Patchwork notebook

I love a bit of patchwork - and since my patchwork dress I haven't had a chance. But with a beautiful collection of fat quarters of fabric from Amsterdam for my birthday, I decided to have a go covering some books as presents. I cut out lots of tiny squares and machine patchworked them together.

Then I covered brown plain paper notebooks from Paperchase. For two of them, I then stitched a ribbon horizontally across the book at the spine so they could be tied shut. Unfortunately, the pictures I have are of the one I gave my dad - without a ribbon.

Patchwork dress for a 'P' themed Party

A 'P' themed fancy dress party seemed like a good opportunity to experiment with a dress pattern without worrying too much if it went wrong.  It was also a good way to use up a lot of odds and ends of material I had left from projects this year.

I started by making a big sheet of patchwork.

Spot the old projects...

Going to need a slightly bigger piece of patchwork.

That's better.

Dress pattern came from The Village Haberdashery - it was the Peony pattern (although I made some adjustments). Here is is in progress - that's the top half and sleeves there. Putting the sleeves in proved the trickiest part.

Finished off with a patchwork flower...

... and a belt and a couple of bangles.

I initially put in a zip, but it made the back of the neck flop outwards and wasn't really needed - so I took it out and added a seam along the back. It was my first time adding darts too, and I was actually quite pleased with the fit and shape at the end. 

That black mark is mascara on the mirror ;)

Some of the projects you can see here are the fish pillow, the swirly skirt, the first pattern skirt, the pillowcase for Izzy, the Christmas cushion, the cushion for Jo and the patchwork quilt for baby Josh.

And here it is along with a Pilot.

Other 'P'costumes included a Punk, Pokemon, Portobello mushroom, 2 Penguins, a Pixie, Peter Pan, a Passport, a Parrot, some Pollen, lots of Pirates, Monty Panesar, a Peacock, the Phantom of the Opera, a Plastic bag, the Periodic table, a Peace sign, the Pope, a Porn star, a Pharmacist and a Parisian. Some excellent costume creativity.

A Penguin, Pixie, Parrot, Parisian and Pilot watch Panesar and Plastic bag at the coconut shy.

The Periodic table

A Portobello mushroom and Panesar again..

Passport

After the party I decided I probably wasn't going to wear the dress again so I made it into a pillowcase. I like how it is still sort of shaped like a dress.

Pillowcase still begins with P :)

Christmas cushions - some more patchwork, dinosaurs and holly

A homemade Christmas present selection wouldn't be complete without a few cushions - so here are the ones I made this year.

Patchwork for 3 year old Oliver, mini dinosaurs for 2 year old Leo

And here is other side of the patchwork cushion (of course, they weren't matching!).

Finally, a Christmas cushion for Liz to add to her wonderful Christmas decorations each year.

I reckon it could be used all year round.... :)

Autumnal coloured craftings..

Dad's birthday is in October, and he loves autumnal colours. For a long time he's been hinting after a cushion for room he rents when he is away for work. I used a mixture of coloured felt in browns, oranges, reds and yellows and some printed cotton pieces - the first time I've mixed felt and cotton.

Here's one side;

And here's the other;

I also had another go at using the embroidered letters setting on my machine - this time using the smallest, fanciest stitch. It worked quite well  - except for the 'from' - I don't think I was pulling the material through the machine fast enough.

After I'd sent it, I remembered that last year I made an autumnally coloured gift for Dad too - a card of leaves in pastels;

Spotty and multicoloured - another Apple Patch

It was nice to be back at the sewing machine after a couple of weeks where I've been too ill to face it. Last night I finished off another 'Apple Patch' - a case for my own laptop - with multi-coloured squares and a spotty lining.

I got the spots from a warehouse style shop in Brick Lane, as suggested by DIYCouture's wonderful fabric shops guide.

 Here you could buy cheap fabrics for £3 or so a metre (minimum spend £12 - but that wasn't a problem!)

Lots to choose from in Epra Fabrics. Next came cutting out the squares, something else I did a couple of weeks ago.

  

Finally, the normal sewing and sandwiching to make the finished product.

 

Ready to sandwich with the 'walking foot'. After the pieces are sewn together, I use a fabric cutter to trim them all to the same size. It's easier to have a bit of leeway with the wadding and lining when actually sewing them together.

The finished product was a little larger than planned - not quite the snug envelope of the others I had made. I blame slightly mushed 'ill-brain'! Still, it means I can also carry the cable with the laptop inside the case - so it could be an advantage after all.

An Apple Patch

Since this is my second patchwork cover for an Apple product, Barry and Alex have suggested I called them Apple Patches and set up a shop called The Orchard to sell them. I'm not sure they're sales standard at the moment - but nevertheless, here is my latest 'Apple Patch' for Ben.... a cover for his laptop.

I made it by patchworking felt squares together in rows and then sewing the rows together. When you machine patchwork, it's hard to get patchwork to be exactly even, so I made these ones more mismatched. Nevertheless, these ones seemed to turn out particularly wonky - more so than the iPad case- sorry Ben!

I then sandwiched each piece with two layers of wadding (for extra protection) and some blue lining material and sewed round the outside.

Finally, I sewed both pieces together  (patches facing inwards) to make an 'envelope' and then turned it inside out to make the case. The flap tucks in and a loop of fabric and button keeps it all together. Initially, the flap was going to go on the outside, like the ipad case I made before - but because I padded the flap as well, it stuck out too much at the corners and looked weird. It worked better tucked in so I tried this new way of fastening instead.

I've had a few people asking about these - so if you want to commission one, drop me an email at patchworkpea@gmail.com. At the moment, while I'm still practicing, I'm not charging much  :)

A Patrick patchwork

This is my first attempt at a proper patchwork quilt - albeit one done on the machine, not by hand. I finished it in May - but little Joshua, the baby in question, took his time in making an appearance. But now he's here - welcome to the world Josh and congratulations Patrick and Michelle.

Baby Josh having a rest with a bear

And here's my quilt. The squares are from all over - ebay, leftover pieces, Our Patterned Hand, The Cotton Patch, Fabric Rehab and Beyond Fabrics.

I machine sewed the squares into rows, and the rows into a larger square, ironing flat all the seams.

I layered it with wadding from The Cotton Patch and sandwiched it with the larger piece of Noah's Ark green.

I 'stitched in the ditch' to join all the pieces along the same seams as the patchwork (where possible) and then sewed all around the outside and added the yellow binding.

I've had a few people asking about these - so if you want to commission one, drop me an email at patchworkpea@gmail.com.

Noah's animals on the back

Binding - the hardest part.

Spot the hungry caterpillar!

The trouble with patchwork peas..

Since naming my 'making things' blog Patchwork Pea, I have become a little obsessed with the idea of making some. As I linked to in my previous post, I found a great pdf for making patchwork spheres, and used all my green scraps to make a few. However, the pentagon patchwork does make them look rather more like footballs - when Alex saw them he said (not entirely in jest) "it's three footballs in a canoe". I want to add some leaves and a stem at one end. Hopefully this will help them look more pea-in-a-pod-like - but if anyone has any good hints for making patchwork spheres without them ending up looking like footballs or beach balls, I'd love to hear them!

Hand patchworking at Fabrications

Fabrications on Broadway Market is one of my new favourite places to learn all things sewing. Have a look at their calendar. They run all sorts of open days and sewing classes in Barley's newly created Imaginarium.

I recently went to a 'taste of patchworking' class there with Katherine May.- I'd been getting good at making patchwork on my machine, but I wanted to have a go at doing it by hand, using the old fashioned paper templates.

We used paper templates to handsew a simple square of patchwork, which we quilted to a lining with some wadding from The Cotton Patch (I have used some more of this since and it's really nice pure cotton wadding). There were a number of other people at the class too, and I really enjoyed the feeling of sitting around and occasionally chatting, each absorbed in our own projects but with Katherine there to help out if we got stuck. I didn't have time to fold the lining material over into a hem in the class, but I'll do it later.

I had this idea that I wanted to have a go making patchwork spheres (or 'peas') and I found a great set of instructions on the internet on how to make a patchwork ball. Armed with a bit more confidence from the class, I had a go that evening.

The day's work

Material and paper templates for another patchwork sphere.

I decided to use the first one for a pin cushion, and made another from felt.

My first patchwork pea

More Fabrications fun

Fabrications is an official supplier of Brother sewing machines, so they often run open days where people can come and test drive their machines - and ask questions to Brother representatives. Most recently was a bunting making day, which I popped along to for an hour after work. I experimented with a range of new stitches on their more modern Brother machines and Rachel from Brother showed to how to work my walking foot - and how useful it is when quilting.

Material ready for bunting.

Next week, I'm going along to a skirt making workshop there - I'll keep you posted ;)

Making cases with quilting - for iPads and laptops

The first Apple Patch - an ipad cover.  I adding batting and lining to quilt the felt patchwork material, and using binding to neaten the edges.

 I've had a few people asking about these - so if you want to commission one, drop me an email at patchworkpea@gmail.com. At the moment, while I'm still practicing, I'm not charging much :)

A leprechaun's handbag?

With a little internal pocket

Padded laptop case for mum

Learned how to add a zip to quilting.