More handmade gifts…

Tomorrow my youngest will receive a little kitchen as a gift from his grandma. He turned 3 two days ago and he had a small party with three little guys from his kindergarten (and his older brother of course). Shame on me, I realized when they were gone home that I did not even take one photo of the whole fun. Blank pages in his photobook. Aaaah stupid me. Does that happen to you or am I the only  one?!

But onto the sewing part of that kitchen gift.
I quickly decided that a kitchen calls for an apron:

And another one for his older brother:

And some accessories like pot holders, oven gloves and dish towels.

All made from Metro Market by Monaluna from Robert Kaufman.

I’m nervous to see if they like them or think that they are too girly…
What do you think? Acceptable for little boys (3 and 4 years old)?!

Happy sewing!
Christine

Quick and easy…

Last week I found Candance’s easy tutorial at Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story. I knew immediately that I wanted to make a birthday bunting for the birthday of my youngest son which is next week. And when I found a small scrap bag with birthday fabrics, I started cutting the same day.



You simpy cut out your fabric with a zig zag blade of your rotary cutter and add a giant ric rag. As the bunting is going to hang on a wall, I don’t mind that it only has one nice side.



Might even become a great go-to gift for a baby nursery ?!
I need quick projects now as my real-life-job is pretty exhausting at the moment…

Happy new week!
Christine

Another w.i.p.

A patchwork quilt has been on my to-do list for some months now. I wanted to use many of “my precious fabrics” and those were mostly in blues and greens and greys. I had already “collected” some more or less matching prints in the last months and finally cut into all of them. Almost.

If you look closer, you can spot Backyard Baby, Tilda, 1001 peeps (the one and only giveaway I’ve ever won online – thanks Fat Quarterly Team!), etc.

While the boys were playing, I have been cutting outside until a thunder storm came up. You can see the dark clouds on the photo below – together with what I managed to cut in between looking after the boys.

The same night I cut out the rest of these 5” squares.

The following weekend I layed out the squares to make sure that the darker hues were evenly distributed.

I started sewing the quilt top together but haven’t finished it yet. Summer has decided to give us a full week without rain (first time this year) and it is even warm enough to spend the evenings outside (and write blog posts). While it was too hot and too dry in many parts of the world, I can’t remember a day in July without rain. It was quite cold and wet around here… I’m sooooo not ready for fall yet!

It may take some more days to get the quilt top done – especially if I get distracted by baby hats again. I made 4 of them last weekend and made two more since then. I adjusted Tie Dye Diva’s pattern and made the last two in a larger size (I guess about 6-12 months).

I gave one to my sister for my little nephew and the recipient for the other must remain unnamed until tomorrow…

That’s it for today.
Happy Sewing!
Christine

Emma’s Baby Quilt

I finished my newborn cousin Emma’s Baby Quilt!


I used Ann Kelle’s fabrics again (Remix and Urban Zoologie). Aren’t these dogs just the cutest?!

I simply cut 6” squares and sashed them with 1” white strips. I added a 6” piece of white fabric and appliqued the letters with a zig zag stitch.

I added my nametag in the lower right corner:

And added a pieced backing (using almost all of the scraps from the top):

And then I messed it up.
I stitched in the ditch and as I can’t change the position of the presser or walking foot, the fabric was shifted so much the quilt is completely wonky now. Urgh. I hope Emma and her parents won’t mind. It doesn’t show that much after washing and drying – it was far worse before.
Here’s a closeup.

I’ll add a visit to my local Pfaff Dealer to my to do list. Chances are I’m just too slow to get how to change the height of the foot. There’s no hint in the manual though.
Overall I’m quite happy with Emma’s Quilt, I just hope that her parents will like it. It’s not the usual pink-rose-pastels-version…
That’s it for today.
Happy Sewing!
Christine
P.S. Linking up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

Sew-Euro-bee-an

At the end of june, Helen and Di, who I met at the FQSR in London, asked me if I was interested in joining a European bee.  I did not hesitate long and plunged in. I’m so excited to start my first bee ever – and with so many talented sewistas!



Yesterday the mailman brought our first challenge: Helen’s September Blocks.



Look at her awesome mosaic, the great colour choice and the blocks she askes us to make:


Source: Helen’s Blog (http://www.runquiltknitwrite.com/?p=4199)


Source: Helen’s Blog (http://www.runquiltknitwrite.com/?p=4199)

I can hardly wait to get started but will have to finish the baby quilt for my little cousin first.

Happy Sewing!
Christine

P.S. I can’t wait to get in touch again with these lovely ladies that I already met in person in London this year – all except Annabella who was ill back then. I’m really looking forward to get to know her (online) now.
Di – www.quiltova.blogspot.com - (Czech Republic, but a born Brit)
Betty – www.bettyvanos.blogspot.de/ (Netherlands)
Helen – http://www.runquiltknitwrite.com/ (Switzerland)
Pippa – www.pippaspatch.com (France, another Brit)
Elisabeth – www.sharksdinner.com (A Swissie in the UK)
Tacha – www.haniesquilts.blogspot.com (A Brit in Germany)
Floh – www.flohstiche.blogspot.de/ (Germany)
Nicole – http://blog.followthewhitebunny.com/ (Netherlands)
Celine – www.espritpatch.com (French in the UK)
Lush – www.diegoagogo.com (An Aussie in the UK)
Annabella – www.kechquilts.blogspot.com (A Brit in Morocco)
and last but not least, Linda - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindakl/ (Netherlands).
---> Thanks for letting me “steal” this bloglist, Helen!

Miscellaneous gifts

I recently made some gifts that I can now share with you. There are different occasions that required some handmade gifts.

For the wedding of our friends I made a tablecloth. The bride asked for an outdoor tablecloth so I decided to use oilcloth and to add a little extra finish I added a giant ric rag all around the edges.




Next I started to prepare the 3rd birthday of our youngest son. He asked for a dragon for his birthday. I did some online research and found out that there was a Lego Duplo series of Knights and Dragons in 2004-2005. That series is out of production now (and new parts can only be found at unreasonably high prices) so I bought some small used kits.
This is the dragon (pretty big in comparison to the regular block, isn’t he – or she?!)



And as the used kits came in an ordinary box, I made this giant drawstring bag where he can store his new duplo blocks. I know, these are dinosaurs on the fabric but I did not have any dragon-y fabrics in my stash. I guess he won’t mind.



And then there were some baby gifts to do. There are three babies due any time now. I started cutting these baby hats already 3 weeks ago but only started to sew them together yesterday evening. These cute baby beanies are my go-to newborn baby gift. I used this great tutorial of Tie Dye Diva.



It was good to get them finally done because this morning I was informed that my youngest cousin, a sweet little girl named Emma, was born yesterday – nearly 4 weeks early. I started making her quilt right away and am happy to inform you that the top is already finished (my boys were visiting their grandma and I was sewing like a mad woman for 6 hours). I hope to do the basting and quilting tomorrow (if the boys behave) so maybe I can show you another finish in the next couple of days.

Do you have a go-to baby gift? I’d love to know, maybe I can change my habit and mix in some other great gifts?!

Happy Sewing!
Christine