A printer cover and some memories

Digital Giant

I've been promising Al I'll make him a printer cover for months now, but other more interesting projects always got in the way. Today, him and my brother spent all day in the garden putting up a fence. I couldn't help due to a recent mini operation so as well as keeping them in tea and biscuits I thought it was about time I got it made.

I bought some green fabric for him initially, but he asked for grey to match the logo of his business Digital Giant.  I quilted the top and four sides to make it slightly protective and then sewed them into shape and added a yellow binding around the bottom.

Taking a picture of it (currently on the printer at home) it looks pretty unexciting (the room isn't decorated yet either!) - and would have made for a rather dull blog entry.

In retrospect, I should have ironed the fabric!

However, next to the printer I rediscovered the box I made for Al for Christmas 2009, after our first six months together.

It contains a scene, made from balsa wood, modelling grass, acrylic paint, clay, fimo, a red bus (from ebay) and some model trees.

It captures all the things we did on our first dates and weeks and months together in London; whiskey mac in a thermos, conkers and walks on Hampstead Heath (with the fimo green parrot on the tree of course); the strange dinosaur models, the sphinx and the maze of Crystal Palace; the Rootmaster bus which used to be a restaurant parked near Brick Lane; the little tin soldier in his paper boat - a story we both love;  a Narnia lampost behind the wardrobe (we watched a lot of Narnia); Darwin and a photo from Wildlife Photographer of the Year - from when we went to the Natural History Museum; the Enormous Crocodile pretending to be a seesaw - whom we saw at the Quentin Blake/Roald Dahl exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green - and mugs of tea by the fire and the Christmas tree in his new house. It was really cool to find it again and look at it and remember everything. And it makes this blog entry a little more interesting too.

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!

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.