Spring Sewing Swap - Post Your Links

Hello Swappers

By now you should hopefully have received your swap parcel from your partner. I received mine from Krafty Kat this weekend and here's what I got:

Prettily wrapped

 Cats investigating the contents

Pretty brooch and handmade stitch markers (Did you make these yourself Kat?)

 

A big length of the most gorgeously soft knit fabric in a lovely raspberry shade. I'm thinking a wrap cardigan or maybe a dress. Also some lovely blue wool, perfect for baby knitting.

Thanks Kat! I love it.

Now you can all add links below to your blog if you have posted about the swap. I'm very nosey so I love to see what everyone got!

K x

How I Ruined 2 Metres of Fabric

It all started so well. I had a trip to the fabric shop in the morning to get some red polka dot fabric for quilt binding, and I also got a lovely (and cheap) remnant of Robert Kaufman Circus bunting fabric, which I'd been admiring for a while.

Being a diligent seamstress about pre-washing fabric, back at home I put them in the wash along with a piece of blue fabric which needed pre-washing and a red and white striped top. When I took them out of the machine the dye from the blue had run slightly meaning that the white parts of my two fabric (and stripes of my top) and a darker tinge. No problem I thought, I'll get one of those colour correctors.

Product purchased, I returned home again and put the 2 bits of fabric and striped top into a bucket with warm water and the contents of a sachet of colour corrector. Now I will admit that it suggested you do a colour fastness test, but I thought that since the fabric was good quality cotton and the top has been washed many many times there'd be no problem.

Big mistake.

The instructions recommended leaving the items for a couple of hours and stirring every now and then. After half an hour I checked and....disaster:

 

All three items were ruined, with large areas of the red faded to various shades of orange.

 

 Nooooooooooooooooo

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - a polka dot, tie-dyed-esque monstrosity

What a waste of time and fabric. I've dried them out to see if any parts of the fabric could be salvaged for other uses but really the discolouration is too widespread. Plus I don't want to look at any of the fabric again. So the fabric will be going in the bag for textile recycling and I'll have to start again.

So let this be a cautionary tale - if you have a similar problem and need to use a colour corrector, please be aware that those products are strong, and start off using cold water just to be safe. Hey, maybe even do the recommended colour fastness test first unlike me - but then how many people do one of those skin tests when they dye their hair?

K x

Review: The Amazings Online Class & FREE online class for everyone!

Recently I was contacted by The Amazings to see if I would like to try one of their new online classes. The concept behind The Amazings is for people over 50 to pass on skills through classes in real life, and now also online.

Although I know Craftsy classes are popular, I've never used an online class before. I decided to try the Heirloom Patchwork Quilt class as I have recently been dipping my toe in the world of quilting.

 

The class is taken by Virginia, who is a lifelong crafter.  Rather than talking to the camera, which can come across as stilted and unnatural unless the presenter is well practiced, the format of the class has Virginia showing someone (Jen) what to do. Jen's role is to stand in for the viewer, as a beginner in quilting who asks questions. This makes for a relaxed format, like you are attending a craft afternoon in someone's home. Virginia's Mum even drops by for tea and cake and shares her own crafty background.

Virginia is a lady after my own heart, who loves to use vintage and charity shop fabrics and encourages viewers to get looking in the bedding sections of charity shops (often the source for great finds, I've discovered).

I don't know how this format would translate to demonstrating something very technical with a lot of intformation but for this subject the format works well. As they are leisurely cutting out templates and fabric, conversation covers Salvage Hunters on the Quest channel and Virginia's sewing and antique-selling background. Personally I found it enjoyable to watch and confidence-building in that quilt making looks to be relaxed and easy. However I don't think this style would be for everyone if you are looking for specific information or for something more to the point.

The class is divided into 10 episodes of around 8 to 9 minutes. Under each video are notes from Virginia and there is also a pdf file with templates and some more notes plus you can get in touch with the presenter to ask questions, which is helpful in the case where the notes and video are not enough. I was interested to know about the kind of batting to use but the notes on that are quite vague - only that it is available in John Lewis and Hobbycraft. However it's exactly the kind of question you might want to ask Virginia.

Do I feel inspired to make an heirloom quilt? I do feel inspired to try a bit of paper piecing by hand. I usually knit in the evenings and when watching TV but like embroidery, hand sewing and quilting are also great portable and small scale crafts.

So now for the freebie. Anyone, that's right ANYONE can try one of the new online classes for free using this link.

Here's the range of classes they currently have online:

•     Make Natural Beauty Products
•     Three Retro Hair Dos
•     Make a Mosaic Flower Pot
•     Learn to Patchwork Quilt
•     Try Altered Books
•     Turn a man’s shirt into a summer dress
•     Create a Silver Metal Clay Butterfly
•     Loom knit a woolly hat

All you need to do is follow the link and once you have signed up you will be able to browse your chosen class.

What do you think - are you interested in giving one of the classes a go?

K x

Disclaimer: I didn't receive payment for this review but received access to the class for free. All opinions are my own. 

WIP Wednesday - Nautical Baby Quilt

It's unusual for me to have two 'work in progress' posts in two weeks, but I've been working on a couple of longer term projects at the minute. This is about the second of those - my nautical baby quilt.

After the last time I posted about the quilt I got lots of helpful feedback about batting and quilting - thanks so much to everyone for their input. In the end I went for Quilters Dream Orient batting, which is a mix of bamboo, silk, Tencel (eucalyptus wood pulp, apparently) and cotton. I know, fancy. I also bought a walking foot for my machine. Instead of going for the Janome one which was £50 I went for the more modestly priced universal foot at £20. Seems to work well, and if anyone wants any information about the universal walking foot let me know and I'll do a post about it.

I also changed my mind about the backing fabric and added another layer of nauticality with a printed cotton. Progress with the quilt got a bit held up after my iron was out of action and I had to get a new cord put on it, but just now I'm in the middle of the actual quilting part.

After putting off the quilting as I was intimidated I finally got that walking foot fitted on my machine and I've been really enjoying it. I read through the suggestions in the comments about stitch in the ditch or stitching beside the seams to create a more forgiving off-set grid (Clever MrsC!) but in the end I decided that my joins were a bit wonky to support either of those successfully. So I went with the suggestion of CJ of Thoroughly Modern Margo, who suggested going diagonal with the quilting.

I used masking tape as an easy way to indicate lines. I've now completed all the lines one way and have started going the opposite direction. Some of the joins of the quilted lines are a little ruffled but overall it's going ok.

Once I've finished the quilting it's just the binding to do - again I'll be looking to the comments from that last post as you guys made some helpful suggestions. I've still got to choose the fabric for that.

Just a heads up - I'll be posting again on Friday with an exciting freebie opportunity for you - be sure to check back then!

K x

Pattern Monday #44

Four easy ways to humiliate your child.

K x

Recent Charity Shop Finds

Finds have definitely been a bit thin on the ground around here recently. I don't think I've been browsing in local charity shops much less but I have been making fewer charity shop excursions, with the specific intention of going to an area with a number of suitable shops. Combined with my efforts to clear stuff out of the flat, I've been fairly disciplined about what I bring in (err, maybe some fabric, but I'm going to use that, ok?).

Here are three finds from the past couple of months:

Plastic bracelet for 49p - it's a lovely warm shade of brown, a bit fake-lite looking

Dot investigating a vintage Fisher Price pull-along turtle bought for 99p. So cute, I couldn't resist.

I love this handmade vintage skirt picked up this week for £1.99. I'm too big now to even try it on but it's just a bit bigger than my pre-pregnancy waist size and I love the paisley pattern. It's beautifully made and the cheap price was too good to resist, especially when the same shop was selling pretty crappy quality high street clothing from £3.99 upwards. I'm not sure when the skirt dates to - the fabric looks 50s to me but the shape says 60s/70s.

K x

WIP Wednesday

Haven't done one of these posts for ages. This is my Deco cardigan, I've just started the 2nd ball of wool and am really enjoying knitting it so far.

(Also this is the first time I've tried the Blogger App on my phone so it's kind of an experiment to see how it turns out.)

K x