"Bye, baby bunting..."

It's been a while, for which I apologise. I have two excuses. First, I've mostly been making the same thing. I'm in a bunting stage. First it was some Special Leaving Bunting (see below). Then it was name bunting for a friend's new baby and new baby's big sister, and then it was my favourite bunting of all (again, see below). So, not much to report. I've already shared my bunting making instructions, and these are really variations on a theme.

The second excuse is better. My sewing machine broke. It started to skip the odd stitch in the middle of making Special Leaving Bunting, and when I went to make the name bunting it became totally unusable. Into the shop it went, for what was meant to be 3 days and ended up being nearly two weeks. I missed it. A lot.

However, it is back and I finally managed to finish off a few projects, clear the desk a bit, and realise I need something new. And so, I found this site which offers PDF patterns WITH TUTORIALS at quite bargainous prices. This is big for me, because up to now my inability to follow pattern instructions has meant that most the things I make are designed through trial and error. I've just bought the very cute hoodie pattern, and I'm hoping to whip a few up this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

But back to the bunting. This Special Leaving Bunting was a collaborative effort, made for a friend who at short notice told us she was moving to the other end of Britain. No time to make a quilt or something more elaborate, but there was time enough to rally the troops to make a triangle of fabric which was then strung together to make bunting. Of course, they all outdid themselves. I'd been expecting plain bits of cotton but they crocheted, appliqued, painted, embroidered, and adorned with style. In the end, we had a massive string of bunting with lovely messages written on the backs of the flags, and I think she did like it. If you are after a group project, this is a good one - how nice would it be for a wedding/christening/birthday/anything?

That finished, it was time to tackle my Favourite Bunting of All Time, aka Alphabet Bunting. It is, really, as it sounds. It involved a lot of applique and some dictionary searching (J and N were very tricky!) but in the end, I'm really pleased with it.

If you want to make something similar, here are my tips and lessons learned.

1. I made rectangles rather than triangles just so I could fit everything in. If you wanted triangles, I'm sure it could be done if you used just upper or lower case letters.

2. I bought the cheapest white cotton I could find - 2 metres of it - for making the flags. It ended up being curtain lining and £4/metre for 100% cotton - not bad. However, if I made this again I would buy a slightly higher quality. This stuff ravelled like mad.

3. I used black felt for the letters. Felt is very forgiving when you applique, and it meant if my stitches weren't exactly on the edge it didn't show up, and if I missed a bit I didn't have to worry about it fraying.

4. Use an assembly line approach to the applique. Do all the pinks/reds/yellows/blues at once so that you don't have to thread and rethread your machine more than needed.

5. Cheat. In the end, I used fabric pens for a lot of small details. It saved me from going completely crazy.

6. Think about your images. As well as being easy to applique, it helps to have things that are relevant to your kids. I struggled most with the letter N, thinking nappies, nose, and finally Nessie which I thought would be great - but then the kids might see it as a snake, monster, serpent... We were just back from New York so in the end that won. I also wanted things that made the sound of the letter, so as much as I wanted Owl for O, Octopus won.

Once the bunting started to come together, I realised it really would have made a fabulous quilt. Only the low quality cotton and felt letters kept it from becoming a blanket, but I may well make this again as a present. For someone I really, really like. It was a really fun project, though - one I was almost sorry to finish.

A quick catch up.

It's been a bit quiet on the blogging front. I've been finishing old projects and working on lots and lots of presents. I feel a bit funny blogging tutorials for things I've made as presents, but I'm more than happy to answer questions if anyone wants to try any of the below!

So, here's a quick run through of the last few weeks in photos, and not so much a tutorial as an idea shared for a baby shower present you can make.

First up, this top secret present has now been posted, received, and is therefore safe to share. Made for a very good friend's baby, said baby had the nerve to show up 5 weeks early, thus throwing all my plans to have this there for his arrival! It was quite a basic quilt top, but then I decided to try my hand at free motion quilting. Definitely not as easy as I'd hoped it would be. Quilting this thing took...a very long time. And many, many broken needles. By the end, though, I was barely breaking any (as opposed to the first few inches which used up 7 in the space of half an hour).

I love this quilt - simple, bright colours, and the backing is possibly my favourite fabric ever. I may well make this again, but there are a few things I'd do differently...

Finished quilt

Close up of the quilting

Quilt backing

The finished book

 Next up, we have a project that was born out of a baby shower. We wanted to make a collaborative present for the (second time) mum-to-be, and I'd originally thought this would be a blanket. I asked everyone at the shower to draw a wee picture, and was going to turn them into appliques for a fleece blanket. However, the designs didn't really lend themselves to one blanket scene, so I then thought it would have to be a patchwork quilt. And then, the idea of a book hit me.

This one is made of unbleached cotton, and the appliques are as many different textures as I could find, from soft fleece to bumpy corduroy, to scratchy linen. I hope baby likes reading it as much as I liked making it.

First pages
 

Original drawing, and the resulting applique

Giraffe!

I was most proud of the cat's eyes

And finally, a special request for a friend: a couple of rounds of name bunting, for a pair of sisters. I love making bunting.

More exciting (?!) tutorials to come but for now, I have to finish this last thing that's been keeping me busy. I call it the Quilt of Doom and really, that's a story for a whole other post...

Personalised t-shirt

My little girl loves to dance. She always has: her earliest nursery reports were of her bopping away to the music and clapping her hands. Now, at almost 18 months, she will happily dance on command or whenever she hears music. She twirls, spins, bounces, occasionally jumps, and is just the happiest wee creature you've ever seen.

So this morning, I took it in my head that I wanted to make her a shirt. A wee dancer shirt. For those of you not familiar with Scottish phrases, I can refer you to various dictionaries of Scottish vernacular, which define "dancer" as a "term of glee or exultation. Tap dancer- three stairs up in a tenement or top floor in a prison (also called Fredastair or Freda)" - see also here. Basically, it's a good thing, and being called a "wee dancer" is a term of admiration and appreciation. 

And here is my little girl's Wee Dancer shirt. You don't need to make a wee dancer - the method could be used for anything. Try putting your wee one's name on it. Or how about a big number 1 for a first birthday?

You can, of course, make a t-shirt from scratch but frankly, why bother when you can buy a perfectly good one for £2? (This one's from H&M - £1.99, but you can also get multipacks of white onesies or t-shirts from places like John Lewis and Asda.) 


Start to finish, this project took me exactly one hour.

You will need:

• one t-shirt, of an appropriate size
• bondaweb
• a small bit of fabric (or fabrics) in contrasting colours to make your letters
• an iron
• a good pair of scissors
• a printer, stencils, or a good hand at drawing letters
• a sewing machine (optional)

Step 1: make your letters

The easiest way to do this is to get onto your computer, type the word or words you want, and then fiddle with fonts and sizes until you have a pattern. I used 220 point Futura bold outline for mine. Try not to pick a font that's too fussy or narrow as you will have to cut out all those fiddly bits, and possibly sew them later on.

Once you've got your letters looking right, you need to print. If you can, print a mirror image of your words, so that they come out backwards (usually you can do this in your print settings). If you can't, don't worry - it's just a bit extra work.

Now, hold your printout up to your t-shirt to make sure the size looks right and it will all fit. If it looks good, go ahead and trace your letters onto your bondaweb. If you weren't able to print a mirror image, you can either cut them out and flip them over and then trace, or trace their outline onto the back of the printout and copy those. You should now have a sheet of bondaweb with your backwards letters on them.

Step 2: make the fabric letters

You now want to fuse the bondaweb onto the fabric you've chosen for your letters. Make sure you're doing it on the WRONG side of the fabric! Once you've ironed the bondaweb on, carefully cut out all the letters. Peel the paper backing off, arrange them on your t-shirt, and iron them into place. Your letters should now be the right way round!

Step 3: sewing 

You can now, if you want, set your sewing machine to a very small, tight zigzag stitch and outline the letters in a complimentary or contrasting thread. This will ensure those letters aren't going anywhere, and can help the design pop out a bit. However, unless you're very very good (I'm not), you might also lose some of the sharpness of the letters. So, if you've used a fabric that isn't going to ravel or fray, or the t-shirt doesn't need to last an eternity, or you don't have a sewing machine, feel free to skip this step. Just make sure you've done a really thorough job of ironing the letters on.

And ta-da! You are finished! Easy as pie, and the t-shirt world's your oyster. Why not try and personalise a set of plain white sleepsuits for a new baby, with matching burp cloths? Or a little hat? Or a towel, or a bag... 

Octonauts Blanket Tutorial

We're back to the Octonauts. I confess, I'm being a bit of a blog stats whore here, because when I look at my all time stats counter (I am obsessed with my blog stats), over a quarter of those who have flicked over here, or found me from a search engine, have done so because of the stuffed Peso tutorial. I'm also part of the Octonauts community on facebook, and I've seen the amazing efforts that parents have gone to in order to fill their children's desires for all things Captain Barnacles (seriously - someone painted an amazing mural, another made a whole set of Octonauts out of toilet paper rolls, and you should see the birthday cakes!). I feel it's time I came in with a serious contender.

So we have here the Octonauts blanket. Designed for my son's friend's 5th birthday, and now in the process of being replicated for both son and daughter who have, in their own ways, demanded one each. (He asks incessantly if it's finished yet, and she grabs the already completed one and lies on it while stroking Captain Barnacles' face.)

The process, for a change, involves applique. It's a bit time consuming, but certainly can be broken into nappable chunks. I can do one character per nap, and then another nap to sew them onto the blanket. Finish the edges of the blanket in one final nap, and this is probably 5 days worth of work.

You will need:

• Bondaweb, or an equivalent iron-on applique transfer material
• an iron
• a sewing machine
• fleece (I buy 1 metre of 150cm width and cut it in half, so I get two blankets for £6.99/metre)
• fabric in the following colours: black, white, light blue, medium blue, dark blue, orange, yellow, grey (tiny bit), pink (tiny bit)
• thread to match the above colours, plus some red and metallic silver 



Fabric Colours

• a printer, access to a printer, or good drawing skills

A note on fabrics: I use a mixture of cotton and felt. I go for felt for the smaller pieces, which I have to sew on by hand, as it doesn't fray. You could use all felt, but it gets quite thick as you're dealing with multiple layers.




Step 1: Print, trace, cut


Ah, the things we learned in school really were useful. This first step is all about a return to primary school art class. The first thing you need to do is print out some pictures of your favourite Octonauts. Colouring in pages, like these, are good but I went for this for Captain Barnacles, this for Kwazii, and this for Peso. Print them out, adjust for the size you want them to be, and get ready to trace.

Take your sheet of bondaweb, place it directly over the printouts, and trace all the different elements as separate pieces: noses, eyes, stomachs, and so on. Loosely cut these out: don't worry about getting the precise shape as you'll do that once you've fused the bondaweb to the fabric.

Pattern pieces, printed off google and cut out

Now, cut out the the printouts so that you have an outline of the body which you can trace onto the fabric (black for Peso, orange for Kwazii, and white for Cptn Barnacles). Don't attach the bondaweb to these pieces yet. Because of all the sewing that you're going to be doing, we'll add the bondaweb at the end. Cut out the body shapes and start positioning the tummies, collars, eyes, noses, boots, and so on onto them. Once they're in place, iron them all on to secure them.

Some tips: you can make Barnacles as two pieces - a white head and a blue body - but I find it easier to cut out a whole white shape and then add the blue on top. Don't attach Peso's feet - add these directly to the blanket. Likewise, don't attach the hats at this point - we'll add them right to the blanket at the end.

Step 2 - Sew sew sew!

Once all your pieces are attached, fused, and ready to go it's time to start to applique. You're not attaching them onto the blanket at this point, but just attaching the different layers to the body. I used hand sewing for the eyes and Peso's beak but machine sewed the rest. I find it easier to do all the fiddly sewing bits before it's attached to the blanket, but feel free to do it all at that stage if you prefer. Doing it this way, though, means fewer threads showing through onto the back of your blanket.

Use the silver metallic thread to sew a zipper detail down Barnacles' front, and dark blue thread to give him the detail in his collar. Hand sew a bit of red onto the circle on his belt. Hand stitch some white in the eyes as well, and any other detail you may want to add.

The hats are a bit fiddly. They need a blue circle with a very small white octopus-like shape in them, and blue stripes. To do them, I appliqued a blue circle onto the hat and stitched it on with white, to create the white edge. I cut out an approximate octopus shape from white felt (no fraying!) and hand stitched it on. I then did a very small, tight zizag stitch across the hat in dark blue for the stripes.

Step 3: Attaching

Now's the big moment: attaching your figures to the blanket. Using them as a pattern, trace and cut out a piece of bondaweb, attach it to the back, and fuse. Then position the figures on the fleece as you want them to go. Using a wet tea towel between the iron and the blanket (IMPORTANT! Fleece will melt without it!), fuse your figures onto the blanket then sew around the edges of the bodies, using the appropriate colours.

Step 4: Finishing

I like to applique the name of the future blanket owner onto the bottom, and finish the edges with a blanket stitch. You could leave them as they are (fleece doesn't fray), or use a blanket binding or bias binding if you prefer. You can even make your own binding, if you're feeling ambitious!

You can, of course, add gups, fish, the Octopod...the possibilities are endless! Or, sew them onto a t-shirt or bag instead of a blanket. And you can use the same method for any other little characters your little characters are fond of - I'm going to try a Pingu at some point! Happy sewing...

The Joys of Applique

Honestly, I don't know what I did before I appliqued. To think I spent a whole year of sewing without it! Here's what I've been up to this week. Both presents have now been handed over, and are thus safe to share.

For a beautiful wee girl, what better than name bunting? I actually really like this, and it may become my standard new baby gift. It can hang above the cot when baby is born, and make appearances for birthdays and special occasions throughout baby's childhood. If you're expecting, expect to get one of these from me!

And for another special baby who is being baptised this weekend in Hungary, what better than a name blanket? This was done in very soft, creamy coloured polar fleece. I finished the edges with a blanket stitch using pale green yarn, and attached the flowers, leaves and letters with bondaweb (using a damp tea towel, as fleece melts under an iron!). If you don't know how to blanket stitch (I didn't), then check out this video, complete with soothing music. It's easy as pie.

I then stitched the flowers and letters in white, but used green for the leaves. It does show through on the back, but it was so much better on the front that it's worth it.

A bit time consuming, but definitely not tricky. And I hope they make their special little owners smile.

Top Secret Bloggables

I've been working away on various things, and it's killing me keeping them quiet. They're all presents for various people, and so can't be revealed just yet. But soon, soon!

Coming up soon, then: a quilt in an hour (yes, really), an Octonauts blanket, and fleece applique blankets. Can't wait to show you what I've been up to!

What I've Been Up To

You may have noticed a silence on the blog front. That's because I've been working on a project that is completely NOT in the ethos of Sew Bored. This project took me a full week to finish! And so, I am not blogging about it in a tutorial way, but just in a 'here's what I've been up to' way.

I was recently pointed to this amazing blog, and have been in absolute awe ever since. Her stuff is SO beautiful, and so lovely, and she makes it look easy! So when I found this tutorial, I had to give it a try.

I've been wanting to make a blanket for Rosa's bed, and I had a lovely piece of white flannel going spare, and so the project went from pillow to quilt. Essential to Don't Look Now!'s style is free motion quilting, which I've never tried, but I went and bought a free motion foot for my sewing machine and thought I'd give it a bash.

Basically...it didn't go too well. While Don't Look Now! lady uses free-motion stitching along the edge of her appliques...I couldn't. I ended up just doing my usual zig-zag stitch, which worked well enough. The real problem came with the actual quilting. Although by this point I had got a bit more practice (and am actually halfway through free-motion quilting another Top Secret UnBloggable project), I couldn't face trying it on this one too. So I quilted a sun, and some clouds, and some stars and squiggles and so on just to hold everything in place.

 I LOVE the quilt top, but I am not a fan of my quilting. Still, for a practice project I'm fairly pleased, and I've got some ideas to use for next time. And if anyone knows of any classes in free motion quilting...Please let me know!

ABCs of Sewing: A is for Applique

Applique is a wonderful, wonderful thing. For a year I resisted it because I thought it sounded complicated and scary when in truth, it is easy as pie and can look great. There are lots of different ways you can applique, but for me, this method is the best.

(This is my first attempt at applique, done on a baby's quilt)

You will need: 

- Fabric scraps
- Bondaweb, or a similar product, which acts can be ironed on and glues the two pieces of fabric together
- A sewing machine with a zig-zag stitch
- A pattern, which can be drawn, cut out, or printed off sites like Free Applique (ignore the cheesy look - of the site - there's a lot on there!)
- Scissors
- An iron

Now cast your mind back to your early school years. This is basically just cutting out and glueing. Cut out the shapes you want from the fabric you want. Cut matching pieces of Bondaweb. Piece and layer them together as desired and arrange where you want them to go. Now, just iron them down (follow the instructions on your bondaweb or bondaweb substitute!).

You can finish here, but to make it look good and last, you now want to sew around the edges of your applique. Set your sewing machine to a zig-zag stitch and make your stitches quite small and tight, as though you were sewing a button hole. Stitch around the applique: individual pieces, the whole thing, whatever you like.

And now, you really are finished! It takes no time at all and looks brilliant. Try adding a name to a child's shirt, an embellishment to a plain coloured t-shirt, or a flower to a cotton shopping bag. The possibilities are endless, and the more you sew the larger your bag of applique-worthy scraps!