I made a quilt

I've always loved the beautiful soft quilts that I see at friends homes. I always fancied making my own. A couple of years ago I decided to get started. I cut and pieced scraps together from my sewing offcuts. The process of cutting out took ages, and by the time I'd pieced a handful of small square and rectangles into bigger squares and sewn about 40 of them together, I'd had enough.

I was sorting through my stash and found the bag with this in. There were just a few squares left to sew together, and since my physio said I could do a bit of sewing as it was good for keeping circulation going in my operated on side, I thought I'd give it a go. I stitched the remaining few squares together and pressed the patchwork. not a bad size, about 1m by 1.5m. I found some fabric that was suitable for the backing and bought the wadding from The Sewing Machine Guy (he has some beautiful fabrics in stock - check them out or visit if you're in Northumberland). Ellen from Ellen's of Ellington showed me how to true the sides, pin the layers together and a really simple way to quilt it all together - I just used straight lines! Then she showed me how to bind it - the edges look great, but I'm not really happy with the corners - I think my binding was a bit too thick to get a really neat finish here.

I know many quilt artists would be shocked by my piecing and overly simple quilting, however, this quilt has used up a good chunk of scrap fabric, so it's definitely recycled. The only thing purchased was the wadding, so it was also cheap (materials wise). And with the current cold spell in the UK. I have sat underneath this for the last week, keeping warm. even the kids think it's warm and snuggly.

I'm not sure I'll ever make one again,  I'm trying to find different ways to use up my waste fabrics and just use less generally, but if I find myself with a supply of good quality cotton offcuts - well who knows?

Sultry stash buster

Happy New Year! I've finally been able to make the most of sewing time over the holidays. I've completed one project start to finish and completed another, not to mention the work on my costume for the upcoming pantomime that I'm in at the end of January.

So for my complete make! - Another party dress - as if I need any more - this one was a stash buster and used some fabric that has been in the stash for at least 4 years just waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

The Fabric is a stunning shocking pink and gold Chinese brocade that my hubby brought back from China a few years ago. It was a narrow piece about 1m wide, but about 2.5m long. I overlocked the ends and washed it, which softened the fabric a bit. I knew it was going to fray like mad so sewing had to be planned to handle it as little as possible. It was also very synthetic, which meant careful pressing was in order. Once washed and dried, the bodice pieces were cut out and neck and armholes stay stitched twice to help protect against fraying. The sides were overlocked. The skirt was cut in one piece in the cross grain - I say cut, it was just the width of the fabric. I kept the seam at centre back and used pleats to shape the fabric to match the bodice. with this sort of fabric the least you cut it the more likely it is to stay together. All pressing was done with a cool iron and a scrap of tana lawn as a press cloth - which worked beautifully.

On to the pattern - the bodice is from the sultry sheath dress from Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing. I made a muslin in size 6 to check the fit. The fit was ok, but I do wish I'd have pinched out a bit at the neckline to make it hug a bit better. I lowered the armholes by 1cm and the back by about 3 cm, just for personal preference.

The bodice has 4 waist darts on the front and two on the back, plus bust darts, this gives a good amount of shaping. I did not use the pencil skirt from the book, although I do love the pencil skirt I knew that the fabric needed special care and I wanted to keep construction as simple as possible. the skirt is a simple rectangle using the remaining fabric and pleated at the front and the back to match the darts. It's not particularly full, but the structure of the fabric gives some nice shaping.

As the fabric is scratchy I decided to fully line the dress. I used a purple fabric with a soft handle for the skirt, but I didn't have enough for the bodice so I used some tana lawn which was left over from my last project. The lawn is lovely and cool and perfect to line the dress. The bodice seams are fully enclosed, which should also help with reduction of fraying. the skirt seams are all overlocked and the hem makes use of the selvedge edge and was hand stitched.

This dress was ready for NYE, but we ended up staying home, so it got it's first outing at the Church meal yesterday. My hubby also wore the shirt I made him for Christmas - more on that another time.