Whirlwind tour of finished projects

I've had a break from posting so here is a whirlwind tour of the projects I've finished while I've been away.

A Fimo cow with heart:

A 40 x 40cm musical cross stitch for a friend's birthday:

A crocheted anglerfish:

A crocheted mouse doorstop:

Crocheted seaweed brooch and grouper fish fridge magnet for my grandmother:

Mini bunting for Nicola Suckling's stall:

Crocheted owl blanket for my niece:

Crocheted whale pencil case for a secret santa present:

Soft ribbon alphabet blocks for a friend's little girl:

Hand sewn fox for a colleague obsessed with foxes:

Kitchen wall mosaic of a local landmark:

Pigs in mud cake for my husband's birthday:

Knitting and sewing iced biscuits:

I think that might be it. My aim now is to keep this blog updated!

Quilt border and basting

Having constructed the top of my guest book quilt a while ago, the process was interrupted by a house move and the premature birth of our first child.

Picking up where I left off, the quilt needed a border and then the layers needed basting together.

I cut strips of green fabric and pinned the parallel sides to the quilt, sewed them together and pressed the seams before sewing on the other parallel sides:

Here is the inside border with all seams sewn and pressed:

I then did the same for the outer border:

Here's what the top looks like with all the borders done:

I'm sure there are a few different ways to baste a quilt but I used the following method. Firstly I taped the backing fabric (right side down) to a flat surface. I do usually cut off the selvedge off but this piece of fabric was larger than the quilt design so I knew it would be trimmed off later:

Then the wadding was added on top before the completed quilt design. All the layers were pinned together using curved pins. It's best to work from the centre out towards the edges. 

Next step: sewing and then the final edging.

The Guest Book

It's time to finish off the wedding guest book, otherwise known as the wedding quilt. All the squares have now been received (some of them making a journey to Australia and back) so it's time to sew them all together.

I prepared all the squares before they were signed; sewing the design together, trimming and putting tape over the seam allowance. This was to save me time when assembling the quilt.

Firstly, I took off the tape and laid out all the squares until I was happy with the design:

Each square was sewn together in a row (right sides together):

Before the rows were sewn together:

All of the seams were pressed. This was done row by row and then the bigger block.

Next step is purchasing some wadding and backing fabric before basting all the layers together. 

A cross stitch progression

What do you do when you've been crafting for almost a year for the wedding and it's now all over? You start an epic cross stitch pattern. Admittedly I didn't realise it was quite so large or complicated as it turned out to be (I thought it was all black!).

10th of May:

15th of May:

28th of May:

13th of June:

7th of August:

This was a surprise birthday present for a friend and (thankfully) she loved it. It measures 40 x 40cm so it's quite a large one and it's been framed in a cream frame.

Next project? A kitchen wall mosaic.

A few photos

Professional photos are yet to come from the lovely Elly Mac Photos but here are a few to whet your appetite...

The bride and groom (3 piece suit from ebay and dress from charity shop):

The shoes:

The reception venue after 3 hours of decorating (all handmade decorations):

Part of the cake table (all cakes and cookies made by friends and family):

Thank you to everyone who made our day so perfect.

Sweet trees

The second generation (started by friends, completed by family):

More crafting help

A hen weekend is never complete without some serious crafting: