Grey...

Sadly yesterday turned out greyer than expected, (not in a Christian way), but there was a little silver-grey lining, my Kindle arrived, so I made a case.

I started off with a simple slip pouch, but I really didn't love the baggy elastic/button closure combo I ended up with, so I lopped off the top, cut off the seams and went for a mini version of Ayumi's iPad case.

I added some Vilene S520 to the insides to give it a firm outer, with thick fleece instead of lining and batting, it turned out rather great looking considering it went though a full 360'...

I have only had a little play with the actual Kindle thus far, but having spent more time stuck 'in a book' than anything else, (random tapping and swearing does not work), I am not able to report back just yet, but it looks cool.
xxx

Picky...

You all know the score.  The evening before you head off on holiday, and you have to be up at about 2am, all the bags are packed, spare keys hidden, fridge emptied and time to relax, then you decide you need to make a new iPad cover, because you just have to!  Right?

Well I did.

I had been eyeing two different patterns, Ayumi's from Patchwork Please! and Alexia's from Liberty Love.

I plumped for a mix, the Liberty and Echino combo of Alexia's, and Ayumi's pattern, minus the accessories pocket.

I stitched up a storm until I had the binding attached and ready for finishing.  Gah!

I had used my walking foot to do everything, so although the binding looked great on the outside, when it came to stitching it down, the wider than necessary seam meant the mitred corners were horrendous and I had to pull it quite tight to cover all the raw edges.  The clock was ticking, so I persevered.

It looked OK, but it didn't look great...

As it turned out, I didn't even get my iPad out of the case the whole time we were away, but it niggled me nonetheless.

So on the night we got home I unpicked the binding, trimmed the whole case down by 1/4" all round, as it was a little on the large size too, then re-attached and re-finished the binding.

I had to use a straight seam to join the ends as I had previously cut them on the bias; it was making my head hurt to try and re-cut to the right length, but I am more than fine with the outcome...

So now I am a happy bunny.

Looking at the After picture above, it still looks wonky as I'd just plonked it on the floor, but in reality, it is all good!

The pattern was easy to follow, and really quick to put together, even with all the quilting.  I will make more in the future no doubt as it is not a fabric-hungry pattern, and I am all about the co-ordinating tech!

Tea anyone?

As much as I love a nice strong cuppa, whenever and wherever I can, we do not use a teapot.  Gasp!!

Our water is so hard, and even though we have a water filter on our kettle, stewing tea just doesn't taste very nice here.  OK, enough with the excuses for not making the teapot cosy as part of Zakka 2.0, so may I present you with my teabag pouch...

It may have taken a whole afternoon to settle on the Joel Dewberry honeycomb, and to make the Farmdale fabric-covered button, but to stitch together the pouch, literally took minutes!

It's a very sweet pattern, I think I need to widen my tea-drinking horizons from everyday blends to do this pretty justice though.  At the moment it may as well be filled with Lemsip sachets, although my taste and smell are coming back, and hopefully tomorrow I will feel normal, yay!

I'm linking up with Lindsey, where you will find all sorts of beautiful tea cosies and pouches.

Here comes the weekend everyone xxx

Teatime...

Week two of the fabulous Zakka 2.0 sew along making Patchwork Please! projects, and tea towels are getting the Ayumi treatment.

Not that I am cheeky or anything, but I opted to go simply for 'Tea' and to decorate a bargain tea towel from Tesco; I am British after all!

I got the binding stitched down whilst at my Mum and Dad's yesterday, and then promptly gave it straight to my Mum for keeps; out of sight, out of mind when it comes to using it on actual dishes!!!

I googled for a teapot template and happily found this.

This was a totally quick make, a great gift idea, and had I thought more deeply about it, I could have gone more masculine and given it as a not-so-subtle Father's Day gift to dear hubby!  Dammit!

Linking with lovely Lindsey once again x

PS.  Thank you all so much for the Marcelle Medallion love - I will try to work my way through my chocablock Inbox later!

Apples & Peppers

My first pepper from Patchwork Please! was met with shouts of 'nice apple' from the household hecklers.  Hmm...that gave me an idea!

So here is my pepper...

I am going to take this one to work to help  make the hours pass more prettily; I am only in for 3 mornings this week, thanks to a timely Inset Day, but anything to make that time more in-keeping with what I would rather be doing, can't be a bad thing.

The idea?  Teacher gifts, actually Teaching Assistant gifts, and to make them a bit more 'teacher-ish', I rounded them out to really look like apples!

I just had to use the Dick & Jane print on the backs !

This is such a super easy, quick and effective little make.  I used freezer paper for my templates, and a frixion pen to draw round them.  I used ribbon instead of felt for the stalks, and felt for the apple leaves.

After making the pepper, I decided to put a little woven interfacing on the inside of the top piece as I could still feel the turning slit, and with the light fabric I thought, and it does, give it a better finish.   2 layers of fusible fleece instead of batting, cut a little smaller than the template to reduce the bulk, and Bob's your uncle.

The best bit, Mary mentioned using pinking shears in passing yesterday, and bugger me, if that wasn't the most obvious, useful and amazing tip for the curves EVER!  In fact, I used them for trimming the whole things.  Honestly, I would never have thought of that!!  Thanks M xxx

Linking up with awesome Lindsey and Debbie for week 1 of the Zakka 2.0 Sew Along.

Well apart from tripping out the mains power 3 or 4 times with the iron; even after changing the fuse, I had to resort to my old one, which is half the weight and probably just as rubbish good; I made Terri's second Brit Bee block...

It's a Twelve Pointed Star from Fat Quarterly's Shape Workshop book, and I think it looks lovely in T's low volume prints against the Kona Wisteria.

I might get my final June Bee block done this evening, or I might just stitch down the binding on the mini I finished today for the Modern Mini Challenge.

Decisions, decisions xxx

Give Me Liberty Please!

When Krista and Nicole threw down the Liberty-lined gauntlet to stitch up some Liberty last month, they didn't have to ask me twice.

As soon as I saw Ayumi's Embroidery Pouch in Patchwork Please! I knew I would be making one in advance of the sewalong - it's near the end of the book, so it'll be months before that one gets the treatment, so I started formulating a plan immediately.  A Liberty-Heather Ross plan. 

The sew-along booted my butt into gear!

I showed you the cover a while back, and I know I have already put the finished shots on instagram as I was so happy with it and couldn't wait to show off; but today I am linking up with Nicole's blog for all to see...

I am so in love with this pouch.  It finishes at 9.5" square, which is perfect for a nice sized hoop to fit inside.

As you were party to my vinyl dilemma, you may like to see a bit closer how I managed to incorporate one of those 50 pence pencil cases, zip 'n' all...

Instead of the second side pocket, I cut open the pencil case, unpicked the vinyl from the right-hand side of the zipper, (with the zip closed and pull at the top), and then trimmed to size; I amended the pattern slightly so that my pocket was lined was some Klona jade, and attached a strip of Liberty to that, and the other side to the edge of the zip sandwiched with the linen, the same way as you would sew the first side of a zippy purse.

Apart from not dividing the other vinyl pocket, this is my only real deviation from the published pattern.

Having a transparent pocket, or rather two, is so useful, and I am glad my gamble paid off.

Due to all the vinyl, I machine-stitched the binding to the inside first, then hand-stitched it down on the outside.

So there you have it!  Thank you Ayumi, your pattern is brilliant, so it really would have been difficult to make a duffer!  And a final thank you to Krista and Nicole for getting me to make this sooner rather than later.

I am over the moon with every inch of this pouch, it's another favourite thing ever!

***

Don't forget to pop over to yesterday's post if you haven't entered my Sew Mama Sew giveaway for the chance of winning your own bit of linen and Liberty. 
PS. No Reply Bloggers have been prevalent - if you discover you are of this ilk, email me before Friday, and should I pick you, I will be able to contact you - I know Blogger likes to randomly bump people!

Making progress...

Here are a couple of pics of my Patchwork Please!/Give Me Liberty embroidery pouch as promised...

I have reached a bit of an impasse - the pattern calls for some transparent vinyl for the clear pocket, but where, oh where, do I get any of that??

In an attempt to use what I had on hand, I tried sticking sticky backed plastic to itself, but that is still too thin, and anything else I have, like document wallets and the like, just don't feel right.  I ordered a sample from a table covering type company, so we will see what that is like, but I am guessing more plastic bag than I need.

Does anyone know where I can get what is needed in the UK?  Should the sample turn out to be the biz, I will let you know, but any ideas please in the meantime.

Talking of meantime, Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day is less than a week away...

... just saying xxx

Not the best of starts...

I got up really early so I could check out our spiky friend, but unfortunately he had checked out already; so a little diversionary tooth brushing with the kids was required, whilst hubby got busy with the clean up operation.  

It also seemed like my MacBook was coming out in sympathy, but a couple of re-boots and a hard slap later and I brought it back to life; you win some, you lose some, eh?

So onto the day proper, making use of the early start, I had the main block of my Patchwork Please! embroidery pouch all sewn up before 10am; the points are not all perfect, but I love it...

I did then spend a disproportionate amount of time then pondering the rest of the pouch, but I want it to be just right.

We had a picnic lunch, on a windswept, freezing cold, heathland!!  The sun never quite made it, any warmth was zapped by the Arctic blasts, so after an hour of asking the kids if they were ready to go, we finally upped sticks and came home...

I couldn't resist cracking on with the rest of the block once the kids were in bed though...

Shocking photo, but you get the gist!

And so ends another weekend, and next week's is a long one - woo hoo xxx

Insta-Saturday...

Today was mostly caught on Instagram, so apologies if this is like deja-vu for you!

I cancelled my Genius appointment, as all is currently tickety-boo in the tech department, but I might make another one for next weekend, just in case things conk out during the week!

Anyway, after the weekly joy of loading up at Tesco, we went out to the village football team's Fun Day.  The kids won lots of sweets, I got cake!

The rest of the afternoon was spent fabric stroking, and trying to get the now seemingly poorly hedgehog to eat some pet food - it's not looking good; the fact he/she is out all day doesn't bode well.

Then once the kids headed up to bed, I got fussy cutting...

Precious HR and Liberty, so I am reading and re-reading the instructions this time.

Hoping that tomorrow will involve more sewing and less crouching next to bushes in the garden!

Dunces corner...

Well after Wednesday's tantrum, there was a lot of unpicking, fiddling about and just a bit of bad language, but I ended up with a pencil case in the end...

So many imperfections I could almost cry; the good bits are actually really good but the bad bits are shocking!

If you already have the beautiful Patchwork Please! you will know what it is meant to look like, but I am guessing that if you don't, then it probably doesn't appear so odd.  Rather than slender grown up pencils though, I have reverted to big fat children's scribblers.  Sorry Ayumi!

I will make another one, I will read and follow the instructions properly and then I will end up with one I am proud of!  Lesson learnt.

For now, I am currently deliberating whether to go see the Genies at the Apple Store tomorrow morning or not.  My MacBook is currently playing nicely, but you know darn well that if I cancel, it will go wrong immediately; however, if it is working, they will not be able to do anything...  I give up, I'm going to go sew something instead! xxx

Conspiring against me...

Gah!

So yesterday ended with compounded aggro and upset; my computer is on the blink again, sadly some undeserving people are on the blink too and a bit of school trip wrangling had been chucked in for good measure.  Anyhow I thought today would be better!

After more fun and games at school, I got on with prepping some EPP, all ready for a day sitting in the sun...

... and it was cloudy ALL day!  Still I suppose I am now prepared for when it is needed.  Every cloud and all that!

So I thought I would jump into my Patchwork Please! and make the lovely Retro Pencil Case as I was stuck indoors.

Only I just raced ahead, in my merry way, thought I'd spotted a cutting typo, kept going and then realised too late that there was no typo and I was just an utter berk!

The mood I was then in, I figured the little hand stitching was likely to end in tears, so opted for machining contrasting thread, and then utterly hated it!  This is the pre-unpicked panel...

I did not paper piece the main pencil panel, and then went ahead and did not use the template for joining the pencil ends - so both panels have ended up wider than they should.  I have looked at it for so long that I see nothing but faults now.  Poop.

Well I have proceeded to unpick, re-cut and soldiered on, but more of that when I have calmed down a bit, promise.

So back to the laptop horrors - I will be checking my emails on my iPad or hubby's computer, but via webmail, which I totally hate.  Using Mail seems to send my MacBook into a spin, so I will not be replying for a bit; if I spot anything more urgent than comments, I will try to get back to you.  Also I will be reading blogposts, but likewise not commenting much, sorry chaps.  I am pre-writing a couple of posts now, whilst the going is good.

I am hoping everything will be resolved by the weekend, for now, I think an evening of mindless TV, and endless cups of tea is in order xxx