Burda 9480, a Slouchy Cardigan and a Tee

As the girls get older there they are having a lot more involvement in what I sew for them. We go through patterns together and they go through my fabric stash. It was Grace's turn to get some new clothes this weekend and this is what she chose.

The Tee for Two is a staple and they girls love it. I have this pattern traced in so many sizes now.

 

 I made a Slouchy Cardigan to go over the top. She is still not sure how much she will wear this, she thinks the sleeves are a bit too puffy for her. I might have to take the cuffs off and take in the arms a bit then reattach them. If I make this again I will definitely alter the arms and maybe shorten the cuff a little. Otherwise this is a good pattern with clear instructions. I cut the band 5 1/2" wide which was perfect. 

 

The twins haven't been big fans of skirts recently, but I showed them Burda 9480 and she chose some black corduroy and was really happy to wear it today. Her sister has requested one exactly the same so I think we have found a winning skirt pattern. I cut a 10 which turned out a little large around the waist so I added some elastic into the back waistband. I top stitched everything in yellow, used silver snaps on the front and left off the belt loops.

 Now to sew up the pile of fabrics that Milly has chosen.

Zumthor and a Frogged Jumper

 A Zumthor for Chris, just in time for a trip to Albany and some ridiculously cold and stormy weather. I love this pattern, is has such a great shape and the instructions are perfect. I used a skein of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter I bought in New York in the most beautiful blue colour called almanac.

 

From one fantastic project to a bit of a disaster. I thought my Camilla Babe Jumper for Olive was going ok until I held it up next to her. It was huge. And very short. And was going to need way too many changes and I wasn't even sure that would fix it. So off to the frog pond it went and I'll have to think of something else to make with the beautiful yarn.

Butterfly Blocks

I've made a few butterfly blocks in different colourways this year just for fun and while I was sewing them I thought it might be fun to make a few mini quilts based on quilts from Strip Savvy.
My butterfly quilt used a white background in the book so I thought I would use some Sketch by Timeless Treasures (currently my favourite background fabric) in bright colours for the background in my mini quilt.
Now to sew these together with the other ones I've made and choose the next quilt pattern to make a mini quilt from.

Quilty Magazine

The latest Quilty Magazine was in my mail box on Friday (I'm loving those leaves on the cover).

 And inside is my Nebula quilt! There are lots of great scrap quilts in this issue and I made Nebula with lots of scraps cut into 2 1/2" strips.

No not even close to being tired of sewing with 2 1/2" strips. I've just unrolled a new jelly roll and I am planning what to do with it.

Flowering Snowball Block.

I have long admired Mary's Flowering Snowball blocks on her blog Molly Flanders Makerie, so when she announced a Flowering Snowball Along I thought I would join in.

I knew it would never happen if I had to make my own templates so I hunted around for some online and discovered Jenna Appleton's custom templates. She managed to fit everything I wanted on to the sheet, including three different sizes of flowering snowball templates. They arrived today and I am very very happy with them!

Here they are before I took all the protective sticky stuff of them. I got them in green as I find them easier to work with than clear templates, especially at night.



 I tested them this afternoon and made a 12" flowering snowball block. I think I will play around with the other sizes before I decide which one I will use for my quilt.

Tower of giraffes

Apparently a group of giraffes is a tower. I like that, it makes sense.

If you would like to make your own tower of giraffes you can find my pattern here, here or here.

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.