Magpie Mimi

I've finished the patchwork cushion I had talked about yesterday, it's rather floral and pastel shades make me think of spring.  It's got a fresh feel to it for me and is a gift to my eldest sister.

Oblong shape cushion.  Starting from left floral fabric with a mint green background and pink and red flowers, blue background floral fabric with light pink, dark pink and white small flowers and a heart shape in the centre of it which has a white background with pink roses stitched on with pink embroidery floss, and finally dusky pink fabric with light pink flowers and lots of small green leaves

Whilst stitching the heart to the cushion I decided I needed some background entertainment and so put on the film Chocolat to watch.  I love this film, unfortunately not as much now I've read the book as it's so different and think I would have loved it even more if they'd stuck a bit closer to the book, but the thing I've always loved the most, that still remains, is Juliette Binoche's costumes!  Oh, how I love the colours and the styles.  I'm especially drawn to her peachy colour outfit at the party on the boat for Armande and the one she wore for shouting at the mayor.  Sadly despite how vast the internet is I can't seem to find a full picture of either of these outfits.  So I'm thinking I'd like to find some fabric and make some clothes similar to what she's wearing.  I also love the dark blue dress she wears on the pier when the wind is changing again.  I don't want this to be a costume or copying exercise but I'd like to emulate the look.

I'm working on a skirt pattern from Burda magazine at the moment, it's got a pleat at the front and pockets!  I love skirts with pockets!  I always feel a little lost without pockets.  I bought some fabric from the market yesterday which I'm using for this project and got some more to make another top with.  Like I said yesterday I'm sorely in need of handmade clothes to wear for this Me Made March project.  The funniest thing about the fabric I bought for the top is that it's from JoAnn's, it's funny to me as I've always read on American blogs about JoAnn's and most of them have a love/hate relationship with it and I always wanted to have something from there, just to say I've had a piece of material from there really!  Strange I know but it's just a thing of wanting to know what the fuss was about.  In any case it's pure cotton with a dark brown background and light brown and mauve pattern on it.  Doesn't sound very appetising the way I've just described it, but I like it!

What are you working on?  Are you inspired by film costumes?

One of my other sisters asked me to make a patchwork blanket like this one and this one I made for my other nieces but instead of a full size one, she wanted one for my niece's doll as apparently the dolly needs a blanket.  As my sister doesn't like oranges or browns or greens and she doesn't seem that keen on yellow either, she told me she wanted it in blues and turquoises, at this point I'm wondering who the recipient really is, but as my niece hasn't turned two yet getting her opinion on colour choices is rather difficult to get.

So here's the little blanket, I hand stitched the oblongs together, put on the fleecy back like the other two as had enough left over and put some cute lavender colour binding round the edge which I machined and then machined round all the oblongs.  I'm no quilter, I need lots of practice yet and my designs so far are as simple as I can get them especially with a tight deadline as my niece will get it this weekend as it was her birthday yesterday but I'm pretty happy with it.

Front view of blanket showing some blue floral, plain dark blue, chicken fabric and mice fabric and some sneaky pink and blue flower fabric too and some flocked fabric too

Back of blanket showing the machined stitches outlining the oblongs and a few 'puck ups' near the binding

As the caption states, there were a few 'puck ups' on the fleece backing, if you're wondering why I've suddenly gone for very descriptive captions on my photos, it's because my good friend Giles pointed out that for the visually impaired it's hard to know what the picture shows if all the reader could tell him was the jpeg number!  Take a look at his blog on his adventures as a visually impaired quilter, I can highly recommend it!

I'm off to finish another patchwork cushion.  Happy Sewing!

By the end of this week I'm hoping to have sewn two tops and a skirt.  I've had a bit of a rest from sewing this week as crocheting two cowls slightly pushed my luck with my RSI.  So I took a bit of a breather.  This week I'm going to see how fast I can sew now I've got the hang of button holes.

I've cut the fabric for the two tops, just plain cotton as they're to go with a very busy print skirt I want to make.





It's a wonder I get any sewing done what with Fizz having to sit on anything I'm working on.  As you can see she's trying to look as cute as possible.  They're both going to be Lotus cami tops as seen here.  I'm going to make them a bit shorter as feel the blue one I made was too long to wear with a skirt and looks far better with trousers.  Need to find some buttons though, but can't decide whether I want them to blend into the fabric or stand out and be interesting as they're just a plain colour.  Looks like I'm taking a leaf out of Diane Von Faustenburg's Spring collection with strong block colour, if only I could design...*sigh*.

I am however, trying to alter a pattern as have been thinking about the lovely tree pattern fabric I have that I'm making these tops for and have decided that although I want an A-line skirt, I'd like it to have a little bit of interest.  So I'm thinking of making a skirt like this one but instead of just having facings on the inside, I'm going to put them on the outside so I can put some piping in between the facings and main part of the skirt.  I'm sure there's a proper word for the things that are facings on the outside but I don't know it yet, answers on a post card please! ;)

After rummaging in my stash I found some satin bias binding that will go with the skirt fabric and bought an orange zip that instead of putting in the back I'm going to put in the side.

At least I got a Fizz free photo this time.  I can't tell you how much I love this fabric, the colour, the pattern...ahh.  It will bring some much needed sunshine since it's been such awful weather lately, all wet and very very windy.


In other news, I finally got to finishing the other quilt out of the bits left over from the first one, but it's a lot smaller, so after some discussion with my sister, the big one will go to my older niece who's had her eye on it for some time now, and the smaller one to my new baby niece.







Happy stitching!

My sister is heavily pregnant and went into early labour the day before new year's eve, so I've been on tenter hooks and panicking wildly as wanted to make the new baby a patchwork blanket.  Thankfully, it's slow labour that she's gone into apparently and it seems to have gone quiet for the minute, which is really good as until today the baby would be classed as premature and my sister and the baby would have to stay in hospital for at least 72 hours.  Not fun.  Added to that is the fact that on her first baby she had pre-eclampsia and was forced to have an emergency caesarian, so I'm keeping everything crossed that it all turns out ok.  Anyway...I wanted to get the blanket done in time for the new arrival so it's a bit rustic...and it is my first attempt so do be kind!

The fat quarter's I used were bought from Ray Stitch, I substituted two Amy Butler fat quarter's for two more child related patterned ones I had of mice and chickens.  I suddenly realised at 11pm New Years Day that as I rounded the third corner with the white binding that I didn't have any more, so I had to improvise and use yellow on the fourth side.  I know it doesn't match and ordinarily I would have gone out and bought enough to finish it all in the same colour but what with the time constrictions I thought it was better if I just finished it.  I'm thinking that it might be my 'design quirk' for any patchwork blankets I make in the future will have one side of binding in a different colour! 

And now for a close up:







The back isn't perfect, and I cheated there too.  I didn't go for batting and cotton backing but instead got a plain white thin fleecy blanket and used that as the back.  It's soft and warm and cuddly snuggly.  I really like the patterns on the fat quarters, especially the little mushrooms!  I tried to keep the pattern as simple as possible and straight lines only, well they were straight until I started cutting and sewing! haha! 

In the words of narcoleptic in a cupboard there were a few 'puck ups' in the fleecy blanket as shown here:
It looks a bit worse here as I had no little helper to hold it for me and had to improvise with the bannister and some pegs.  Overall I'm really happy with the result and I've got patchwork left over as didn't want to make it too big so thinking of making some sort of bag to keep a few nappies, wipes and a change of clothes in for the baby.  At least it's one thing ticked off my new year sewing list already!  Yay!  I would have posted about this earlier but had some technical difficulties with the laptop, mainly that the 'enter' key wasn't working so needed a new keyboard...anyway difficulty over so lots of things to tell you all about in the next post!

As inspired by Kirsty Allsopp, here's my version of a patchwork cushion.  I didn't hand stitch it, only the heart with embroidery floss, mainly as I forgot to machine it before I put the back on...but also think it's pretty!  This is going to my pregnant sister as a Christmas present as she mentioned the other day how much she liked it when she saw one being made on the tv show.  I also didn't put anything smelly inside as had cushion inserts and since she has an inquisitive two year old I was a little worried it would get spread everywhere if there was spices or flowers loose in a cushion. 





I'm really happy with it, especially as I think the pieces have really crisp lines.  I'm so happy in fact that my other two sisters are getting cushions!  I've already started one by cutting out birdies instead of hearts to be the centrepiece, there will still be hearts as I'm having a bit of a theme for some reason. 

Not having a good day today, not very well so nothing done today.  Just wanted to put a picture up really as the cushion really makes me smile. :)