Velvety velvet

I love velvet - smooth one way, slightly rough the other way; soft, elegant and lovely. That said, it can be tricky to sew because the 'nap' means when the pieces are right sides together they want to move in opposite directions. Velvet is not a slidey fabric!

This week I've been busy making more velvet purses. I designed the pattern and applique for these over a year ago, but still have lots of un-used purse frames. These might make last-minute Christmas presents, and some are going into my Etsy shop. As well as for coins, I think these would make a lovely jewellery case - for a necklace, bracelet or rings, for example.



The machine embroidery on these is done with the feed dogs down, so I can trace around these flower petals by moving the fabric in any direction under the needle. It takes a bit of getting used to, but for designs like this it's essential - this would be so difficult to sew using straight stitching!



In the centre of this flower (and the one on the blue purse) I've added a small shell button and tiny seed beads, by hand. All of this embellishment is done before I stitch the two pieces of velvet together to make the purse outer.



Once the lining is made I press the seams, place the lining inside the outer, press the top edges inwards and oversew them together. Then it's time to glue the purse into its frame, which takes a bit of patience! I like to glue the front in first, because it's usually slightly easier to get a neat and tidy glue-free finish on the first side you do. And if there's going to be glue on the velvet, I'd rather it was on the back (although you can remove tiny bits with nail polish remover).

If you like these, please do look in the shop!

Covered journal notebook

I've been working on some new notebooks, this time with some wonderful woven felt from RayStitch, and machine applique.

I first stitched this design for a New Home card for a friend, and liked it so much I made another one to keep straight away. And I still like it, so I'm using it again! I found these tiny key charms to tie on the end of a ribbon bookmark.



The garden, made with free machine embroidery, buttons and beads.



The garden and the bunting wrap around to the back of the journal, for extra interest.





Now for sale in my shop, if you would like your own!

New shop!

I've taken the plunge and listed a couple of things in a new Etsy shop! Have a look here (new shop) or on the Shop tab above and leave me a comment below if you like. I'll add more things very soon.

So far, there's this quilt, and this bag.

Bag	Quilt

Hoping to add some more in the next week x

Hexagonal work in progress

I've been working on some hexagons, inspired by this quilt, using up fabric I already had in some muted, modern colours. I don't have a pattern, but I do have a ruler with a 60 degree angle marked on it, so I studied how other people had created hexagons and off I went.



For each segment of a hexagon, I'm sewing a 60 degree triangle to a strip of fabric, then trimming the joined pieces into a large 60 degree triangle. Then I sew three of those together to make a half hexagon.  Eventually I'll lay out all of those how I want them in the quilt, and join them into vertical strips; then when the strips are joined, the full hexagons will appear without me having to sew complicated Y seams.

And to finish here's a trial quilt layout, with some sage green chambray fabric from Village Haberdashery (London)

Orange peel

Just a quick post with picture of Not Orange Peel finally finished.  There was only just enough sunlight to get these pics...

First the whole quilt, showing how the stems (of varying lengths) and leaves are laid out:
 

Some quilting detail: the lines were machine quilted in expanding curves - marked out in washable pen


Along one side of the back, a rainbow stripe which uses one piece of every "leaf" fabric used on the front:


More quilting action:


And another part of the rainbow strip


I have to say it turned out looking really nice, and I'm very pleased with it.
Next quilt has hexagons on....

A new sort of bag

Have you ever used coated cotton for your sewing?  I'd made a few aprons from it in the past, but never ventured into the sort of "3-D" territory that I regularly do with ordinary fabric - until now.

I've been making some satchel-style bags and the results seem good, although I have a few further refinements in mind.  The pattern I used here is a mash-up of stuff I've seen made elsewhere, and some tips from the wonderful internet, with my own sizes and ways of finishing things thrown in!



Above are some bags I recently finished, using up some scraps of coated cotton and some bigger new bits.

So here are my top tips for sewing with coated cotton:
1. If you pin, make sure it's in the seam allowance. Holes in this stuff stay!
2. When sewing, your ordinary polyester thread is fine. For top-stitching you'll be better using something a bit thicker, maybe linen thread.
3. Use a big needle, it makes a great difference. I use a number 90 and it sews very well, even through two layers of coated cotton, two layers of webbing and a lining!
4. Practice sewing on a scrap before you put your project under the presser foot, to make sure your tension, stitch length etc are all good.
5. A walking foot solves all problems of this stuff sticking to the stitch plate or presser foot. They cost a little bit, but once you've got one you'll use it loads.
6. Avoid turning bags inside out and back again numerous times - you can iron coated cotton, but some creases stay longer than others.



Here's the inside of a bag, showing an internal pocket and also the top edge, and strap adjuster.
Next up I'm trying coated cotton in combination with zips! Should be interesting...

Birdy book

Had an hour or two spare today, so I had a play with machine embroidery. I've made notebook covers before, but only with patchwork, but I see more covers with pictures coming soon!



I make my covers using pretty much the same method as Rachel at Stitched In Colour - a link to her tutorial is here.

The colours in these photos aren't great (summer's over!) - this blue cover is a deep turquoise, and the bird's wing deep pinky-purple. These notebooks are about A5 size. I've added a ribbon bookmark with a felt ball on the end. In fact seeing the bag of felt balls, which I've had for months but haven't got round to using (but they're lovely to play with - get yours from Blooming Felt), inspired me back into notebook-covering.



Next time I'm going to use Bondaweb to make sure there's not so much fraying on the bird shape - this time I used my standby Pritt stick. Well, it works!



Watch this space for more notebooks soon x