English Paper Pieced Xmas Ornament

I feel like this week Christmas hit me like a train. I went from being fairly relaxed and having loads of time to juggling nativities and present buying and all kinds of stuff!! 

I actually made this a few weeks ago during a quiet spell. I sat and watched more episodes of Dawsons Creek and stitched it up. The idea of based off a hanging Christmas decoration my grandma made my mum many moons ago.

Its very simple, you tack pieces of Christmas fabric around card diamonds [making sure you don't tack through the card]. Then you sew them together in groups of five which makes them turn into little cups. Then you sew all of those together. 

Its a really simple idea but its so pretty and effective. Its a really quick make as well, i think this only took me about 3 hours start to finish including cutting out fabrics. I could have done it quicker but 

1. I wanted to make sure my seaming stitches were invisible from the outside [you can just over sew all the seams but you will see them from the outside]

2. I was trying to work out if Dawson was ever going to realise how much Joey loved him. FYI I am not a Dawson fan, hes far too self obsessed. 

I also added some beads because well its not Christmas without a bit of sparkle is it!!!! And I used some of the last scraps of my measuring tape fabric because the colours matched and I am a dressmaker after all. 

I love how it turned out and its so nice that I've got something inspired by my Grandma in my Xmas decorations!

In other news!!! 

- I've got lots of sewing done but the combination of the dark weather and my naff hair has meant I haven't taken any pictures. Hopefully I'll be able to take some tomorrow though as I've had my hair cut!! I've had about 5 inches took off and it looks 100% better!

- Lil man had his Nativity and he did a fantastic job! Naturally I made his costume and I was really glad I did because it meant he stood out a bit more because a lot of the other kids were all in the same costume. They did a modern style performance based on a strictly come dancing idea. It was very funny and all the kids did great.

- The snow has been an absolute nightmare, we had a snow day on Monday but Tuesday and Wednesday were awful for trying to walk to school it was freezing and we were slipping and sliding the whole way. We did love playing out in the snow though, I'd forgotten how much I like sledding!

-Right now we have started scheduling people to come and visit for Xmas which is always a nightmare because having a small child means EVERYONE wants to come and see you! This year we are trying to make sure we start seeing people early so its not a huge rush having visitors 3 days before xmas. 

Much Love 

Frankie 

xxx 

The Stocking My Grandma Made Me.

I hope your all in the festive spirit? I most certainly am. The tree is up, a good portion of the presents are wrapped and surprisingly I'm feeling pretty good about Christmas this year. Normally I get super stressed with trying to make Christmas "perfect" but this year I;m making the conscious decision to roll with it. What happens happens, because its going to happen anyway. 

In fact I've already pretty much accepted that both of the boys will be ill the week before Christmas. Mainly because it happens EVERY BLOODY YEAR! Yep you can guarantee on the 20th of December, one or both of my boys will be in bed poorly. That said I do hope they don't throw up, I can cope with colds but I am a MESS when it comes to puke.

Anyway that's enough of the gross talk! 

Today I'm showing you something that I didn't make.

My Grandma made me this stocking when I was little. In fact she made one for me my sister and my brother. Each one is different and each one was firmly ours! In fact I found it really bizarre when during our first Christmas Rikki told me he didn't have a Christmas stocking! I mean WHAAAAA? You don't have your own stocking?

I sort of believed that everyone was born, got given/brought a Christmas stocking and then they used it forever? But apparently not! 

Which I sort of get now that me Rikki and Lil man have matching stockings that I made. I like that we all have the same style and that hopefully we will get to use them forever! 

But that doesn't mean that this stocking gets tossed aside. Nope instead it hangs in the hallway and I fill it with sweets and then when people come over they can have a sweet out of the stocking. Nephews and Nieces seem to find this particularity cool. When Rikkis brothers son came over last year he basically cleared me out of candy canes! 

This fabric at the top is one of my favourite parts and I put some scraps of it into our Christmas quilt.

Its fully lined which is good because it means it can be washed if need be and the whole thing won't fall apart. And I really like the contrast fabric on the toe and the heel. 

Its all hung up now I just need to get some sweets to fill it with. 

In other news! 

- Our spare room is full of presents! So whilst I have 7 things made and really to photograph I actually have no where to take pictures. I'm tempted to try taking some in the garden but I;m worried someone will see me and think I'm nuts! 

- Dawsons creek is on all 4! Every single episode. So that pretty much sums up how I've been spending my time. I'm nearly onto season two and I'm not sure I can cope with the sheer levels of teenage angst! Also DAWSON ARE YOU BLIND? OR JUST A BIT DIM? 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

    

But Its Cold Outside

Its hard work photographing quilts in this kind of weather. Usually I peg them to the line and photograph them like that, but seen as its been grotty weather I took these pictures inside.

So anyway I should have blogged this just before Christmas but time ran away, and then I couldn't be bothered and yeah stuff just happened really. But Ta Da here's my finished Christmas quilt! 

The centre square is hand pieced and the rest was done on my machine, its backed with blue velvet and I didn't use any wadding, It felt like a bit of a waste to use wadding on a quilt that's only going to be used for one month a year. And the pile of the velvet makes it squishy and warm anyway.

The fabric is a mixture of craft cotton company fabrics and some pieces from my grandmas stash. It was nice to use up some of the pieces I inherited especially seen as a lot of them are featured in things my Grandma made for other family members!

Here's a close up of the centre square, I used English paper piecing and it probably took me about an hour?

I quilted the whole thing on my janome, I started by quilting around the centre square and gradually turned it into a spiral!

So it spent a happy couple of days on the sofa and has now been packed away with the rest of the decorations.

Before I packed it away I did add these to the back. Lil knitwits godfathers mum makes cards with cross stitches on the front and every year lil knitwit gets two one from her and one from his godfather, anyway I can never bring myself to throw them away so they are stashed in various places around the house [I couldn't find any when I looked but I'm sure some will turn up when I'm not looking] so I thought it might be nice to add them to the back of the quilt each year that way I don't have to have them floating around the house! Brilliant right?

In other news I started watching Mad Men but I just cant seem to get into it, I'm wondering if its because I have "but I'd rather watch the sopranos syndrome". So I've been watching that and if anything I'm enjoying it more than the first time I watched it! 

Maybe I'll try mad men again when I've finished the sopranos.

I also seem to be developing a small cold which sucks and I'm pretty grumpy which I'm blaming on the January blues, but I have been cheering myself up with some sewing. There one item that I'm kinda meh about and another that I like but could be better. However photographing them in this weather is going to be an absolute brute! 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

The centre square of my Christmas quilt

I've been toying with the idea of making a Christmas quilt for a few years now. Well last week lil Knitwit was having a full on I'm miserable at the world day so I pulled out all of my Christmas fabric and let him help me decide on a pattern and an idea. I even let him flick through my quilting magazines. anyway after he told me it should definitely have squares and triangles!! Yes squares and triangles!

The fabrics I'm using are a mixture of craft cotton company Christmas patterns and some of my grandmas Christmas fabric! Sadly with some of my grandmas fabric there wasn't enough to go ahead with mine and lil knitwit's original plan. Soooooooo I decided to hand piece a centre square for my quilt using the smaller pieces of fabric and the EPP technique.

Its turned out really cute to say I drafted it onto a piece of regular paper. And it only took a couple of hours, in fact it was one of my quickest projects ever!

Saying that my diamond points don't match up so I think I might appliqué a circle on top because otherwise it will bother me!

I do love how the start shape gives it such a christmassy feel although I think trying to find three wise men in my house would be a push!!!! 

I'm hoping that it will look nice set into the middle of my blanket [when I've actually stitched the rest of the quilt top together!]

Here's the back its a HOT! mess!

Anyway its getting me into the Christmas spirit at least! Ideally I'd love to have it finished for this Christmas eve but I'm not going to put any pressure on myself not when this week is so chaotic anyway.

Much Love

Frankie

xxx

Adventure Is Out There!

Its Day 13 of Pinterest Fortnight folks , this is literally the home stretch! And I am so excited about todays make!!!! First I'll show you the inspiration then I'll get to the explaining!

 

 

This was my inspiration straight off my Pinterest board! And it come from this lovely little shop on

 Etsy!  

I love the balloons which got my thinking about one of my favourite movies!

Ever since I was little, I have always been Disney obsessed I pride myself on my Disney knowledge , in fact I don't like the toot my own horn but I once won a game of Disney trivial pursuits in one turn! so TOOT TOOT! Anyway there are three Disney movies that make me cry without fail every time "Bambi", "The Fox and theHound" and "UP!"

 

UP! Is such a wonderful story of adventure and ever lasting love! But mainly I love it because of the house.

 

 

 

The house floats by balloons! How whimsical is that! Its just so magical , and I'm actually very jealous that my house doesn't float via balloons. Which leads me quite nicely to my make!

 

 

My very own UP! house!

 

 

 I decided to do the house in quite a simple style so that the buttons would the focus point!

 

 

As usual I worked using my Grandmothers embroidery hoop. Although when I was tightening it I did hear a small crack , now I cant find any damage but I'm being twice as careful as usual with it!

 

 

I worked on a really lovely linen and all of the buttons are from my stash! It was a really nice opportunity to use up all of the odd buttons I've collected over the years , I tend to use buttons in twos or more. So it was nice to have a good search through!

 

 

Lovely bright coloured buttons!

 

 

This might actually be one of my favourite makes from Pinterest Fortnight! Now I just need to find a spare five minutes so I can turn this, my tattoo style embroidery, my owl embroidery, and my Darth vader embroidery into cushions so I can put them up for sale in My Etsy Shop!

 

I cant wait to see all of them as cushions I think they are going to look awesome!

 

See you tomorrow for the Grand Finale! Lord knows what I'm going to make!

 

Much Love

 

Frankie

 

xxx

Confession

Okay so its confession time, I'm a Pinterestaholic! I actually cant stop pinning things ! I looked today and I have nearly 300 pins on my inspiration board! I daren't even think how many more I have in my other boards and secret boards, (everyone has secret boards don't they? Like say five of them? Nope just me? Okay then......)

 

But I realised everything I pinned, I like, everything I've pinned I've thought to myself, ooooh I'll try that. But I haven't? So what's stopping me? I have enough time , I've started lots of silly useless, unloved projects but nothing solid. So I wonder has pinning them put them to the back of my mind? Unlike the old days when I had to remember what I wanted to make and how to make it all on my own.

 

So I decided , drumroll please!!!!!!!!

 

I'm making this my Pinterest fortnight everyday (well nearly everyday I'm not wonder woman!) I'm going to start or finish a project that's inspired by my Pinterest boards! It could be knitting, it could be sewing, It could be fashion, but its definitely going to be handmade!

 

And this is what I started with for Day 1

 

 

This little guy is a tattoo design I think and he came from here. Credit where credits due I think its a beautiful design and I thought it would make a lovely piece of embroidery. 

 

I decided to tweak the design a little bit and add some colour because I am obsessed with sugar skulls at the minute! But here's what I did as my embroidery piece.

 

 

As with all my embroidery I used my grandmothers embroidery hoop, its huge and wooden and sturdy and that wing nut keeps everything in place nicely! Its definitely one of the best sewing accessories I own! And I have absolutely no clue where it came from or how to get another one! Good job I have a spare!

 

 

 I love the flower details around the eyes and the bold colours!

 

 

 

I finished this guy up pretty quickly because of how much I liked the design! It took me one evening and about half a day of stopping and starting stitching. And little Knitwit helped! Well by helped I mean play with my thread for about half an hour telling me the colours! Now I finished it fast but it's currently in my work in progress pile! Getting ready to be turned into a cushion so it can make fly! Its way into my new etsy shop!

 

I cant wait for the rest of pinterest fortnight! If you'd like to follow me on pinterest you can find me here! I always follow people who follow me so feel free to join in and start pinning!

 

Much Love

 

Frankie

 

XXX

Patchwork Magic

I was first introduced to patchwork when I visited my grandparents in Ireland. I remember sleeping in a huge brass bed that was absolutely laden with blankets and sheets but on top of all of these layers (and there was about seven)  was a patchwork quilt. In fact, on top was this patchwork quilt in particular .

 

I believe the pattern is called "flying geese" and it was made using the English paper piecing technique, I think its hand quilted and you can even see where she's signed it at the bottom with her name and the year she finished it . This quilt actually belongs to my big sister, in fact we all have one! (coincidence I think not! my grandma was one clever lady) the only problem is mine isn't finished :( So me and my mum are going to finish it together and put all of names on it.

 



This is my grandma by the way , and my brother and sister , I'm the little blonde one!



  I blame this quilt for starting me off with a love of handmade quilts! I mean I knew my grandma sewed because she sent me a quilted pillow when I was about five or six.

 

  

 The edging fabric has also been used in the quilt above, thrifty as well! A woman after my own heart!

She did the worlds neatest stitches.

But it was going over the Ireland that opened my eyes , she didn't just sew, she SEWED! she knew her stuff! she had books and templates and more fabric than you can shake a stick at! fabric which I was lucky enough to receive when she died, which I promptly started to turn into my own quilts. quilts like this one.



Not quite flying geese



 

Its got my fabrics and her fabrics, bits of old work shirts and baby clothes.

 

 

But its not finished and it was started about three years ago , all it needs is two more triangles and then I can back it quilt it and bind it.

 

 

 But no I have to procrastinate! But I procrastinate in the strangest ways. I start another quilt.

 

 

Hand pieced again but this time using my sons baby clothes and just his baby clothes , this quilt made me shed a few tears. There's lots of little pieces of my baby in here, and its a nice way of remembering what he used to wear without keeping EVERYTHING. I actually got the idea from an episode of the Gilmore girls! 

 

This quilt was well received although a little smaller than I had hoped (all those squares were driving me crazy) but in the end there was enough scraps , leftovers, material for a second quilt.

 

 

This one went to Daddy as part of his birthday present , I even embroidered a message onto it , a soppy message so I wont share that! But more importantly it was the first quilt I made entirely by machine. It was so quick and easy it was unreal but I didn't seem to feel the same connection to the other hand made quilts.

 

Maybe its just me ? Or do you feel differently about machine quilts and entirely handmade quilts?

 

Although this picture makes me love them both equally or is that just the boys?

 

 

Much Love

 

Frankie

 

xxx