Olive

Olive Ruby
19/9/2012 4.38am
3.505kg 47cm

Triangle Corners with Directional Prints

A tip when sewing 'triangle corners' with directional prints. You think I would remember this now considering how many of them I have sewed over the years, but I always seem to have them going in different directions. This usually doesn't bother me, but now and then I want them going in a particular direction. 

 The background (small square) flips at a 90 degree angle so if you want it going in the same direction you need to turn it 90 degrees before you sew it - you can just see I have turned the houses so the bottom of them is facing the edge of the fabric. I left the yellow fabric to show you how that flips.

 After flipping and ironing, the backgound of the top one has turned 90 degrees while the bottom one is facing the 'right' way.

I have sewed a few triangle corners and flying geese recently and think I am a convert to pressing the seams open. It does take a little more time and I have burnt the edges of my fingers a couple of times, but I really like the way they sit flat and I think it makes it easier to match the points and corners. What do you prefer - pressing to the side or open?

Ceci Shorts

Spring is here and the weather this weekend has been beautiful. So it was time to go through the girls clothes and organise what they needed for the warmer weather. Amelia wants lots of shorts and searched Etsy with me looking for patterns. She decided on the Ceci Shorts. I used some denim I had in the stash and Amelia chose some contrast fabric for the pockets. I vaguely followed the pattern for the pockets, I just did the binding at the top in my own way. For the rest of the shorts I followed the pattern exactly.

The denim I used was light denim, but more like a drill weight which was probably a bit heavy for this pattern. I sewed the ties in the middle of them to keep them tied as they were just coming undone. I am not sure if they would stayed tied up with lighter weight fabric, but I suspect they might still need to be sewn together. I made a size 7 for  Amelia and they fit pretty perfectly, if anything they are quite generously sized.

I am pretty happy with this pattern, it was well explained and both the other girls want shorts too. It comes in sizes 1-8 so I know it will get a lot of use.

Scraps

Turning scraps into squares and strips.

Making Nappies

How cute is this nappy? You really can't go wrong with red and white spots and babies I think. I used the Green Beginnings Cloth Diaper pattern from Fishsticks. It is a very well written pattern, everything from the type of fabric to the type of thread to use is explained and there are lots of pictures to help you. I bought all of my supplies from Nappies Covered. There is also lots of information on there about sewing your own nappies.

Now I have made one I think a few could be sewn up pretty quickly so I am going to wait and see how it fits in case I need to make any changes before I make more of them.

This was my first time sewing with PUL and I really recommend a teflon foot if you are sewing with it. I don't use my teflon foot very often, but it is one of the most useful sewing machine feet, I find laminated fabrics are almost impossible to sew without it.

Good Mail Week and Vintage Patterns.

Last week was a good mail week. A fat quarter bundle of the new Denyse Schmidt Chicopee arrived and it is even nicer in real life than I thought it would be. Such great patterns and colours.

 Also the new book by Julie of Jaybird Quilts.

I have also become slightly obsessed with searching the vintage mail order patterns on Etsy which is kind of ridiculous considering my size right now, but we had such nice spring weather all weekend I am thinking of summer dresses and hoping I get time to make some this summer.

Shop News

I will be closing my Etsy shops for a little while soon as I wait for this baby to come. I can't promise I will be able to make it to the post office or even email patterns as fast as I like to, but my pattern shop will still be open as all the patterns in there are instantly download as soon as you have paid.

So if there are any toys on Etsy you have had your eye on grab them in the next couple of days.

Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe

Look what is for pre-order on Amazon and up in the Martingale shop! I am just a little bit excited to be part of this!

Whirligig Shrug

My blood pressure has been doing its own thing recently and last week it went up and up so I had to spend the weekend in hospital being monitored. It is all fine at the moment and I am home where I am checking it myself and resting to keep it down. 

This has meant a bit of knitting time. I managed to knit most of a little Whirligig Shrug over the weekend. I made one of these in a bigger size a few years ago and loved making it so I made one in a 3 month size. I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK which is beautiful to knit, so so soft. More details over on ravelry. I noticed you can now get this pattern in larger children' sizes, up to size 12.