Hi everyone. First of all, thank you for joining me here. I thought I’d use my first blog post to expand on my ‘About Me‘ page in a little more detail so you get a better overview of the crafts I love.
Here I am on Blackpool beach a few years ago showing off my new Tilly and the Buttons Indigo Dress! I was so proud, after this I got my overlocker because despite using French seams for this gorgeous garment I became encouraged to improve my skills even further.
Then we have the Sew Together bag pattern by Sew Demented. I had watched one of my favourite tutorial queens, Erica Arndt, make hers years prior and after watching her YouTube video again last year I decided I needed one of these in my life and I had just bought some rather scrumptious sewing themed fabrics by Makower at The Festival of Quilts. I had also gone on a Midlands tour of fabric shops the day before the festival, which began with a stop at Guthrie & Ghani…a dream destination. Here I purchased these dreamy woven labels that were perfect for stitching the memory of the trip into my bag – a match made in heaven!
Next is the earthy-green crocheted blanket. I had a ball making this for my sister – yarn pun intended! It just naturally developed as I went along and it was one of those gifts you find hard to part with!
Here is my proudest crafting moment to date…my Christmas Wishes quilt on display and entered into the Contemporary category at The Festival of Quilts in 2023. I will go into much more detail about this quilt in a future post as there is a story behind it.
My scrappy hexie quilt was born as soon as Christmas Wishes was finished. This purple hexagon is the very first one and it’s come a long way since then!
If you’re a yarn person, like me, then chances are you’ll remember when Scheepjes Whirls came out…they were so popular it became hard to find certain colourways and when that happened for me I had to settle for Caramel Core Blimey and I’m still so in love with this shawl. I crocheted a basic Granny stitch triangle with minimal border and couldn’t resist an impromptu photoshoot on a gloriously sunny day outside the cinema.
Cross-stitch, another passion of mine. I am very slow with any progress, most projects taking me years to complete but I do enjoy the process. I will delve into further detail about the pictures I own in another post, as well as showing my current work in progress but I couldn’t resist including this little vignette from one of my gallery walls.
Then we move on to the red crocheted blanket I made 10 years ago for my friend’s 50th birthday…who is now turning 60! She loves red, so I made sure to include all the reds I could find in her blanket using the Victorian Lattice Square designed by Destany Wymore.
Next up are the bags…more of those ‘gifts you can’t part with’ creations! I followed Erica Arndt’s Quilty Weekend Zipper Tote tutorial on YouTube and added extra pockets and slight tweaks along the way. These were gifted to friends at Christmas who like to use them as project bags. Again, I will do mannnny posts about bagmaking as it’s a major passion of mine.
This cat-sized quilt below was created using the leftover blocks from my human-sized quilt! This was made using Lewis and Irene fabrics from their Halloween ranges, all purchased from The Sewing Studio. Some of them are even glow in the dark! I love hand-quilting, I’m not quite a big-stitch quilter but not as refined and small as traditional hand-quilting – it suits me and I love it.
And last but not least, I will detail this further in another post but this project bag brings me so much joy. I fussy-cut a scrap bag of Acufactum fabrics from Elmhirst Fabrics and created a large, flat, vinyl-fronted zipper bag with them that I hang up and also use as a mini quilt decoration. The patterns on these fabrics are sublime.
So there we have it…first post complete! I hope you’ve enjoyed the read. This isn’t an exhaustive list of my crafts, tip of the iceberg really but I’ll cover more as we get to know each other better!
I’d be really grateful if you’d leave me a comment below and tell me what you liked and didn’t like as well as any suggestions you have for me. I know I’ll get a lot of satisfaction out of sharing my projects with you but I want you to enjoy the posts too so feel free to be as honest as you can, it’ll all help!
Happy stitching everyone x
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