side (Magazine Collage Tutorial)

DJ's side of the room really suits him now.  We put up Mr P.'s tool clock and two collage canvases which we made ourselves.  (I know it looks a wee bit bare at the bottom but it is deliberate so that he can't touch them!)

The first canvas has quite a story to it.  Mr P. loves his Land Rovers.  He used to have heaps of magazines, but one day decided to have a clear out.  At this point we were just going out, so he showed me his favourites he'd saved that Saturday morning when I went over to visit.  We eventually came up with the idea of making a collage on a canvas with them - rather than keeping them hidden in a folder or drawer.  Anyway, off we went for a spin to Haddo House, came back with a sparkly ring ;) and Hobbycraft was first on our list of places to go, haha!  With the canvas bought, we finished the collage that evening - so it's quite special to us both :) 

It's quite a deep canvas, so we found as many landscape images as we could in the magazines, cut them out and arranged them on the canvas so that there was enough to completely cover the sides - we probably had about 10 magazines to work with so there was plenty choice!  Some of Mr P.'s favourites were very carefully cut out to go over the landscapes to blend it together as one image.  For example, the one in the bottom right corner looks as if it's coming out of that valley, and the top right corner looks like it's going along that road, whereas it was actually us that put them there as a wee story :)  And to finish it off, we put a little Land Rover badge  in the top left corner :)  So after 3 years in 3 sitting rooms it moved into DJ's room, passed on to him!

To keep the Land Rovers company, and as this wee boy is fond of any vehicle that has wheels and an engine, we made a similar one with tractors!  Rather appropriate for here as a farming community, and this time it was DJs Great Auntie and Uncle who donated the magazines :)

This one took us much longer than the Land Rover one as we had less to work with (just 2 magazines) and the canvas size and shape proved a bit more complicated to fill nicely.  After many weeks of being hidden under the blanket box, on the table and in the wardrobe it was completed!

This one was done in a similar way with finding landscape photos (very few and far between!) to cover the blank bits and edges and carefully arranged it all so it looked good.  Below you can see the tractor has been carefully cut out around the front wheel and nose and then the trees in the background were cut to mimic those in the landscape photo!  This was Mr P.'s creativity :)  After it as finished and stuck down we went over it with  a few coats of PVA, but it went a bit wrinkly :(  We used spray mount for the LR one, then PVA coats and it definitely worked better than using PVA the whole way through.  We put a logo from the obliging magazine in the bottom left corner to finish, and DJ loves it!

It's a great way to re-use magazines - I'd love to do one with flowers from gardening magazines or castles and stately comes from National Trust magazines... Many posibilities and it cheers up a room in a personal way without costing much. :) If you have the magazines in and gathering dust that is, they can be so expensive! 

I'd love to see if any of you give it a try or if you've done anything similar!  DJ loves it and makes grunty engines noises when he sees them haha! :D

Kathelle x

Turtle turned tiny!

Before EJ was born I wanted to make her some wee dangling toys for her car seat or crib, like I'd done for DJ.  I was trying to think of an animal or something that would be relatively quick to make and have some sort of interactive quality (in other words, fun ;) )

Myrtle the Turtle

I came across two tutorials on making stuffed turtles, one was Myrtle the Turtle from Purl Bee (above) 

 and the other was Stuffed Fabric Turtles from Ashley at Make it & Love it.

Seeing as I was hoping to hang it from a bit of ribbon, I chose the Make it & Love it one as it seemed easier to put a ribbon in centrally.  Both these turtles are meant to be more teddy sized I think, but as I was wanting a dangly toy... I shrunk the pattern with a photocopier (I think it was 25-30%, can't remember now) and proceeded to pick my fabrics!

I didn't know whether EJ was going to be a boy or a girl (spoils the surprise!) so I went for more primary colours in high contrast and eye catching prints.  The higher the contrast the more stimulating for babies apparently!  So I went for big red spots, navy and white polka dots, a colourful vine pattern and a bold large blue paisley print for the shell and a kind of beige for legs, head and tails just to balance out the colorfulness.

And to continue with the contrast I used this fabric called doily dance by Michael Miller (I think! I got it a while ago) for it's tummy.  Theory being that if it's dangling she'd see the bottom as much as, if not more than, the shell :)

It looks like it's crawling towards you in this photo haha!  I used some cotton ribbon with an orange stitch detail for hanging and sewed Velcro to it so it could loop and hang on whatever it fit on.  

I was really pleased with how the shrunken version turned out though it was definitely not without problems!  It was mostly sewn on the machine, which was fine for the shell but the head/legs/tail were soo fiddly and three of them popped and ripped :( so I made some more and just cut longer bits of fabric so it wasn't so likely to break and put them in the turtle so they were the right length again.  And I added a wee bell to it's tummy so he'd jingle!

One happy EJ :) x

She seems to like it anyway... Have you any tales of improvisation to tell?  I have one or two more wee toys to show you over the next few weeks as well. 

Better go hang the washing, though I can't decide if it'll rain or not... typical! :)

Kathelle x

Sprocket Cushion Tutorial

Last year I made this cushion for a friend's birthday present.  It was great fun to do as you could pick loads of different fabrics for one project, but it would work equally well with only 2 or 3 patterns/colours.   

This is the tutorial I used to make it - this lady's blog has heaps of other great ideas too!

I was aiming for a random shabby chic pretty kind of look for it, trying not to be too matchy.  The faric wedges were arranged so that none of the same fabric was directly opposite, as I had used two of some of my favourite fabrics.  

A good range of lights, mid tones and darker fabrics, as well as plains and patterns were used to keep it really interesting and eye-catching.  

You can probably tell I think a little bit too much about these things, haha!  

The centre button was covered with another co-ordinating fabric.  I tried to use some of the fabric I had in the wedges but it didn't quite look right, whereas this fabric picks out the red accent and really lightens up the middle of the cushion.   

The button also makes this very forgiving to make if your points aren't exact, it'll hide the mistakes! ;)

 Sewing the button on was probably the most fiddly bit as you're going through all the stuffing and pulling it tight too.  You could also try and put another button on the back and make it reversible.  I left it plain and used this lovely script fabric from The Sew Room in Alford as the backing.

It's a great project to use up scraps or if you simply can't choose which fabric to start with!

I tried something similar with larger wedges out of Harris Tweed but it didn't really work sadly... it was too bulky and it somehow became too small...(don't quite know what happened haha!) so I turned it into this heart for my Folksy shop!

  I may try again, alternating cotton and tweed...? not sure if that'd work either but I think it would look pretty cool.

Here's the link again if you want to give it a go yourself!
http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2011/03/tutorial-sprocket-pillows.html

Kathelle x