Owls Woodland Quilted Panel

I was asked by a friend to create this Owls Woodland Quilted Panel for a family expecting a new baby. So the panel features an owl for each member of their family. I wanted it to be gender neutral so I used a woodland type of colour palette using lots of different bits of fabric and felt.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out and so are the family I hope!
These are the same owls I designed for a nursery hanging mobile, see it here.

 

Cleo Dungaree Dress

I wanted to make a Dungaree dress, and it was surprisingly hard to fin a decent pattern! I chose this one from Tilly and the Buttons, called Cleo it was relatively simple to make and only uses 1.2m of fabric which makes it very cost effective.

I made a couple of changes to the pattern which was making the straps thicker, so that they would fit better into the clip things which I had already bought. I forgot to bear in mind that wider straps need a larger space where they attach to the back of the dress. I also made the straps so that they were adjustable in length, meaning I had to make the straps pieces longer from the pattern.

I added some swallow Iron on patches from Jennie Maizels (it's best too sew those on as they didn't stick very well to the corderoy!). Overall pretty pleased with the dress and definately plan to make more.

Nb I have actually no idea how the pocket ended up so low down! seems to be ok though!

 

Owls in embroidery hoops

From my last post owls hanging nursery mobile I decided to make some more simple gifts using the same owl characters. I sewed the pieces onto some pale grey needlecord (left over from my dungaree dress which I made - blog post to come when I get around to photographing it!) I stuffed some wadding into each owl too to make it a bit 3D, then I framed them in a painted embroidery hoop and hanged with a matching ribbon.

Please do get in touch if you would like me to make you anything similar :)

 

 

Owls hanging nursery mobile

Recently I created this set of cute owls to make into a mobile to decorate the nursery of a friend, which has a woodland theme.

I used lots of scrap fabrics but with a similar colour scheme, sewing 4 stuffed owl characters and 4 different kinds of leaf. I tried to add some detail to the back of each owl too, using buttons, felt and different patterns of stitching to stimulate the small person whilst they look at it!

I'm really pleased with how the owl characters turned out and maybe I can make some more of these little characters soon! Please do get in touch if you would like any similar things created for you.

 

 

 

Recent Cross Stitch projects

Having acquired a MASSIVE load of coloured yarn from my Nana, I decided to try using up some of it on some cross stitch! it's been lovely to have so many lovely colours to choose from. These are some experiments that I designed and sewed myself, simply drawing them out onto the fabric using a fabric pen, and for the more complicated chevron one I used some squared paper to draw out my design.

Victorian Sewing and Gardening Screen prints

I've been busy creating some more screen prints using images from the Victorian picture book that I used for the Victorian Keys screen print and card I printed a few weeks ago.

As I have been watching the Chelsea Flower show whilst sewing this week, I thought about doing a gardening and a sewing print, so I collected lots of little images with these themes from the book, and arranged them, adding colour, to create these prints, I hope you like them! As always they're available from my Folksy and Etsy shops, whichever you prefer!

Victorian Sewing Screen Print

Victorian Gardening Screen Print

Sewing Machine Table Refurb

Having had this lovely but rather dark sewing machine table (which I inherited from my Nana) in my sitting room for about a year, I decided it was time to take the plunge and paint it a completely different colour! Unsurprisingly the colour was green.

The paint I used was Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Florence. I did 2 coats, then sanded the edges to give the table a distressed look. Then I waxed it using Annie Sloan soft wax, and then it was done! lovely. Now I must figure out the vintage sewing machine and do some sewing! Unfortunately I did manage to paint a bit of the curtains.

 

 

 

Chevron Cross Stitch

This is my first attempt at designing a cross stitch/embroidery, which I created to use up some of the massive pile of embroidery cotton that I have recently acquired!  Quite pleased with this for a first try!