Layer Cake Tutorial #1



I am pretty sure babies can never have enough little quilts. I have them in the car, pram, cot and several I use on the floor. I like to have a little stack ready to give as presents when friends have babies. The present box is empty at the moment so I thought I would fill it up using some of the half layer cakes and 10" squares I have in my stash.

This one was inspired by some of the Quilts of Gees Bend and 'Hop, Skip & A Jump' by Denyse Schmidt.

 Organise the twenty 10" squares into five groups of four.

 Stack one group (4 squares) so all the edges line up and use a rotary cutter and a ruler to cut into 4 sections. Vary the widths, they can be anywhere between just over an inch and 4 inches wide.

 Arrange all the strips into a row any way you want. Don't overthink this, I only had one rule and that was 2 strips of the same fabric couldn't be next to each other.

 Sew them together and press the seams. I pressed mine open.

 Make another  4 rows in the same way and then sew the rows together.

Your quilt top is finished!

I'm not sure how I will quilt mine yet. I am going to wait until I have a few to do and then wait until I am in a quilting mood and do them all together.

 

Layer Cakes

I have a little collection of half layer cakes and random 10" squares and a few baby quilts I need to make. I'm thinking I might do a series of tutorials on making simple baby quilts. Nothing ground breaking, but I might just share each quilt as I make it.

Chouette

Those skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool are huge. There was a lot left over from making Eva's vest, so I cast on a Chouette. Quick easy pattern. I made an adult size as the wool is thinner then recommended but it still only just fits her. More details on ravelry.

Little Pouches

I have plans for an Amy Butler Weekender bag (I know, late to the bandwagon as per usual), so I thought I'd try out the 'Quilt As You Go' Method with scraps and offcuts of batting.

It was fun, I really enjoyed it.
I turned them into little pouches. In my rush I forgot to top stitch near the zip on the first one and now all the lining is caught in the zip and it won't open. You think I should have learnt from past experience hopefully I will remember from now on.

Not sure I am ready to tackle the Weekender bag yet, but I am ready to try something bigger using the QAYG method.

O is for Olive

O is for Olive. Although I really should have made a CO for Cross Olive.

Made to match the A for Amelia, G for Grace and E for Eva quilts I made a couple of years ago.

Bonnet

 There is nothing so adorable as a baby in a bonnet and really only babies can get away with wearing them unless you are dressing up as Little Bo Peep.
The "Made by Rae" pattern is a great fitting and well written pattern. I made the 3-6 months and used some Marmalade fabric from Moda. I only used piping on the brim and made some bias binding from the left over fabric. I've already found the perfect fabric for another one.

 

Esprit Folk - le debardeur

A warm vest was probably not the best thing to be knitting in the heat the last couple of months, but I wanted something quite quick to knit that I would see progress on in my little bit of knitting time.

I used a skein of Cascade Ecological Wool and there is lots left over, more than enough for a hat. This was a simple knit, but there was enough to keep me interested, but not too much in my sleep deprived state (thanks to non-sleeping Olive). The rest of the details are on ravelry.



Beatrice Bunny Pattern

The pattern for Beatrice Bunny pattern and her friends is finished and available at my pattern shop, on Etsy and at Craftsy.



Hot Cross Bun Bread

The River Cottage Soda Bread has become a bit of a favorite around here. It is so quick to make, no kneading and you have bread in an hour. I thought I might adapt it to make hot cross bun bread. Chocolate hot cross bun bread actually. Sultana free. I've never understood the love of sultanas. They seem to ruin the best dessert and most breakfast cereals. My kids won't eat them either, which is actually kind of annoying. I think it would make school lunches a lot easier if they did eat them, but I won't start on how frustrating and annoying I find it to make school lunches that they will eat.
Back to Hot Cross Buns. I don't understand the outrage over Hot Cross Buns appearing in the shops after Christmas. I think you should be able to buy the chocolate ones all year round. I've been know to fill the freezer the week before Easter.
So this is what I made today and it was a big hit when the girls got home from school.

Chocolate Hot Cross Bun Soda Bread (based on the River Cottage Soda Bread)
500g flour
2tsp bicarb soda
200ml buttermilk
200ml natural yogurt (I ran out of buttermilk)
1tsp allspice
1/2tsp cinnamon
125g dark chocolate chips.

Mix all the ingredients together until it all comes together. Form into a ball and place on a pizza stone or baking tray (that has been sprinkled with flour). Sprinkle the top with flour and cut a cross into it. Bake at about 200 degrees C for about 45 minutes.

Good Etsy Finds

Etsy, like ravelry, is one of those sites where you go looking for something and emerge hours later having completely forgotten what you  were looking for in the first place.

I found this vintage ribbon on a recent search and knew it would be perfect for this dress from a Japanese sewing book (ISBN 978-4-579-11289-0).

My closest Spotlight and Textile Traders are 100km away and you are never sure of the buttons they will have in stock (though the buttons in Textile Traders were great on my last visit and cheap!). So it is much easier to search Etsy and saves me a drive to Bunbury. I got these ones from here.

 I am hoping some of them will be perfect for this vest which is currently blocking on the verandah.
 I am a little bit in love with the picot edging. I must knit more picot edges I think.

Rabbits

 I think I promised to write my rabbit pattern up for Easter. Two years ago. So I'm not making any promises this year, but there has been lots of rabbit sewing and pattern writing this week.

 

 There's also been much yelling and squealing from Olive. Crossing fingers she has a few naps this week and maybe there will be a rabbit pattern soon.

Gem Dress



I knew Milly would love the Gem dress when I saw it and I was right! She chose some voile we found in the huge clean out last week. I think I bought it at Spotlight a few years ago. I made a size 8 so it will fit next summer as well.

The only problem I had with the dress was the printing out of the pages and I am still not sure I have done it right. I think the problem is the difference between paper sizes between the US and here. A4 is slightly narrower and I think the pattern went to the end of the paper so some of it didn't print and there was a bit of guess work involved.

Lucky there is a lot of elastic in this pattern so if I made the pieces too big then I pulled them in to fit. The only thing that needed altering was the shoulder strap. I did make it a lot shorter, but as you can see it is falling off her shoulder and will need shortening again.

Milly loves it and the other two have requested one for next summer.

 

Bracelets

The girls spent hours over the weekend making bracelets, luckily the bush out the front that needs pruning was the perfect material for them.

Little Purses



There has been lots of cleaning and sorting in the craft room this week. Bags of stuff that was never going to be used has gone out and things have been rearranged so I can find what I am looking for. As I have done this lots of favourite pieces of fabric have been rediscovered and I have remembered what I was going to do with it. I found some of the fabric left over from these cushions and they were perfect for little purses.

I used a Nicole Mallalieu Kit for the first one, but used a sew in frame I found on Etsy instead. I thought a sew in frame looked a little bit easier to me than gluing one in. If you search for sew in frames on Etsy you can find them in every size and lots of colours. I really like these ones with the coloured balls on top. I might have to find some more.

 I used this pattern I found on Craftsy for the second one. This made a smaller pouch with a different shape and therefore needed a much smaller frame. It is another sew in one from Etsy.

The only tricky part of making these is sewing the frame and making cure it is centred - one of these was definitely not! Both patterns are pretty simple to make and result in very useful, cute purses.

Something New

It has been so long since I knit anything. It was time to start something new.



Hats



New hats - same, same...

 ...but different.

Because that is how it is with these two.

Cushion for Eva

I thought I would have a quick play around with making some letters I really thought it would need a lot of practice to get right. These are the first two letters I made and while they aren't perfect I am pretty happy with them.

 In no time I had 'Eva' finished. Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci is a great book. Excellent directions, very easy to follow. The only think I had to think about was making a non-American small a, and that was easy to do, I just made a square.

 Eva has been sleeping with it since I made it, I'm not sure it will make it to school for nap time.

 Finished in my usual way with a hidden zip.