First Time Rag Quilt

 

One thing I have a lot of is scrappy bits of fabric, dating back many years (think there is some Laura Ashley fabric from 1975) and finding things to do with these scraps is always a challenge. I then stumbled across Rag Quilts on Pinterest.

As my littlest one will be moving in to a proper size bed soon, we need new bedding for her and thought that I would have a go at rag quilting.

I had quite a bit of pink and green scraps (to match her bedroom) – but did end up having to buy a few lengths of new fabric. (Sadly our town has recently lost our haberdashery/fabric store and the store that is “out of town” is stocked with Ends of Roll, so the choice isn't great). My best buy however was the backing fabric, which was a Double fitted sheet from our Sainsbury's supermarket during a 25% off sale. Note – not their basic range, that's way to thin.

So then started the quilting...

The quilt is 13x8 squares.

The squares with seam allowance were approx 18cmx18cm (7”x7”)

The wadding squares were approx 15cmx15cm (6”x6”)

 

Using a rotary cutter (absolutely essential) I cut about 60 pink patterned, 60 green patterned squares, 110 wadding squares, and accidentally well over 200 backing squares (using both the Sainsburys sheet and an old ripped sheet from the cupboard).

I sandwiched the squares (backing – wadding – patterned) pinning in two opposite corners.

Once the squares were pinned I started sewing the crosses. To make it quicker (and not to waste cotton) I sewed straight onto the next square so would end up with a “bunting like” length of half sewn squares. They were then snipped apart and then sewn in the other direction to finish the crosses.

The squares were then trimmed to size, this made lining up the seams so much easier.

Once I had decided on a pattern – the squares were sewn together (wrong sides facing).

I was surprised how little time this took – I was expecting a mammoth task. When I was making this I went down with a very nasty cold and throat infection so wasn't working at my usual capacity, but the sewing together only took me an evening to do.

The seams were then snipped whilst laying in bed (not the best idea as you get a lot of shedding of fibres at this stage – doh!).

My little one loves the end result – so does my other one – so it looks like I will be trying this technique of quilting again.....

Thank you for stopping by and looking - regards Stompy

Octonauts Birthday Cake

 

 

We had promised our daughter she was allowed one big birthday party. Emily's friend Lennon has his birthday only 2 days later we decided to do a large joint party. We got in some great entertainment for the children (all 40 of them) AB Entertainments, Lennon's mum did all the food catering and I made the cake.

A huge 12x12 lemon madeira cake with a cake GUP-A and sugarcraft Kwazii, Captain Barnacles and Pesco.

The GUP-A and the characters were quite fidderly. The "water bubbles" hid mistakes and held pieces in place. The decoration of the lower cake was pretty easy - just lots of flattened icing sausages for the weed and round icing balls for the pebbles and "corals". The end of a paint brush added the holes and details of the corals.

The children - especially the birthday girl and boy - loved the cake. The mum's and dad's were surprised that I had no issues chopping it up.... but the cake was quite yummy too!

 

For the madeira cake I used the recipe from Lindy's Cakes but scaled up using the Pink Whisk calculations.



Busy setting up Stompy's Craft ...

It has been a really busy few weeks setting up the products for Stompy's Craft Little Blog Shop. I have specialised in creating craft kits for children, from simple colouring shapes (that my 20 month loves to colour in (well scribble on)) to Canvas Collage Kits and Simple Sewing Kits.

More kits will be uploaded soon - along with a price list....



So now is the mad rush to get a stock ready for two Christmas Shopping Fayres.

Thursday 22nd November 7- 9pm  - Friends of St Johns Christmas Shopping Evening at St John the Evangelist School, Newbury.

Friday 7th December 4:30 - 6:30pm - St Nics School, Newbury.

If you live in the Newbury area - come along and support the schools - it would be lovely to see you there.

Regards
Stompy xx

More Fabric fun with the Silhouette SD

Again the Silhouette SD came to my rescue when making a named toy bag for my youngest daughter.

 

As with the owl wall hanging I used cheap iron on adhesive to stabilise the fabric and then cut out quite intricate and small pieces for the letters and image applique patches.

I reused lots of old fabric for this make, including some old roman blinds for the main fabric ( I had to turn it inside out to hide the horrible pattern) the patches are demin from old jeans and the lining is a mixture of fun fabric left over from making a girls dress and an old bed sheet.

It’s not the best shaped bag in the world, but it does what I intended it to do, and that is holds lots of toys (it can also carry a 20 month old, as Chloe decided that she would climb in too!)


Thanks for looking

Fabric fun with the Silhouette SD

When you don’t have much time to get things made, I love any tool that can speed jobs up.

After searching the internet on how ot use the silhouette to cut fabric, I was hoping not to have to pay out for the specialist materials that the sites were recommending. Especially as I had recently found my 18 month old daughter sitting on my silhouette cutting mat - adhesive side down - on our door mat.
So I experimented using a spray mount on the cutting mat (after scraping off the dirt) making sure that I masked off the edges.
To stabilise the fabric I used a cheap iron adhesive bought from my local haberdashery. The Silhouette cut the cotton fabric beautifully, there was just a few tiny areas that needed to be snipped with scissors.

The owls I cut were then used as aplique decoration on a wall hanging for my daughters bedroom.

I hope to post more Silhouette SD applique ideas in the next few blogs...

Thanks for looking

Launching Imagination Station UK

July has so far been a really exciting month for me at Stompys Craft. I have teamed up with a local art teacher, Sarah Martinez, and together we have set up Imagination Station UK.

Imagination Station UK is an Arts and Crafts Group, where we will aim to deliver fun, and educational arts and craft based activities for children.

We are starting off with two sessions this summer holiday for children aged 4-8 years old.

Session 1 - we will be making fantastic flying fish kites and getting the children to create their own sea creatures for a sealife mural.

Session 2 - the children will be able to create their own story book puppets and collage scenery for the puppets to act in front of.

So please check out our blog imaginationstationuk.blogspot.co.uk for more details on the activities.

Thanks for popping by

Stompy

Wendy House Decorating

Just finished the wendy house today in time to get a blog post for June!

Having some large pieces of scrap timber hanging around the garden / garage, we decided a few years back, to build a play house for our daughter at the back of the garden where no plants would grow.

Made from old fence posts, some left over perspex, decking scrounged out of a neighbours skip and some new sheets of plywood we built a little house... which never quite got finished... so plants grew in under the roof.... bringing with it all the creepy crawlies little girls don’t like.

So this June, I finally got round to sealing the roof, and painting the internal walls with gloss paint. And with two little girls, we thought it would be nice to make the interior rather girly.

Excluding the blackboard paint the whole decorating cost came in at under £10.

To make the peg row - I reused some plastic handles from the girls bedroom and attached them to a scrap piece of 2"x1" timber which was covered in some in-expensive gingham.

The blackboard was made from an old picture frame that was taking up space in the garage, the print was taken out and the frame backing painted with blackboard paint.

The bunting was made from my husbands old work shirts and some gingham I had left over. See below for my tips on making quick bunting.

I made little covers for the wooden stools from old jeans and an old duvet that had spent the last few years in the cats basket (it was well washed before I used it!!)

One heart decoration was from jeans and shirt fabric, whilst the other I made by reusing some florist wire, which was covered in a mix of wire, wool and some cheap Pony beads that were crocheted together.

The butterflies and other decorations were purchased - all for less than £8.

Now it is a really cosy and great fun to play in.

Thanks for looking
Regards Stompy