baby gift – star pillow tutorial

It seems at a certain age all your girlfriends start getting pregnant. Which in turn gives me an opportunity to think up handmade gifts for them and their babies! Cue this little star pillow I made for a friend’s baby boy:

Inspired by star pillows on Etsy I decided to make my own. It’s a nice little evening project.

Draw a star form on paper in the size you want your pillow to be, add seam allowances and cut your template. Cut two pieces from contrasting fabric. I chose some green fabric I had in my stash which also makes it gender neutral.

I also added a stitched face to make it look friendlier. The lines are drawn on with a pencil and then stitched with embroidery floss.

Sew with right sides together, leaving an opening in one of the star legs. Ahem, yes my stars were cut pretty roughly and don’t fit together perfectly. Just cut away any excess fabric once you’re done sewing. I chose to handsew because a. I love me a little handsewing on the couch and b. I couldn’t be bothered to get the sewing machine up for just a few seams.
Clip the corners and curves and turn the pillow inside out. Stuff with polyfill and handsew the opening shut. Et voilà! A sweet, handmade baby gift made in one evening.

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dye fun

Before posting the last series of pictures from our Amsterdam trip I have to sneak in this little post about batik.
Obviously dye and batik is back, I’ve been seeing lots of batik scarves everywhere and this dip dye pillow ist just gorgeous. So of course my first thought wasn’t ‘where can I buy this?’ but ‘how can I make this?’
I vaguely remembered batik from school and the colours weren’t expensive and it really was much simpler than I’d thought.


Besides making a silk scarf that I love I’ll give you a little sneak peek of something else I’m working on:

new blue skirt

I am discovering all sorts of smallish fabric shops in the area and most have a pile of clearance fabrics marked down to 1€/m. Clearance fabrics are my favourite to sew with since I hate to make muslins and I don’t feel guilty not making one when I got the fabric for next to nothing 🙂
This heavier weight light blue cotton (mix?) fabric has been sitting in my pile for quite a while and a few days ago I decided to make a skirt with it.
No pattern, just trying out different pleating methods until, almost by accident, I ended up with this:

I’m loving it, it fits me perfectly and the stitching looks really good…my treadle and I are getting along very well lately!
I did the button holes by hand (downside of sewing on a treadle: no buttonhole feature) but I am very pleased with how they came out. It’s actually nice work to do while watching a DVD in the evening, so I don’t mind sewing them by hand at all.

two new pillows

I can’t seem to move on from the sunny circles…I guess frayed-edged circles and me aren’t done yet! This time on my favourite purple Ikea fabric (don’t go looking for it in the fabric section…it’s a bedsheet that I cut apart).

And this one isn’t technically new, since I made it for a friend and she received it some time ago but I haven’t shown it on here yet. The fabric is a bright red jersey, so no finishing edges, yay!
It’s pretty quick and easy to whip up, I might do a tutorial if anyone’s interested?

package from japan

I recently won a giveaway on Mai’s lovely blog! Mai does all her sewing by hand and I love all the unique little things she makes! She also sells them in her Etsy Shop if you want to have a look.
I’ve never won anything before so I was soo excited and then to get something from Japan! Her package arrived really quickly and have a look at how many wonderful things Mai sent me:

There’s lots of pretty fabric, sashiko thread, handstamped tags, beads, little origami figures, lace and a lovely japanese book with many ideas and patterns for plushies! My favourites are these two, aren’t they adorable?

With so many lovely goodies it’s hard to pick a favourite but I think I’m most in love with these gorgeous soft fabrics and the lace:

I think I will use that lace as a detail for some tops and a dress I have in mind. I still have to think of something special for the pretty fabric though.
To top that, look at how she packaged all of this, who wouldn’t love to find a package like that waiting in the mail:

Isn’t it deliciously exotic looking? She used a japanese road map for wrapping and check out these awesome japanese stamps (seriously, the package is like another gift!):

Thank you so much Mai for being so generous and giving away so many wonderful things! Receiving your package made my day!

spring is coming

but is is slow to arrive. Another beautiful, sunny day today and I have even found the first spring flowers of the year in my mother’s garden.

At the barn on the other hand (which lies a critical few 100 metres higher) everything is again covered in snow.
I have again spent the whole weekend sewing, making a spring dress for myself. I made it on my beloved vintage treadle (that baby rocks!!) except for the button holes and the inside seam finish with zig-zag stitch (I drove out to my mom’s house to use her Pfaff for that). It’s nearly completed, I’ll just have to sew on the buttons by hand tonight and then I’ll do a big dressmaking post 🙂

The cats have spent the day sleeping in the sunny spots on the floor and while I have no photos of that, here’s a recent one of Murphy in all his sweet, anxious little self.

circus elephant pillow

After all those photo posts at last a little sewing again! This little pillow was inspired by Sara Gruen’s great book ‘Water for Elephants’. The idea just popped into my head one day and I already had the little elephant stamp which I had carved out of lino. The scraps are mostly a selection of Anna Maria Horner’s Good Folks line (my love for that collection will never die!) and are handstitched on a piece of white fabric with red embroidery floss.
The gold fabric is a satin-woven Ikea cotton, which I love to use for almost anything, because it’s so silky and I’m in love with that precise colour so much 🙂

The combination of gold and bright reds and purples feels totally ‘circussy’ to me!

It’s up now in the shop and I will probably make another one or two when I find the time. If they don’t sell I’ll just keep them all for myself 🙂
I’m also working on another Sunny Circles Pillow, which will also go to the shop in a couple of days (I know that one is a favourite among my friends so I thought I’d give heads up here…talk about lame excuses for shameless self-promoting!)
Wishing you all a day full of colour and sunshine 🙂

diptychs

You may not have noticed, but I love, love, love dipytchs (2 photos in 1). I am trying to refrain from making too many of them and instead try to take pictures that stand out on their own. But every now and then I can’t help myself and once I start there’s no stopping me.
This pink watering can resides at the barn and was my shot of the day four days ago. It’s an ok shot on its own I think, but I love it along with the lead ropes.

Yesterday was another long business day full of hauling shoe cases and waiting around for clients. It was grey and rainy and foggy outside the whole day, but these little flower vases inside the building totally made up for that! And the upside of sitting around waiting is that you can get lots of handsewing done in between…perfect for little take-along projects (oh, I’m so excited to show my latest, but it’s not quite ready yet).

And here it is only 8am and I already have my shot of the day, my lazy cat Finn doing his daily birdwatch by the window.

Now off to do some much-needed work on my thesis. Have a lovely day!

and another high-waisted skirt

I am really loving these and had to make another one. This time I made the skirt a full circle and added pleated pockets (tutorial by Rae). Of course I messed up a little again and it came out too big, so I had to add two pleats each at the front and the back. I didn’t have a zipper foot for my old treadle machine (though I’m getting one now!), so I stitched the zipper in by hand. Next time I think I’ll try an A-line shape.
I’m not too fond of these pictures, but it’s freezing and dark outside and I didn’t want to wait till the weekend to take new ones. Those gorgeous shoes are Dino Bigioni by the way (friends of mine).

(click to see these slightly larger)