Sunday

A butterfly block from Strip Savvy.

 Wool felt from Winterwood, dyed and ready to use.

 A little bit of button sorting.

Spring Rain in Figures by Zen Chic

As soon as I saw Figures by Zen Chic in the Moda Booth at Quilt Market I knew I had to make something from it. I found a Layer Cake online and cut a few of the squares up to make another version of my Spring Rain pattern. I love the colours and all the patterns in this line. I think I'll need more when the yardage is available. You can find the pattern here on Etsy.

Herd of Elephants

It's been way too long since I have made a herd of elephants.

Some new giraffes are next on the list.

Spring Rain - Throw Size

Introducing my throw size Spring Rain quilt. I made this from the RJR solids I bought at Quilt Market. I had never seen their solids before, but their fat quarter bundles of solids caught my immediately caught my attention when I walked passed their booth. They were lovely to touch and to work with and were the perfect colours for a winter throw size version of my Spring Rain pattern. 

The pattern is available here on Etsy.

The throw size is 57" x 63". I used a navy and white polka dot for the background and quilted it with rows of loops.

 This quilt perfectly matches the weather this weekend. I think today will be another day of snuggling under quilts watching movies and making loom bands.

  

Spring Rain

Introducing my latest pattern Spring Rain!

The pattern is available here on Etsy.

I have been thinking about this pattern for a while and when I saw this line of fabric it went straight to the top of my queue! It is Avant-Garden by Momo for Moda. I made my Tulip Wonderland quilt from another Momo fabric line and I love it just as much now as when I made it.

 This quilt pattern comes in two sizes. This one is the cot size which uses 10 jelly roll strips or 10 layer cake squares and some background fabric. It would be perfect for using up your favourite scraps.

I free motion quilted swirls all over it which gives it such a beautiful texture.

This is such a fun quilt to make. I couldn't stop at one and have made three so far. I'll share my throw size one tomorrow.

Cassette pouches

I want to start a hand stitching project so I have something small I can keep in my bag to pull out when I am waiting somewhere and have a few minutes to sew, but once again all my project bags are full. Please tell me I am not the only one who has to start a whole new project so I have somewhere to keep a whole new project I want to start! 

I remembered this excellent paper pieced cassette at Sewing Under Rainbow. I didn't have any button fabric so I sewed buttons on the front. If I had time yesterday (and the ability to think of something witty) I would have printed labels for my tapes, but instead I just stuck on Two Little Banshee labels.

I added a border of some soft denim and the finished size is 11" x 8". perfect to fit a pattern, thread scissors in etc.

As  a child of the 80s I could not love these more. While I was making one I thought I may as well make a few more for presents for fellow 80s children.

 

 I realized as I finished this one I managed to sew the bottom of this one on the wrong way so this one is mine.

Nituna Jacket

I found so much lovely wool fabric in New York, unfortunately I didn't have lots of room for it in my bag, but I did buy a yard to make Olive a new winter coat. I used Figgy's Nituna jacket pattern which I bought last year. I had planned to make jackets for the twins, but they didn't seem that interested when I showed them so I put the pattern back in the pattern boxes. After going through every Ottobre and Japanese sewing book I had last week looking for the perfect pattern I remembered I had the Nituna pattern.

From reading a few reviews it seemed like it was quite generously sized so I cut the 18m size for Olive who is 21m, though not very tall for her age. I made the unlined version and used some Liberty lawn from the stash to bind all the outside edges. All the seams are meant to be bound inside, but the wool is quite thick to I pressed them open instead. The hood and sleeves are meant to have a hem of 1" so I cut off an inch before binding. The sleeves are still quite long so I have just folded them up. There is lots of room for growing, I think we'll get some two years wear out of this coat.

And of course the twins really liked it when I put it on Olive this morning and are thinking about what fabrics I could use to make them similar coats.

Myrten Hat

A new beanie for me. It's been so cold I haven't taken it off all day. It's also perfect for hiding my very noticeable hair regrowth and as I won't get to the hairdressers for another month I might be wearing it every day until then.
I have had the Myrten Hat pattern for a while and I used the flower pattern on a Milo Vest for Olive. It is a lovely pattern and the chart is easy to work from.

 

 

 I used Rowan Fine Tweed, I can't get enough of tweed at the moment and I have a nice little stash from various companies waiting to be knit into shawls more another hat.

 I love to watch fair isle grow, it keep me motivated to keep knitting.

 The inside pre-blocking.

 Blocking on a balloon stuck in a bowl. I have found this to be my favourite way to block a hat, you get a good shape and it dries quite fast.

All the rest of the details on ravelry.

Something New

I am slowly working on a new pattern. I couldn't make a final decision on fabrics and colours so I have been working on a few versions.

This one is made from jelly rolls. No I am not tired of them yet. I don't think I ever will be.

This one is made from blues and greens and spots. Just like I will never get tired of using jelly rolls I will never ever get tired of using spots as a background.

 Crossing fingers I get time to finish these in the next week.

Me Made May

 I finished Me Made May but stopped taking pictures every day as I wore the same thing over and over for the rest of the month. I am not sick of my Simplicity 2591 dresses yet and I am sure I will make more. The t-shirts I made fit perfectly underneath them and I find dresses so much more comfortable than wearing jeans. There are a couple of gaps in my wardrobe, I have one denim skirt, but I don't think you can have too many. So I would like to make more and some shirts/blouses to go with them.

Before I get back to sewing clothes I have a couple of things in progress. I am working on a new quilt pattern with these.

A new hat to wear in this cold and rainy weather.

New York - The Garment District

I spent a day in New York walking the Garment District (I may have gone back at the end of our stay when I realised there was a tiny bit of room left in my bag to make sure my bag was completely full of fabric). I don't really have a lot of choice when I go fabric shopping here, just a couple of chain stores, so my jaw dropped walking into some of the fabric shops I found.

I searched the internet for shop recommendations before I set out so I made the best use of my time. I am glad I did as some of the shops I went to are not marked from the street and can be a little tricky to find.

This is the shirting cotton in B&J Fabrics. I could have only gone here and spent all my money and been really happy (the staff were also very helpful and nice). This shop has the most amazing fabric I have ever seen. It is not cheap but probably all worth the money. I ended up buying a few pieces for shirts for Chris. Good quality shirting fabric is impossible to find in WA.



 The wool knits and wool flannels were amazing. I didn't buy any and I am kind of regretting it.

Of course I went to Mood. It was pretty busy and the knit section was the only area I could get a few photos.

I bought some cotton and some fantastic thick Italian Jersey which will be good for some kind of jacket or shrug.

I spent a loooong time choosing some ribbon in M&J Trimmings. It was all so beautiful.

Hidden away on the 9th floor at 265 West 37th Street is Metro Textiles. They had great knits and double knits.

H&M Fabrics was bursting with rolls of fabrics. They had a great selection of Italian wool down the back. I bought a little bit for a coat for Evie. Once again I'm regretting not getting more.

Spandex House had great swim wear fabric, lots of solids, patterns and spots.



 It really was fun to wander in and out of shops and be amazed at everything. I'm not sure how anyone could live in New York and not sew.