Lia*s Handmades

"Spring Messengers" - Project Quilting Challenge 1

2016-01-06T22:29:00.000+01:00

Project Quilting is back for the 7th season and while I have repeatedly thought about it last year, it actually hit me by surprise when I saw the first challenge posted on Sunday.

For some reason I thought the whole thing would start maybe one or two weeks later in the month, oops!

But since my work schedule is quite empty at the moment, I thought I might as well give it another shot, seeing how good the last season treated me in terms of wins. Let's see how this one will turn out, shall we? ;)

The first challenge is called 'Confetti' and the first thing that came to my mind reading that, was the confetti patchwork technique.

I have seen countless mini quilts and wall hangings using that technique, but had never tried it myself before, so this challenge was the perfect time to change that.

It took a bit of deliberation, but I quickly knew hat I wanted to make and dug up the fabrics for my project, as well as printing out photos for reference.

The picture above is probably rather self explanatory, especially since this post has the finished project as header as well, but I decided to go into the Spring direction and use a flower pot full of pretty hyacinths for my inspiration.

So I started building the actual flower pot, fusing on different parts of white fabric, one for the back and one for the front of the pot, and added two layers of thin white lace to give it actual detail.

Then I started to cut up scraps of green fabric, to create moss for the inside of the pot. I mostly used solids and batiks to do this, as they have colour on both sides, meaning you can mix them up as you want and you always have colour to show, no matter which way they point up.

I also used different greens to make the stems and leaves for the hyacinths and started to build them up, by fusing on the different parts, then securing them with applique. My lines are pretty visible in this picture, I know. I usually use a thread colour that matches the fabrics as close as possible and sew on each part seperately, but you could call melazy this time.

Instead I used "The Bottom Line" by Superior Threads in silver (# 623). It honestly must be my new favourite thread for applique (and handsewing as well) as it's so thin, that it's barely visible. Also, hyacinth leaves always have this silvery sheen to them, so in the end that kinda worked as well, I suppose.

But anyway,after attaching my leaves, I added my mossy bits of fabric.

Since confetti quilts are secured by a layer of thin tulle (I used fly net as it was impossible to find some tulle here), I decided to go with black for the earthy moss and appliqued it in place over the confetti fabric, then added another little rim on the pot, using more lace ribbon.

After that I spent a good hour or so cutting up fabric to make my actual hyacinths. It actually felt like an eternity and my bad wrist totally didn't like me for it...

But the end result was totally worth it. Mixing a few lighter colours in with the actual flower colour, made it look like I had cut up hyacinths in my little bags already. At this point I got rather excited that I had decided to make a full pot and not just three flowers, like I originally had in mind.

I didn't take as many pictures from the actual making and building of the flowers, as I did from the steps before, but I think the following will explain how it's done, or at least how I made this confetti mini quilt.

Basically the fabric confetti is sprinkled onto your project where you want to sew it in place. But before you do that, you place a layer of thin tulle over it, which I needed a bit of practice with at first as bits kept falling out when I moved it.

Then you sew around the outside to secure your bits of fabric to ensure they can't fall out anymore. And then I just machine quilted over it repeatedly in a swirly motion to secure the tiny bits. That way it finished off even more looking like tiny blooms.

The downside of doing this technique is, that it completely dusts up your machine. And not only that, I feel like my nose is full of fluff as well. ;)

I should have probably used a dust mask as I'm actually asthmatic and have a blocked nose now for working on this all afternoon, so in case you wanna do this, be prepared for lots of fabric dust and dust bunnies in your machine, on your needle and sewing foot.

Above and below are more close ups of the quilting as well as the details of the pot. As you can see, I really just used random swirls and lines on the flowers. The important part was to just secure the confetti bits of fabric. I also used a lint roller after each flower to make sure that I didn't mix my colours or accidentally had some transfers.

Finally I added one more bit of lace ribbon to the pot to give it more depth. I have a thing for white ceramic flower pots, all of mine are actually white, so maybe that is why I did this, I'm not really sure ;)

I do hope that you enjoyed my creative endeavour for this challenge, though. I'm certainly buzzing for the next one one already!

Until then, happy sewing!

xx Lia

A year full of finishes...

2015-12-27T14:25:00.000+01:00

2015 has been filled with lots of sewing time, especially in the first half of the year.

I've also been part of many swaps and a few challenges, as well as sewing charity blocks, hoping to do more of the latter in the new year.

Here's a mosaic of everything I've made during the year.

There are already several plans swirling through my head of things I want to make in the new year, as well as a couple ideas, so let's hope there will be enough time to sew!

Wishing a very Happy New Year to all my readers and followers!

Take care

xx Lia

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas...

2015-11-02T19:44:00.000+01:00

At least if you're counting the last swap of this year that I have joined and just finished sewing and packing up.

It's the 4th and current round of the Four Seasons Pillow Swap, which is going underway on Flickr, and also the 4th time that I'm taking part in this swap.

We are sewing pillow cases for every season of the year, if you didn't already catch that from the name of the swap that is ;)

So far I have received 3 amazing pillows (which you can see below) and can't wait for the last one to complete my seasonal collection, although the ones that I have so far, I have used throughout the year.

Spring

Summer

Fall

While the swap group is basically devided between people who like the winter colours such as blues, greys, and low volumes and people who like the more traditional approach of reds and greens, my partner in this round was really specific that she wanted the traditional Christmas colours of red and green and she also seemed to have a soft spot for several patterns, including birds.

That was the point when I decided that I either had to find a cute paper-pieced pattern or an applique pattern and what better way to do that then to ask Google. Luckily I found a cute chickadee applique pattern in the Quilted Treasures online shop.

Since black-capped chickadees are often used in winter-themes, I decided to go for it and thankfully my partner has since approved of my choice.

Picking the fabrics was rather easy. The fiddly bit were all the numerous parts that I needed for the bird. I'm not sure how many parts the actual pattern has, but since I live overseas, am not a US resident and the pattern only comes in in physical form, I picked the 'easier' way of just printing out the picture in the size that I needed and redrawing the actual bird parts onto paper using carbon paper.

So yeah, I had many small parts that were ironed on with double-sided fusible web and appliqued with transparent nylon thread. You can also call it invisible thread and I love using it for applique like this, because you don't have to change the colour of your thread a million times, which sometimes can be really unnerving, especially when you have applique with many different parts in different colours/fabrics.

It all came together rather quickly once I had started to work on it, but then I was super unsure what to do around the actual block as I didn't want to take too much focus off the chickadee. A couple of my Quilty friends had to deal with my indecisiveness via private messages over on Instagram and Facebook as I just couldn't decide what to do (thanks to Betti, Mara and Tammy for letting me yap away lol!). They tried to give advice, but I went down a different road in the end. I knew there had to be a border, but couldn't decide which colour, until I realised I could use both red and green.

The fabrics I used for the borders have the same colours of greens and reds that are in the fabric that I picked to become the back of my pillow, also a must have since there are birds printed on it.

After that everything fell together and I'm happy with the outcome, now hoping that my partner will be, too.

As a little extra and eye-catcher I made a beaded charm for the zipper pull, then packed a few extras together and started to wrap everything up, as you can see in the first picture at the start of this post.

I always love receiving packages that are wrapped in lovely paper, it's so much more personal, because you know someone put a lot of thought into creating your package and putting it together.

Giving away what I made is always the hardest part, though. But it's good, because I feel like you know that you made something good or special, when you struggle to give it away, because you want to keep it for yourself. And it's even more exciting when the recipient is overjoyed in receiving it. ;)

Right now this is the last swap that I have joined this year. I tried to keep it down and haven't joined as many as I have in previous years, but that's down to all the awful things that have happened in the swap world, with so many 'bad apples' only signing up for their own benefit and cheating many nice swappers in the process.

So you get vary at some point and it stops being fun when you see that friends, who are in the same swaps, end up needing angel packages because some idiot didn't pull through. It's just sad and not very rewarding or pleasant anymore.

My friend Karri has repeatedly taken it upon herself to clear things up on her blog. She finds a funny way - although it's actually less funny and more a sarcastic approach - to report about all the dramas in swap-land and has a couple really great posts about swap-etiquette.

Do give her blog a stop by and her posts a read if you're interested, especially if you're a swap-mama or swapper yourself. The good swappers among us need to stick together after all! :)

Until next time, folks!

xx Lia

EPP Results

2015-06-10T20:45:00.000+02:00

In my post from late April I showed you the EPP projects that I was working on. Now that my Four Seasons Pillow Swap partner has received her summer pillow, I can finally reveal the whole thing to you.

As you can guess, the whole top was handpieced together and it took me quite a while, although I was sewing away on it every day, doing a bit here and another bit there as I found time.

The back was done in a much easier way, and I used the (under quilters really popular) Britten fabric from Ikea.

I love how the colours blend in together and it's my interpretation of a perfect rainbow, so I'm really happy how it turned out.

The Summer round of the swap is currently coming to an end and the most gorgeous pillows are showing up everywhere. I can't wait to find out who I will be receiving from and am patiently waiting and stalking the postman every day ;)

Another finish for a swap, which shipping date is a couple months off yet, is a Sew Together Bag that I made. I've had it completely finished for a while now, but don't want to reveal the whole thing yet, for the fear that my partner my actually be watching my blog. So here is only the EPP outside panel for your viewing pleasure.

More of that will be revealed later in the year.

That's all from me for now!

Have a great day,

xx Lia

One Lovely Blog Award

2015-06-09T22:27:00.002+02:00

Last week my sewing and swapping friend Janine from Crafty Tokyo Mama II nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award. She lives in Japan and we've met in early 2014 through my Fabric Scrap Swap, which she's repeatedly taking part in with huge patience, as she usually the last one to receive her package thanks to the loooong postal ways, lol!

I feel honoured to have received this nomination as there are so many fabulous sewing blogs out there and mine doesn't really feel so special, so thanks to Janine for the nomination, I'll gladly pay it forward :)

In accepting this Award, I have to nominate 10 more blogs and also share 7 things about myself, so let's get started with my nominations.

1. My first nomination goes to Teresa at The Green Bag Lady. If you haven't heard from her yet, you're probably living behind the moon ;) Up to this day Teresa and her Green Bag Lady chapters have sewn over 31,000 shopping bags that have been given away for free for a cleaner environment.

2. Up next is Karen at Faeries and Fibres. She creates the most amazing EPP quilts and shares great piecing techniques and tutorials on her blog. So if you plan on taking your EPP to the next level, go and visit her blog!

3. I also want to nominate Mara of Secretly Stitching. We've met through swaps on Flickr, are now Instagram and Facebook buddies and share a huge love for bees, nautical themes and Alison Glass fabrics. She is fantastic at embroidery and makes the cutest things.

4. My next nomination goes to Karri of Karri of Berries. We've also met through Swaps and I love Karri's blog because on there she speaks out about things that other people are too afraid to say, especially dealing with swaps. I love her honesty and sense of humour. ;)

5. Yvonne from White Painted House is next. She hasn't blogged in ages - maybe we can change that now? ;) - but she's incredibly generous in terms of creating angel packages for swappers and is always the first to offer and respond. This is why she really needs a nod on this post.

6. I also need to nominate Josh from Molli Sparkles because you can never have enough sparkles and glitter ;) Josh creates amazing quilts - check out Lost Feathers of an Angel and be prepared to stare!! - and was the driving force behind collecting over 2000 hashtag blocks to make quilts for Sewing For Sydney.

7. Kim from Persimon Dreams is also one of my nominees. Her blog is probably best known for the annual Project Quilting Challenges. If you've not heard about that yet, go and make sure that you visit her blog. Kim hosts Project Quilting every year between January and March and there are many prized up for grabs when joining a challenge.

8. Another nominee is Caroline from lal in Socal. We've met through my Secret Tote Bag Swap and she creates the most gorgeous bags. She's also got a huge love for everything purple and knits cute companions for her swap partners.

9. I'm also nominating Paula from Mudpies and Pins. I love her tiny EPP creations and butterflies. They're just gorgeous and Paula as a great eye for colour.

10. My last spot goes to Aylin at ayliN-Nilya. Her patterns and creations are out of this world and it seems that she's whipping them up faster than you could actually sew, lol!

So, those were my nominees and I guess now I have to reveal 7 things about myself, this could get awkward, haha!

1. A funny fact is that my online friends often think that I'm an American living abroad. But I'm not, I'm a born and raised German and have never lived anywhere else but Germany. I often get complimented on my English, though, so I suppose I had good teachers! Yay! ;)

2. While I don't have a problem in getting to know or meeting new people, I rather stay to myself. I'm not quite sure if that makes me a proper introvert, but I have no trouble in spending hours alone by myself and just being creative.

3. From being a teenager up into my early twenties I loved to read. I haven't touched a book in years now though and probably wouldn't find any time to sew if I actually did.

4. That being said, I find it hard to concentrate on an actual page for a longer time period, wether that be in a newspaper or book, or reading an e-book on a laptop for example. It's not that I don't want to, but I have so called vitreous opacity, which are floaters in my left eye that are constantly there. They are quite annoying if I have to concentrate on something for a longer time and make my eye extra tired. Just imagine seeing small black dots whenever you look from the left to the right, they float through your vision and back. I've learned to live with them as I've had them for several years, but they can be quite annoying at times.

5. I love to do anything crafty. Often I get the 'is there anything you can't do?' comments, which make me laugh. Yeah, there are several things I cannot do, cooking and baking for example. Or knitting. I also have no patience for cross-stitching and it always looks a bit weird when I do it.

6. I prefer dogs to kids. I don't think that needs any further explanation haha! ;)

7. And last but not least, something a bit embarrassing I guess. My musical taste is all over the place, but for the last year and a half or so, I've actually gone back down the teenie route and started to become a fan of One Direction. Yes, I know, you can laugh about that all you want, but I don't mind. I totally don't care lol!

Ok, that's that! I hope you visit some of the blogs above and hopefully find something you like and I will have a new post up for you all very, very soon!

Take care!

xx Lia

Think I might have caught something that I heard is highly infectious...

2015-04-21T12:50:00.001+02:00

...and while I'm actually battling another cold right now (yes, am also currently on vacation, as it seems I always start being sick one week before my work holidays start...), I don't mean a bug as such, I'm actually talking about something far more severe...

You know, when you try something new and crafty and you just can't seem to stop?

Let's say it all started rather harmless... with the Dumpling Pouch Swap hosted by Mari-Ann on Flickr. Now the word swap alone stands for something severe with some sewists, as swaps can be highly addictive... but while I love swaps, I know I have actually been pretty good withstanding that one addiction ;)

The thing is, that my partner in said Dumpling Swap loves English Paper Piecing (EPP) and while I know how Foundation Paper Piecing works, I had never done the completely different EPP. But I aim to please and I like to extend my abilities/try something new, at least if it comes to sewing and being crafty. And I also have a huge role model in terms of EPP, Karen of Faeries and Fibres. She does amazing arty quilts with all her different EPP techniques, so go give her a visit for some fabulous tutorials.

But not getting side tracked now, like I said I like to try and meet my swap partner's expectations, so I had to give this EPP thing a go...

And that's kind of how the whole disaster started...

And I am being entirely sarcastic when I speak of a disaster, because I realised I quite enjoyed handpiecing... and I usually hate anything that has to do with handsewing...

So I used 3/4" hexagon templates that I received in a swap once and pieced and pieced and pieced away until this little Dumpling pouch was finished... First time ever EPP project finished, tadaa!

But don't think I stopped there...

Because I also signed up for the Bee Still My Heart Swap hosted by Deanna on Instagram...

And since honeycombs are hexagons/hexies, I of course needed to make some more...

These were put aside for now though, as I had to work on yet another swap with a deadline much closer than the Bee themed swap.

I'm talking about the Four Seasons Pillow Swap hosted by Karen on Flickr. I've already been in the Spring round and received a gorgeous EPP pillow (no pun intended at all!) from my friend Tammy, also known as OmaTam. And while I've been doing a foundation pieced pillow in the spring round, I was striving to do something different in this round. Plus, it happens that my partner likes EPP and decided that my idea of doing a tumbling blocks pattern suited her well.

The plan was to use rainbow colours and low volume, and so I kept making diamonds for a while...

First in low volume, then in different shades of colours to create rows...

Then more colours...

And more rows...

Until now a few days later I have almost the whole pillow top pieced. I took the following picture last night. I have all the shapes done now and only need to sew the last pieces together, then connect the final few rows.

I honestly never thought that doing this would actually be quite so efficient and quick - also it's super relaxing as you can just put your feet up and watch TV while sewing your EPP pieces together. I started working on the colour rows properly last Wednesday evening and since then have been sewing on it pretty much nonstop. So I guess being sick and on holiday from work does help a bit...

Also, I'm already wondering which might be the next EPP project that I could do, but hey, after this pillow is finished, I still have the Bee Swap item to do and that should keep me busy for another day or two ;)

That's it from me for now, do you have any sewing techniques that you are addicted to/can't stop/enjoy way too much? Do tell, I'd love to hear!

xx Lia

Fabric Scrap Swap Announcement!

2015-04-07T17:41:00.002+02:00

Hi all!

Looking for a fun and easy way to get a bit of diversity in your scrap bins? Then you may be interested in joining the current round of the Fabric Scrap Swap.

The dates:

Sign-Ups for this round will be open until Saturday, the 11th of April, 2015.

Partners will be sent out no later than Tuesday, the 14th of April, 2015.

All packages need to be shipped no later than Thursday, the 30th of April, 2015

The fine print:

You are required to send scraps of fabric that equal 1 yard (36" x 36") when laid out from end to end and side to side and are no smaller than 2.5" x 2.5" inches, unless your partner requires otherwise. It must be quilt shop quality fabrics and not come from JoAnn Fabrics, Hancock Fabrics, Hobby Lobby or any other big box retailer.

If unsure about the weight and amount to send, 4 FQ's of quilting cotton fabric for example have a weight of about 160g / 5.64 oz. Anything up from that amount will always ensure that you're on the safe side.

You are not required to send any handmade items or extras, but of course are welcome to add extras if you want.

International participants are welcome, but please note that this is a Flickr only swap, so you must have a working Flickr profile to be able to join.

For a full list of rules and guidelines as well as the sign-up form please check the Flickr Group for this swap.

Hope to see you there! :)

xx Lia

My Project Quilting Recap

2015-04-06T22:55:00.000+02:00

Hey all!

2015's Project Quilting is now over, 12 weeks of brainstorming, sewing and prize winning. And the 6 challenges posted in this season were more successful for me than I could've hoped or wished for. In fact, I was left surprised quite a few times, which is why I wanted to do a little recap of all my 6 entries that I made for the challenges.

Some were really a bit challenging as I needed a moment to figure out and decide what to make, some were created with techniques I had not used before, some turned into pieces that I really love and adore now and am proud of making. And that isn't just because all of them ended in the top 3 of the viewer's choice votings of each challenge week. That part only made me more proud of having come up with something that other people enjoyed just as much and I'm truly thankful for everyone who took the time to vote! Thank you!

Here is my recap of season 6 of Project Quilting and all my challenge entries, including the votes and places they received in the public voting. If you want to read the stories about how I created these, simply click on the project name underneath the pictures and you will be forwarded to the originals posts.

"Four Seasons"

Challenge 1 - Trees

1st place in Viewer's Choice Voting with 146 votes

"Morning in the Moor"

Challenge 2 - Sunrise/Sunset

2nd place in Viewer's Choice Voting with 226 votes

"Cupcake O'Hare"

Challenge 3 - UFO's and Orphan Blocks

2nd place in Viewer's Choice Voting with 99 votes

"Love is Equal"

Challenge 4 - Have a Heart

3rd place in Viewer's Choice Voting with 125 votes

"Beneath a Silver Light"

Challenge 5 - My Favourite Fabric

1st place in Viewer's Choice Voting with 164 votes

"Summer Garden"

Challenge 6 - Isn't that Charming?

3rd place in Viewer's Choice Voting with 129 votes

That's my recap of this season and it was a really successful one in my books. I learned a lot about myself and my workmanship in these challenges, tried new things I've not done before, and also learned from a couple mistakes.

I'm definitely looking forward to next year and joining in again.

There were also several nice prizes that I won. Two small boxes of Aurifil, a calendar from our host Kim Lapacek, several patterns from the Quilting Gallery and a gorgeous keyring. Not bad, so the hard work payed off! ;)

Now it's onto new sewing adventures and of course a few swaps, as I can never seem to resist.

Speaking of swaps...check back for a swap announcement later as I am currently hosting my quick and easy Fabric Scrap Swap again.

Talk soon!

xx Lia

"Summer Garden" - Project Quilting Challenge 6

2015-03-20T21:52:00.002+01:00

It's done! I finished the final challenge of this year's Project Quilting! Whoop! I admit that I was having a really tough time deciding what to make this week, though.

The challenge itself was called 'Isn't that Charming?' and you were supposed to use at least 20 charms of 5" size on the front of your project. The actual challenge description first had me slightly confused, but our host Kim soon cleared up any confusion, which still left the indecisiveness about what I wanted to make.

My colleague at work recently voiced that she wanted me to do something with flowers and bees or a big bee on a flower, since she is a hobby photographer and has taken several pictures of this kind. So, I was trying to figure out how to work those two things together.

The final product of that fusion is my "Summer Garden", which had me using a total of 54 charms, that all originally started at the size of 5", like it was asked for in the challenge.

I guess I could've gone the easy way and just piece a couple charms together and make something simple, but as I mentioned in a previous blog post, I like to use these challenges to actually challenge myself and my thinking and I always try to tell me that Project Quilting mantra 'think outside the box'. Personally I think that I've really done that this time as it was definitely a very non-traditional and different way of using charm squares.

I've also documented my constructions steps to proof how I used the charms and how many, so I apologise in advance that this blog post will be a really long and picture loaded one, but I do hope you all will enjoy my creative process and my thinking behind this idea.

Of course the whole thing started with a bunch of charms, there are 18 in this picture, 6 for the outer petals, 5 for the big inner circle of petals, 6 for the small petals in the smallest circle and 1 for the middle of the flower.

I cut circles out of all those charms, for the big petals I used 4.75" circles, for the small ones I used 3.5". Then you have to cut each of those cirlces in half and sew the straight ends together. All of the flowers were made using a tutorial by Angela of Cut To Pieces, that I found while searching the interwebs for fabric flower ideas.

After the construction of my first flower I started to contemplate the background. I didn't want a large project, so decided to make the background no bigger than 10" square. Since I wanted to use small charms for the background to make it more patchworky, that meant that I needed 25 small charms.

So I cut 7 charms of 5" size out of some Ikea childrens duvet cover that I had bought a while ago - couldn't pass it up as it has a wood theme with loads of animals - and then cut those into 2.5" charms, then assembled them randomly.

You can see that I mixed the order up a few times, because at this point I decided, that I wanted to use more than one big flower, so I moved the white flower on the background fabric further up, so that later on it would look like a flowery field of sorts.

Now it meant to make more flowers. The two other flowers are slightly smaller as the yellow one and not as filled, so I needed less charms.

For the orange one I cut 6 light orange charms for the inside petals and 5 dark orange ones for the outside petals, once again needing to cut circles out of all of them, cut them in half, sew them up, etc. I also used another charm for the middle again.

The exact same thing happened with the pink flower. 6 light pink charms for the inside petals, 5 deep pink charms for the outside petals and one charm for the middle of the flower.

After assembling the flowers, I added a bit of embellishment. I used a string of golden pearls and stitched them around the flower centers to give it a bit more depth and make it look more like there was actual pollen there. The reason for that will be explained further down in this post.

I actually banged my head at some point here, because I didn't have enough of this pearl string and came a good inch short on the final flower. Thankfully a sewing crazy friend of mine - who I originally got this pearl string from - had some more in her stash and saved the day - and the whole project, lol!

Since I didn't just want to leave the flowers bare, but wanted to embellish some more, I decided to make an origami butterfly made from fabric. I used 2 charms for that and created it following a tutorial by Michelle Patterns.

It ended up the perfect size for my flower and I hope it resembles a blue morphp butterly at least a little bit. I just love the blue colour against the yellow background. It's such an eye catcher.

The next idea was some bumble bees to profit from my earlier created pollen. I was contemplating back and forth how to make these, but then decided to cut up 2 empty paper spools of thread and glue some black and yellow striped fabric around it.

I forgot to take a picture of that charm as I was quite certain that I had already done that with the batch of yellow charms for the first flower, but when I uploaded the picture, I realised that I was mistaken. It can be seen in the background of a few of the above pictures, though, even if not fully.

My paper spool bumble bees received fluffy bums and heads, the latter being parts of a black pipe cleaner and their bums being made by deconstructing a fluffy white pom-pom. I had lints of that still in my nose hours later since I obviously had to trim the pom-pom down deliberately and give their bottoms an even trim. That part definitely wasn't so nice. Not for their bums needing trimming, but for all the lints tickling my nose. ;)

They also needed wings. Those I constructed out of two charms of light blue organza and a layer of soluble stabilizer, then embroidered my wings onto that. After washing the soluble out, I immediately ironed the wings dry on low heat, which made them really stiff and great to cut and glue to the little bumble bee bodies.

I think they turned out super cute and several of my friends have already exclaimed the same sentiments. So let's see how far this one will bring me in the final Viewer's Choice voting.

Which immediately brings me to my final words for this week...

THANK YOU!!!

Because you made me win 1st place in the Viewer's Voting for Challenge 5 with my entry "Beneath a Silver Light" with a whopping 164 votes. That was almost double the amount 2nd place got, so whoa!

I can only say it once again, thanks so much for all the support in these votings, it really, really, really means a lot to me! Thank you! :)

I hope you will all enjoy my "Summer Garden". What a great and inspiring couple weeks it has been :)

Lots of Love!

xx Lia

"Beneath a Silver Light" - Project Quilting Challenge 5

2015-03-06T16:56:00.000+01:00

This week's Project Quilting Challenge was called "Favourite Fabric" and you were supposed to pick your favourite fabric out of your stash and use it in a project.

Now, many quilters and sewists out there might horde their favourite fabrics and never ever cut them, but I have several pieces of fabric, especially low volumes, that I'm a huge fan of and that I love using in projects.

I love these fabrics more than others and don't actually have any fabrics that I haven't cut into yet for the reason that they're my favourites, but they just have not matched any criteria to fit into recent projects. So I just opted to use my favourites for projects.

And the result of that is a fabric wall-art that I am calling "Beneath the Silver Light".

I will go into a bit more detail about how this piece came to light. No pun intended ;)

As my quilty friends will be able to confirm, I have a huge love for Carolyn Friedlander fabrics. especially her Architextures and Botanics collections as they include loads of awesome low volume prints and I have an extreme soft spot for those.

Since I had a clear idea in my head about what I wanted to make, I made the following pull of favourite fabrics, I only ended up using 3 of these in the finished project, but added some from another fave designer of mine, Lizzy House. Unfortunately I only had a tiny scrap of my all time favourite left, Pearl Bracelets in light grey, not nearly enough to use it for what I had in mind.

And then the pulling of the other fabrics began. I swear, I never knew I had that many blues in my stash. Kind of amazing, as until recently I've not been feeling the blues so much, in fabric at least. I'm usually more into aqua and teal, lol! That's changing now! ;)

Since my "Morning in the Moor" wall-art that I made for challenge 2, I've been looking on the emmpty space on the wall next to it and thinking how a night piece would be perfect to make a completed set of pictures. I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like and was hoping that it would fit into a future challenge's theme. So this was my chance now.

I drew my 'layers' onto a piece of paper, then cut out the parts, used them as templates for my double-sided fusible web and fabric. Then I ironed all the parts on a muslin type of fabric and after that began stitching them down to secure them, using decorative stitches. Thanks for the huge range of blue shades I have in my thread collection...

I tried to put special emphasis on the silver moon. Adding two layers of shimmery organza over my 2 different Botanics fabrics. You can't see it in the picture below, but the charcoal leaves only go as far as the first silver row of stitches on the inside, underneath that is another quarter inch of the branches fabric.

The organza and silver embroidery thread really give the moon a special glow. And speaking of glow, the star fabric is a glow in the dark fabric and my final left over from binding scraps of the Star Wars quilt that I made for my little brother.

Like on the "Morning in the Moor" wall-art, I also was thinking about adding embroidery again. But I admit that I did not know what of. I didn't want to use cattails or birds again, then someone on Instagram commented on a work-in-progress picture and said that it looked like snowy hills in a winter night and that gave me the idea of a bare tree... and well, there's a full moon, so the owl was a given. Edited pictures in photoshop again, printed it out, drew it out with a Frixion pen, then went to work on embroidering it all.

I probably could have used fabric and iron the tree and owl on as well to make it easier, but I wanted it to be consistent with the other wall-art, so they could really work as a set next to each other. Also, the details on the owl are so much clearer this way, look at the fringy ears for example.

Here are a few more shots to show the ranges of blue fabrics.

The black fabric that I used for the hills is fabric that I used in my first ever quilt, by the way. So you can tell that a few special pieces went into this and I'm totally in love with this one. Probably because there are several favourites of mine in it.

They are both up together on my wall now. Can I admit I am already planning another in my head? They're kind of addicting. But I have no more space to hang them on this small wall, lol!

Now all that I will need starting from Sunday on, are your votes in the viewers choice voting. "Morning in the Moor" finished in 2nd place and that was beyond awesome. Maybe we can do that again? I'm counting on all of you! :)

Much love,

xx Lia

Flowery crochet pincushion for a swap

2015-03-04T22:30:00.003+01:00

Hey everyone!

I'm absolutely craft crazy lately with all the Project Quilting Challenges that I've done in the past couple weeks, so during the off weeks I'm either making swap items or other crafty things.

Last week I bought a whole starter kit for needle felting, but have not had time to try that yet, my fingers are tickling, though. Definitely going to give it a try when I have a free minute.

Other than that I have joined a few swaps and one of them was the Instagram pincushion swap, which can be found on Instagram under #IGpincushionswap. The due date for sending isn't until late May, but I wanted to get a headstart and actually finished my pincushion already.

Since my partner has not commented on anything swap related that I posted on my Instagram profile, I was having a bit of a hard time. In the details that I received from our swapmama, my partner mentions she would love a woodland or fairytale themed pincushion, but her inspirational mosaic showed the complete opposite and also added that I have free range of what to do, she'd be happy with anything. So I was contemplating back and forth for quite a while, until I decided to settle on a flower pincushion.

And here's the result in several pictures for your viewing pleasure ;)

The base for this pincushion is actually a small cat bowl that I found at the Euro shop (equivalent to the dollar store for all the US folks reading lol), which adds a bit of weight to it and makes it sturdy enough to stand properly without tipping over.

The 'grass' is a guest towel that I got at the drug store and cut apart. It's wrapped around a filling of several layers of poly batting scraps that I tightly wrapped into a ball. I sewed the towel closed at the bottom and then glued the 'grass' ball into the bowl using a special glue that can also be used for ceramics.

The flowers were all done following several crochet tutorials online and I made a couple more, but then settled on these 3. I'm not the world's best crocheter, so I needed several tries to get the right sizes of flowers until it felt like they were going well together.

After finishing the flowers, I made the leaves using cotton fabric in different prints and shades of green and one layer of poly batting, also from scraps. Then I started to attach everything to my grassy base.

I tried to make all of the flower centers to look different by adding a few embellishments. The one seen in the picture above has a center that was originally a flower hairband from a package of wedding decorations that I also got at the Euro shop. The ribbon used on it shimmers slightly in a light pink, so is matching the actual flower.

On the purple flower I used a button for the center and also several pins, the lilac coloured flower has a center of all pins that I secured with craft glue.

The final touch were a couple butterfly buttons. They are wooden buttons that I got off ebay for cheap and they look quite realistic, which I love.

So the verdict is that I really hope that my partner will love this pincushion. I posted a mosaic of the above pictures on Instagram as well, but sadly she's not commented... yet?

She's a follower of mine on there and posting regularly other than that, so...it's leaving me quite a bit frustrated at the moment, lol!

I have done a huge amount of swaps, it must have been close to twenty last year alone, and I never had a problem with swap partners commenting or throwing around ideas, it makes the whole creating process so much easier when you know you're heading in the right direction, whereas right now I just feel lost.

There's a few extras I have picked out, that I know I wanna add to her package, also a few decorative pins that I made up, so here's to hoping that she'll enjoy it all :)

Have you ever had a quiet swap partner? What are your experiences and how do you usually deal with it?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Have agood day ;)

xx Lia

A quick thank you!!

2015-03-01T00:00:00.002+01:00

Just wanted to write a quick post to thank everyone out there for voting for me in the Project Quilting Viewer's Choice Vote this week.

You managed to push my pillow "Love is Equal" into the top spots, landing me on the 3rd place with 125 votes and that means a great deal to me as I wasn't expecting to receive many votes, considering that I was hitting a topic that many are afraid to talk about or just avoid entirely.

Since I have friends in the LGBTQIA community that I love very dearly, it's been a great way to express my views and my support and I've been really happy and surprised with all the positive feedback I got from all of you, so once again, thank you so much!

It also means that this is the 4th time in four public votes, that one of my entries has been in the top three. Let's see if we can keep that cycle unbroken for the final two challenges in March :)

All the best to you,

xx Lia

"Love is Equal" - Project Quilting Challenge 4

2015-02-20T21:46:00.002+01:00

This week's challenge of Project Quilting was called 'Have a Heart' and it didn't take me long to come up with an idea of what I wanted to do for it.

For this challenge I made a cushion cover with 12 paper-pieced hearts (original pattern by Cath from Wombat Quilts) and loads of low volume fabrics, as well as fabrics with heart prints.

The challenge itself asked to have at least 12 hearts in the finished project, wether they be quilted, on the fabric or sewn. I think I'm coming to a total of 28 hearts that are completely shown, when I count the ones that are printed on some of my fabrics.

As you will notice, not all my hearts are the same. I included a rainbow heart on purpose, as I find this week's challenge to be perfect to raise awareness for the LGBTQIA community.

While I know that this piece might be controversial for some people, I personally feel strongly about this matter and think that no one should be discriminated for their heritage, colour, religion, and most definitely not for who they choose to love.

Love is love, it won't change, it will always be the same feeling, no matter who the person is you fall in love with. Love has no boundaries, love is equal. At least to me, and that's why I named this cushion cover "Love is Equal".

While I know that the hope that one day we'll all be living on this planet with an understanding and certain respect for each other's life choices is still a pretty long shot, it makes me happy to see how far humanity as already come in terms of awareness and acceptance. And I know that I would never try to change my very best friends, because I love them just the way they are. :)

That being said, this cushion will go to my best friend, who also gave her input on fabrics while I was sewing it up, thankfully she shares my obsession with rainbows, lol!

The finished cushion measures about 18" x 18" and for the pictures I stuffed it with a 20" filling to make it look nice and stuffed.

Here are a few more detailed shots of a few fussy cut parts:

Last but not least I want to say another massive thanks for all the votes on my "Cupcake O'Hare" from challenge 3. It reached second place in the viewer's choice voting as well, just like my "Morning in the Moor" project from challenge 2. Thanks so much everyone!

Also, it would make me extremely happy if you all vote for me again this week. Since I know that some of my readers will share different beliefs regarding my project for this week, I am not counting on it, though.

But like André Gide said, "It is better to be hated for what you are, than to be loved for what you are not".

Much love to all of you out there, rainbow or not!
xx Lia

"Cupcake O'Hare" - Project Quilting Challenge 3 (and a major thanks!)

2015-02-03T19:29:00.001+01:00

This week I'm back early. I can't believe I actually finished my challenge piece within the first day. That definitely is a first, but also a nice feeling, since I literally spent sewing every free minute of every day in the weeks of the challenges one and two.

So without further ado, meet my challenge entry "Cupcake O'Hare".

Now upon seeing this, some of you may be confused or think 'what the heck...?', but I can easily explain this rather simple piece with the Easter vibe, so hang in there...

Challenge 3 of Project Quilting was called UFOs and Orphan Blocks, which means we had to go through our unfinished projects and pick out some of those unfinished blocks or other neglected projects and use them and/or make them into a finished new project.

I actually don't have many UFOs or orphan blocks, apart from a few paper-pieced blocks that I redid because they didn't look good, or from a few sew-alongs or BOM's for example. My UFO box is rather empty and tiny, but I had a few things in there, that worked together.

Most of the above picture shows parts for a Tilda Hare that I started several years ago when a friend gave me a companion of Tilda books and patterns for Christmas. I only ever finished one hare and a couple birds, then pushed off finishing this one for ages - until the challenge was posted on Sunday night.

In the picture you can also see an un-finished hashtag block that I made last December for the #SewingForSydney campaign hosted by Molli Sparkles, but that came out the wrong size due to me using the wrong foot on my machine, and a cupcake block that originally was made in May 2013 with the Summer Sampler Sew-Along hosted by Ellison Lane Quilts.

I didn't use the unfinished hashtag block in the end, but I used the doll parts for the Tilda Hare and the cupcake block, which means I merged a UFO and an orphan block together into one and out came a cute little Tilda bunny with a snuggly, little quilt to match.

As you can see I added some detail with free-motion to give the small mugrug sized blanket a bit of depth. It also feels like freemotion is starting to get a bit easier for me, so I really enjoy it.

The backing of this little quilt is a pink fabric with a heart print (the one I used for the original hashtag block) and the binding is a bit of Aneela Hoey's Posey line.

Isn't Miss Cupcake too cute with her flower hat? Oh look, she's blushing! ;)

I have added a string to the bunny's back and it's now hanging on my door as spring decoration. I really adore this little one and it kind of brought me in the mood to make more. I have tons of fabrics I can use and lots of Tilda patterns too. Might make one of the angels next, we'll see. Here are a few more details in close-up, such as the heart buttons and the embroidery on the dress and her little pants.

Now, I understand if this might not look like much to some people, but I'm glad that I finished these two and I actually asked Kim if it would be ok to do this as I didn't want to go against any rules. But she said yes and in the end I did what the challenge asked for:

- Used an orphan block and/or UFO and I
- used at least one of the following, mandatory techniques: patchwork, appliqué, 3 layers stitched together by hand or machine.

Let's see where this one takes me. ;)

And here's where the thanks have to start, because last week I was speechless when my challenge 2 piece "Morning in the Moor" reached place 2 in the public voting with a whopping 226 votes!

That are more votes than I received to win challenge one with my "Four Seasons" entry - in the same public voting. So thanks a million to each and everyone out there who voted. It means a lot!

I honestly doubt we will get anywhere that close with my entry for this week, but it surely makes me proud to know that I have a few fans out there, so thanks bunches!!

Enjoy your time and see you next week!
xx Lia

"Morning in the Moor" - Project Quilting Challenge 2

2015-01-24T22:06:00.001+01:00

Challenge 2 on Project Quilting had the theme Sunrise/Sunset and I admit that I needed a good two days to actually decide what I wanted to do for it, because I was unsure wether I should go with a sunset or a sunrise, the latter won in the end, after several hours of googling. Also, I have a huge love for the cloud fabrics of the Danscapes collection and it just happened, that I still had a piece of clouds with sunrise colours left in my stash ;)

So, here it is, my entry for challenge number two, which I called "Morning in the Moor"

First I want to explain why I called it that. I live in the very north of Germany in midths of marsh land and close to a moor where we always walk our dog. The mornings around fall and also this time of year are foggy, you often see crows flying and there are cattails here and there in the small water channels by the fields, so this picture pretty much represents home for me.

As a sunrise gradually builds up as the sun goes higher on the sky, I started with the deep reds at the bottom and worked my way up into oranges and pinks, that lead up to the clouds in the blue sky, that is still etched with hints of pink and yellow.

This piece is a wall-hanging again, measures 12" x 19" and is backed with cardboard, which I actually sewed on. But I have an old machine that was used for industrial purposes and it doesn't budge on 1/8" thick cardboard. The actual project was sketched onto paper at first, then I went through my stash for matching fabrics and started to cut out the pieces.

I then used double-sided fusible web to iron these pieces onto a thin muslin. I admit that I use the cheapest Ikea cotton fabric that I have for this purpose, but it works best. I might add that I starched the heck out of all fabrics to make them smooth and sturdy before I started to apply them to my muslin fabric, though.

After that I added one layer of batting and another simple layer of muslin as backing and started to secure my fused pieces by adding decorative stitches in thread that was matching the fabrics by colour. Burying all the threads took some time, but it was well worth it, I really like the look those stitches created.

At this point I was unsure if I should go with my original plan to add silhouettes of birds and cattails, but I felt that without anything added to it, the project would've come out looking a bit boring. I actually rehearsed several different layouts in photoshop, then printed one out and cut out the details to then draw them on with my Frixion pen.

The next part was something I never tried before. I was at a bit of a loss as to how to "fill in" my drawings and I didn't want to iron on more tiny parts with black fabric, as that would've meant more stitching onto those small parts and hey, the edges fray really easy even on bigger pieces.

I started googling 'machine embroider on a domestic machine', as that is all that I own and let's be honest, you don't buy a fancy embroidery machine for one challenge of Project Quilting ;)

I found several tutorials on Youtube that described it for beginners. It's basically nothing different than doing free-motion-quilting (which I suck at honestly), you use your free-motion foot, lower your feed dogs, and you need a topstitch or embroidery needle since those have a bigger hole in them and the thread runs through easier. After work I went to the nearest store that sells machine needles and got them, then went straight to working on a test piece. It looked a bit wonky at first, but after a few tries I had worked it out and could start on my actual embroidery.

And that is the story of how I created "Morning in the Moor".

I hope everyone loves this one as much as the last! And speaking of... massive THANKS to everyone who voted for me "Four Seasons" wall-hanging in challenge number 1!

I received 146 votes in the Viewers Choice voting and won first place! Woohoo! Not a bad start for the first challenge, so I definitely have high goals now and can't wait to receive the Aurifil thread that was up for a price for this category. Thanks so much everyone!! :)

Once again, all of the fabrics used were from my stash, so I'm still firmly sticking to the SewMyStash2015 challenge as well!

See you with the next challenge!

xx Lia

"Four Seasons" - Project Quilting Challenge 1

2015-01-11T13:22:00.001+01:00

It's January, which means it's once again time for a season of Project Quilting and every year it actually comes as a surprise to me, as January is usually a super busy month for me work wise.

This time isn't an exception since the last 2 weeks of this month will be spent with holiday coverage at work and I will have close to zero sewing time, which means that challenge number 2 might be difficult to handle unless I make it a really small project.

All of that aside, it took me nearly a week to finish my entry for the first challenge of season 6 of Project Quilting, which was simple called "Trees".

I already took part in Season 3 and 4, but since then have developed my sewing skills and gotten more confident and I like challenging myself to something new, trying out new stuff and new techniques I've not done before and these challenges are perfect for that.

This time around I was inspired by a picture I saw some time ago of a tree that showed all four seasons at once. I started brainstorming and decided that I wanted it to be an apple tree.

I am calling this simply 'Four Seasons' as that says it all, but I will show some more close-up pictures as there are many details that might go unnoticed on first glance.

I worked with 2.5" charms, 16 for every season and 80 low volume charms for the background. All the details were embroidered by hand, I also used buttons and KAM snaps for the detailling.

This project was ironed onto fleece with double sided fusible web, then was mounted onto the wooden backing of a picture frame with an additional layer of fleece to give it a little more padding.

Originally I wanted to use a stretcher frame, but on an attempted last minute buy yesterday, I realised that nowhere in my little city I could find one in the correct size, so off I went with an electrical saw and cut the board of my frame to fit. The finished wall-art is 24.5" square. And the best part? There's a hanger already on it. ;)

But now onto the details. Let's start in the upper left corner with Spring.

This shows the apple tree in full bloom, pink blossoms in different shades. I got these flower buttons a while ago for no reason other than that they were pretty, but never got to actually use them until now.

I also added rain, because trees need rain and water in order to grow and spring is all about growth.

Next up is summer and my tree is full of red apples in different sized, just like on a real tree. The leaves are a rich green now and the apples are getting lots of sunshine.

As we reach autumn there are only a few rotten apples left, that no one picked, or that didn't fall down yet, it's gotten colder and the wind or storm is blowing around the leaves, playing with them.

Finally we reach winter, the tree is bare apart from a couple squirrels playing in the branches, and the cold wind is blowing, whirling a couple snowflakes through the air.

This is my interpretation of the four seasons and since the challenge was called "Trees", I also added a few fabrics with small tree or leafy prints.

On top of that I'm proud to add that all of the materials used are out of my stash. Nothing was bought to finish this piece, everything was taken out of my stash or was reconstructed like I did with that backing piece of my picture frame, which is another step within the Sew My Stash challenge that I wrote about in my last post. So, as you can see, I'm sticking to it. ;)

I hope you liked my interpretation of a four season apple tree and I will hopefully have another Project Quilting challenge piece for you in 2 weeks time.

Happy sewing!

xx Lia

Happy New Year!

2015-01-02T21:57:00.002+01:00

I hope everyone had a fabulous turn into the new year. Ours was pretty loud and filled with lots of anxiety from our dog, but now everything is good again.

For her it's definitely the worst day of the year, sometimes the whole week, depending how recklessly our neighbours are firing their crackers and how many days for...

But anyway, a new year, new challenges and what better way to start the year than with a super cute Block of the Month? Yes! Kristy from Quiet Play has another paper-pieced BOM and while I didn't join the one last year, I started learning paper-piecing with her sewing-themed BOM in 2013 and have been hooked ever since.

So when I saw that she was doing a Zoo Animals BOM, I just had to join, because these patterns are way too cute!

For the month January we started with the Flamingo. And since I have decided to join another challenge called Sew My Stash, I have picked fabrics from my stash - quilting and non-quilting cottons in a mix - to make my block for this month.

A couple hours later and the block was finished. The background is a cotton curtain fabric, that I first thought would be a bit too dark, but this shade of blue really makes the colour of the Flamingo pop. And since the part over their beak is not entirely white, I used that charm square of Figures by Zen Chic. I think he's really pretty and am already looking forward to see which animal will be the block for February. I think my secret favourite is the blue macaw.

This time around I am planning my fabrics more wisely and will stick to the same background for all of them. Just to make it look more consistent.

But now back to the other challenge I mentioned before. It's called Sew My Stash 2015 and basically consists of using the fabrics you already have at hand to sew projects, rather than constantly buying new fabric.

My fabric stash is actually not that big if you count quilting cottons only, it's just one box, plus scraps. I do have a load of other fabrics as well, though. From Ikea, Joann's, the local DIY's, curtain fabric, jeans, upholstery, fleece, linen, countless scraps, so on and so forth. A fabric diet would really not be the worst thing for me, although it will be hard. Much harder than cutting down on chocolate and sweets ;)

We'll see how long I will last. One order from the end of the year is not going to make it to me until April, though. My dear quilting friend Tammy is visiting her son here in Germany in April and will be taking an order that I had shipped to her with her when coming over. That way I won't have to pay horrendous amounts of shipping from the US to here, nor any custom charges. Don't you just love quilty friends? They're the best! Woohoo! I definitely will be displaying the fabrics here when they arrive, because they are a gorgeous rainbow set!

Another little outstanding fabric delivery is a scrap package, also from a friend, that I need for a swap. I yet need to pay for it, but it has been in the works since mid December. So I think I'm off the hook. Other than that I will desperately try and NOT buy any new fabrics. But like I said, let's see how long I'll last. Is Carolyn Friedlander releasing yet another new fabric line this year? Because that could be my downfall then ;)

If you are interested in joining the Sew My Stash project as well, jump over to Project Leasa to find out more about it.

Have fun on your sewing endeavours!

xx Lia

I'm back!

2014-12-26T14:45:00.001+01:00

Hi folks! Did anyone miss me? I know, I've been such a bad blogger, but time just got the better of me and I can't believe it's been almost half a year since my last post to you. I will try and better myself in the next year, but I can't promise anything ;)

The sewing definitely hasn't stopped in the last months and yesterday I had a major finish. The quilt - my first ever quilt top - that I pieced 4 years ago when my sewing adventures started. Yes, it's now finished.! Woohoo!

Yay! It's done!

Yesterday I spray basted it like a mad person with 505 spray baste (I love that stuff) and then went to work. Honestly, my piecing back then was horrendous, not everything is straight, and the Warm and White batting definitely won't be bought again either.

This is one of the parts that actually look ok.

I literally spray basted like a mad person, everything was sticking together perfectly, flat, straight. Nothing was moving, no bunches or bulks anywhere. I then started sewing down the length of the quilt in wavy lines and realised that my brown border fabric was stretching in places.

Variegated King Tut thread by Superior Threads.

Ok then, 2 or three little bumps here and there that could easily be ironed out. Except it didn't stop there. When I reached the middle of my quilt, the batting had bunched up, like it had stretched and extended between my top and backing and I started to get bumps everywhere.

Lots of bumps and bunches. *sniff*

At this point I told myself, the hell with it, and just went over. It will get bumpy after being washed anyway, it's my first every quilt and I definitely suck at free motion on big pieces, so that would've looked even worse, I won't be giving this away either, but keeping it for myself, and while the perfectionist in me got majorly annoyed, I told myself, it's ok. It's another experience, and I'm glad I finally finished it.
I also actually love it, as imperfect and bumpy as it is, because hey...life isn't perfect either. You always get bumps in the road. ;)

Simple polka dot backing fabric and binding in matching colour.

But my next project - if it is going to be another quilt - will be a QAYG one. Preferably with free motion samples, because I got a great book for Christmas for free-motion beginners and while I didn't get any free-motion-learning done this year, I really need to try it next year. I already bought several classes on Craftsy, so might as well watch them now.

What are your plans for the new year? Any super-exciting and sewing-related Christmas gifts you got? Comment below, I'd love to know :)

I'm wishing you all a very Happy New Year and am leaving you with my year of finishes as a special treat!

Hugs and Love
xx Lia

Strawberry Craziness...

2014-07-19T12:00:00.000+02:00

It's absolutely safe to say that I have a soft spot for everything relating to strawberries when it comes to patterns and sewing. Which is a bit crazy since I'm actually allergic to strawberries unless they're turned into jam or cooked or else.

But I've been waiting for a Strawberry Swap to come along for a while and when Jamie started hosting an Instagram and Flickr based Strawberry Swap, I just knew that I had to join.

My partner listed a few a few things that she would love to receive, one of them being a fabric basket and since I loved making the one for Kristel in the Simple and Sweet Scrappy Swap, I thought I would make my Strawberry Swap partner a proper fabric bucket as well.

It all started with pulling a few fabrics and a pattern. For the basket I used the Birch pattern in small again, for the Strawberries I got the Strawberry block from Sew Ichigo and reduced the size to 50%, so that each block came out at 3.5" including seam allowance.

I just love how the colours pop against the low volume fabrics and how cute these strawberries are in this size. Granted I had to pull out my stitches on the first block as it came out wonky at first, but then I got the hang of it. Yes, I get a bit rusty with paper-piecing when not having done it for a couple weeks, lol! ;)

After sewing them into rows, I started working on the actual bucket parts. No pictures here, but I added half an inch in size to the pattern of the bucket as I would've needed to cut off some of the strawberry blocks else and the seam allowance is already quite close to the actual berries.

Here are several pictures of the finished bucket, though. It is the smallest of them, but don't let that scare you away, the actual basket has quite some space for filling it.

In the last picture you can also see the inlay bottom that I made to make it more sturdy when standing. Just made a tube of the same fabric, turned it over and pushed some cardboard in. Voila! :)

And since a Strawberry Swap can never have enough strawberries... here are also a few pincushions. They look edible, don't they?

Once again there's a few firsts in this swap for me. First time making these pincushions. Also I never so actively used text or low volume prints in one project before. I've only seen others do it and always loved it. Needless to say that I'm having a very hard time parting with this fabric basket, but I think my partner wouldn't be too happy with me keeping it, lol!

I added a few scraps, including strawberry prints and a couple leftovers of the texty prints I used in this project.

After that I dug out pretty much anything strawberry-themed that I could find. I may have gone a bit overboard again on this one, similar to the bug themed Dumpling Pouch Swap the other week, but I just love spoiling people and sending packages like this. I'm sure my partner won't mind, I know I definitely wouldnt.

All of this is now packed up in a box and ready to go to its new home once the temperaturs have dropped a bit here. It's pretty hot at the moment and I don't want the Choclait Chips to arrive a melted mess. Hopefully they won't have to travel too long.

That's it from me for now. Happy sewing everyone!

xx Lia

A whole lot of fabric buckets!

2014-07-18T14:11:00.007+02:00

It's here! It's here! And I was completely right in saying that it would need an extra blog post!

My fabric basket from the lovely Karri in Texas finally arrived after an almost 8 week long arrival/delivery time. If you ask me customs must've had a ball playing with it, judging from the amounts of stickers they put on the package!!

Here's a look at what was in the envelope. Tea flowers, yummy chocolate and a beautifully wrapped packkage. Until then I didn't know the crazy amount of goodies that she had wrapped with the adorable piece of fabric. I love butterflies by the way and Karri clearly picked up on that! :)

Inside this beautiful wrapping was a low volume and texty fabric bucket. This bucket was the initial swap item for the Simple and Sweet Scrappy Swap and I love the orange and blue side of it. Plus Karri used several of my favourite fabrics from Alison Glass, Lotta Jansdotter and Carolyn Friedlander. Win!

Wrapped inside the basket were even more goodies! Lots of lace trims (I have used some of these for a recet project, that I'll blog about soon), a load of lovely scraps, a Prairie Pointer Tool, zipper with zipper pull charm, metal tags and so on and so forth!

But that's not all, because shortly after Karri had sent this original package in May, she realised that some of the things she had wanted to include were still lying around at her home and she sent another enevelope. That one actually arrived a month before the original basket package. But I've withheld posting pictures before, as I wanted to get it all together in one big post.

In that package was more trimming, a clover seam tool (which I've been using while paper-piecing and just LOVE!), a pencil, some cute labels, a bag pattern aaaaand Aurifil!!! it's my first ever Aurifil! Happy dance!

So you can imagine that I was more than thrilled!

But Karri - the lovely angel she is - had gotten together an actual angel package when the first basket was still stuck in transit and customs and whatnot. That one arrived last week and was an equal stunner!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the package and found this loot in it. Plus, it's like she installed a secret camera into my sewing room and spied on me, because she sent Frixion pens in the only 2 colours I didn't have yet, a quarter inch seam ruler (I've been wanting one), more Aurifil and even more scraps. Also another bag pattern, a stamp, rick rack ribbon and hexie templates. Seriously spoiled here!

And then there's this cute, amazing, little scrap of Heather Ross fabric, that literally had me bouncing and squealing. It's the out of print and extremely popular Fish Out of Bags print. I've seen listings online where a yard goes for well over $50, just so you know how crazy people are over it ;)

I mean, just look at how cute they are??? Am gonna end my blog post with these cuties and wish you all a very happy and sunny day! :)

xx Lia

Craft It Forward!

2014-07-03T18:55:00.000+02:00

It feels like ages ago that I left a comment under a Craft It Forward blog post on Angela's blog Heart of Charnwood, but today I received my Craft It Forward gift from her in the mail, which came as a total surprise.

Craft It Forward is basically like a chain letter for crafty goodies. The first 5 people who have a blog and sign up by leaving a comment under this post, will each receive a handmade gift, as a surprise, at someone point within the next 12 months. Once you have received your gift you will have to Craft it Forward for 5 people as well.

So today I received my Craft It Forward surprise and Angela made me this cute, lined drawsting bag, which is quite fab, as I've been looking into making one as a lunchbag for work, but hadn't gotten around to it and also wasn't able to join the Simple and Sweet Scrappy Swap at the time that they were all sewing drawstring bags. Meaning, I'm really happy about this little drawstring bag, especially as the colours (the lining is blue) go well with my new Super Tote. Thanks Ange!

What do you think? Do you want to join in on the fun? Want to receive one handmade gift and make the same offer for 5 other crafty people (once you have received your Craft It Forward gift)? Then sign up by leaving a comment below! :)

xx Lia

Happy Mail!!!

2014-06-30T17:35:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone!

I promised I would make another post with all the loot that I'd receive in the swaps I joined and the past few days have been loaded with Happy Mail!

First I'm going to show you the inspirational mosaics that I made for my partners and after that the goodies that I received.

Let's start with the Secret Tote Bag Swap, that I'm hosting myself. In round 4 we were sewing to the theme 'Summertime' and this is the mosaic that I made as inspiration for my partner.

My tastes are actually quite obvious, I think. I love the Noodlehead Super Tote pattern and already have one Super Tote that I received in a previous round of this swap. I love the colours aqua and teal combined with blues and greys and shades of green or yellow and I looooove low volume and text fabrics. I think I also said that I wouldn't mind the bag being in QAYG style. Oh and that I like butterflies and bees.

Last Friday I then received a box from Susan aka sewlikesue with these beautifully wrapped packages.

And inside was a gorgeous Super Tote in exactly the colours I had requested and showed in my mosaic.

Sue also added 2 fatquarters of bug fabric, some flat-headed, butterfly-shaped quilting pins, dark chocolate and yummy tea. I was super-thrilled with this beautiful bag!

Here are a few more pictures, she really hit the nail on the head and I'm most impressed with how sturdy the bag is. She wrote she used some Pellon as stabilizer. And else I thought was really intriguing, is that she used some of the actual fabrics displayed in my mosaic. So Awesome!

Zipper and lining match the outter fabrics and there's a load of pockets. I always need many, many pockets for all the things I carry around with me. On the outside there's another big pocket as well. :)

Here's another look at all the extras that came along with the bag. Quilting pins, chocolate, beautiful fabric and herbal and fruit tea!

Last, but not least, here's a picture of the bag with my coin purse, that I bought when receiving the bag from the previous swap, and I'm so glad that the colours still match, yay!

Next up is my mosaic for the Dumpling Pouch Swap hosted by Mari-Ann aka Rockislander. Once again, it's quite specific.

It's quite obvious that I love bees and was looking for a pouch in a colour range of aqua, light blue and yellow combined with lov volume and text fabrics. And since the swap was for a bug-theme, I really, really wanted to receive something with a bee.

The funny thing is, that not many participants actually used the same colour ranges that I did, but I was still keeping my fingers crossed a lot when Mari-Ann herself posted a couple pictures on Flickr of a little pouch in the very same colours. I kept my eye on the swap and more and more pouches turned up at their new homes, yet not the one Mari-Ann had made. Until today when I received a thick, padded envelope from Mari-Ann, coming all the way from Bermuda! Woohoo!

When I opened the package, the little pouch fell out and after the initial squeal followed a happy dance! ;)

I'm absolutely in love with this little pouch and the ÜBER-adorable needlebook that she made to go along with it.

There are a ton of tiny details there, that Mari-Ann herself has beautifully captured in a few mosaics on Flickr, see here, here and here. :) I didn't want to steal her pics, so just follow the links! ;)

The pouch itself is lined with text fabric, embroidered with a little bee and has a small bee charm dangling from the zipper.

Along she sent many, many goodies such as fabric covered buttons, pins, sticky notes, EPP hexagons, Burt's Bees handbalm, jelly slugs (which for some reason are not in any of my pictures, although I've not eaten them yet lol!) and LOADS of bug themed fabric scraps! I'm in bug heaven! See below how many there are ;)

How can you not be happy with all of that? My fingers are tickling to make something small with a few of these. Maybe a few notebook covers. The ants are just the cutest!

But that's not all yet. Today I also received another swap package from the lovely Erin aka madbury13 for the Fabric Scrap Swap, that I'm also hosting. No mosaic here, but I requested texts and low volumes, bug prints, sewing themed fabrics and also added that I like small fruit and flower prints and any other cute small prints.

Erin sent an amazing pack of scraps that completely covered the options I had given her and the scraps you can see in the picture below aren't even all of the ones she sent! There are so many that I couldn't fit them all into the picture and they are beyond fabulous! Look at those donuts or the cute strawberries in the bottom row. Love all of them! And she also included a mini lint roll and mini gel pens.

Today really was an extremely great day for receiving mail, especially since it's a Monday and we hardly ever get mail on Mondays, so I'm extra thrilled.

Also last Saturday I received a letter from customs and this morning it was confirmed by them that the package they have for me is the one from my Simple and Sweet Scrappy Swap partner Karri, that we've been patiently waiting for to get through to me for 8 weeks now. Finally! Woohoo! There's light at the end of the tunnel!

I'll keep you updated on that one, so there might be another post with more happy mail announcements coming soon ;)

Until then I wish you all a great time!

xx Lia

A few things I recently made

2014-06-13T20:24:00.000+02:00

As previously mentioned, I took full use of the 3 weeks of holiday time that I had off work to catch up with my sewing. Not only did I participate in a lot of swaps, but I also made and worked on the following items.

My mum wanted a small pouch in box-shape and she loved this cherry fabric that I had, so I made her one with it.

I also made these zippered patchwork pouches in 2 different sizes. The bigger one went to a friend in the US, who was so kind to help me get a fabric for me, that I'd been looking for, the other was a birthday gift to my colleague, so that she has a secure place to store her mobile phone in.

I also did a bit of upcycling with one of my mum's T-Shirts as she managed to dribble apple juice over herself. She's an apple lover and has so many tees with brown stains due to that. It actually turned out better than I thought. I used iron-on adhesive paper to attach the fabric patch to the tee and then used an applique stitch to go around again.

Mum likes it and I doubt it's going to be the last of her tees that receives a new look.

Added to that, I've been making loads and loads of shopping bags out of old fabrics. Mainly from old bed covers, or fabrics that I had previously cut to make cushion covers, but then never got around to it and also fabrics that my dear friend Iris has provided. All of these bags will go to Iris, who is running the website Recycling-Helden.

This is a project that is close to my heart and that I am currently voluntarily sewing for and where we are creating new bags, rugs, gift wrapping and other items out of waste-products from manufactures, such as leftover cuts from productions of deck chairs, mattresses, tablecloths and so on and so forth.

The website is in German, but I am encouraging all my German speaking readers to have a look at the Recycling-Helden page, as we'll be giving away 100 shopping bags in July. All you will have to do is send a self-addressed and stamped envelope to Iris and you will receive a free shopping bag in return. More details will be on the site, though.

Here's a look at my sewing place from last weekend, I now have almost 100 bags done, in different sizes and fabrics, just eye-balling and cutting to have no waste.

I'm so glad I bought a serger last year, though, or else I would've never been able to make these as quickly as I've done with a serger. And I'm also thanking Teresa from Green Bag Lady for that easy shopping bag style she invented. I'm not using the actual pattern, as our sizes vary depending on how wide or how much fabric we have, but the way she's making them is a very fast and easy way to make sturdy bags! Thanks, Teresa!

I'm also including a couple pictures of the gift bags, that I made for the Recycling-Helden last year, I made a good 500 of these small bags, all from waste cuts of wax-tablecloths. Reusable, water-resistant and in all sorts of colours.

Lastly, I have a friend who is a self-published writer and whose birthday is coming up at the end of this month. Sometimes I'm struggling to find something as a gift, but I thought she could use a mug rug for when she's sat writing on her laptop, with a mug of tea or coffee next to her, while she's imagining and creating yet another new novel. And of course it had to have a bit of a book theme.

So I bought a pattern from The Patchsmith and made her a mug rug, inspired by her favourite colours, which are purple and green as far as I know and a few details thrown in, that would make it more personalized.

Since my friend is a follower of this blog, and she's already received her gift, I guess I can now reveal what I used to personalize this mug rug and why.

I used selvages for the book titles, which will be obvious for all quilters and sewists.

The Piece O' Cake was used because she's writing a lot at the moment and has quite the speed in finishing her goals. So it seems a bit like a piece of cake, how fast she's finishing future novels.

C is for Cat is quite obvious as my friend is a cat lover and has 2 of the furry friends living with her, along with dogs as well, though.

Out of this World is also easy to explain, as she's living in Sri Lanka which is extremely far away from me and she's also an out of this world person, simply because we've been friends for at least a decade now if not even longer.

Fluttering Wings & Colourful Things. This one I used because she loves butterflies and birds, and her nickname used to be Butterfly Devi, and also because the flowers and colours used in traditional gowns in her country is what I would definitely put in the colourful things category. And the mug itself has Butterflies on it as well, by the way. :)

So yeah, that's that...Another extremely long and picture loaded post, but I hope you enjoyed this little insight, even if I've not posted that often or regular lately.

Until next time!

xx Lia

Swap Mania

2014-06-12T18:59:00.003+02:00

Hi everyone!

I realised it's been over a month since my last post already, but I've been in absolute swap and sewing mania lately, lol!

After my last post, I can now reveal what I sent for the Secret Tote Bag Swap, as my partner received her bag a while ago. Our theme in this round is Summertime and my partner asked for a spacey beach bag. Her mosaic showed that she liked linen and applique, as well as a beachy theme annd her favourite colours are red, green, blue and yellow as well as beige.

I made her a big bag with a large front pocket. I used a linen/cotton blend as the main fabric and a shower curtain from Ikea for the lining. This makes the inside water proof and it also can be wiped down.

The outside pocket as a huge beach scene with a beach hut and palmtree, that I appliqued on with the machine. I also made a cardboard inlay for the bottom of the bag to make it more sturdy and added snaps so that it could be closed.

Above in the last picture you can see the whole swap package, I added beach-themed beads, funky shaped, colourful straws, a seam ripper, some chocolate and a couple skeins of embroidery floss.

In my last post, I showed you fabric basket that I made for the Simple & Sweet Scrappy Swap. Since my partner has received, I can now reveal the full package that I sent to her. She's a Sherlock Fan, so I made her a Sherlock-themed hoop-art for her sewing room, that I cross-stitched, following a pattern that I bought from weelittlestitches on Etsy. Go check them out, they have amazing and super-cute cross-stitch patterns for basically any fandom out there!

Unfortunately my own fabric basket is still whirling its way across the globe to me. My partner actually sent two packages, as she found stuff she had planned to put in the first package, but forgot and then sent along after. Strangely the second one has arrived a while ago, but the first one still hasn't found its way home to me.

I have had a really bad case of delayed mail all through May though, so am still hoping! When it gets here, I will make an extra post to show it off, as the basket she made is really beautiful, so I'm crossing my fingers that it'll be here soon :)

Next, I previously posted about this mug rug, that I sent for the Mug Rug Revival for the month May. My partner also has received and here is now the full swap package.

In return I received this super adorable mug rug from the swap mama herself. I had hinted at a bee theme in my inspirational mosaic for my partner, so I was really happy when this little buzzer showed up at my door :)

And as I always do, I decided to put it up as wall-art instead. Now I can appreciate it every day and am hoping to extend that wall with a few more mug rugs soon, lol!

Next up is a swap package that I made for my own Fabric Scrap Swap. I know you can't see much here, but my partner had it in her hands within 4 days of me posting it off, which is enough to mention it here, because that is a new record from the German post to the USA. I mean, imagine my surprise when she said she had it already just 4 days later, when over here customs sometimes need 3 weeks to process it to go through (that's after it already arrived in this country...)!

Last, but definitely not least we have this little zippered pouch, that I made for my partner in the Dumpling Swap. I'm not really sure if she's a follower of my blog or now, so I'm just going to take a risk here now and show the full swap package a few pictures down, but she's a bee lover like me (the theme of the round was bugs) and I tried really hard to match her fabric tastes and colour wishes. I know that she replied on Flickr that she loves this, so I know she will be happy. :)

The bees are embroidered by the way. First time I actually did something like that and I love how they turned out. Actually gave myself a pat to the shoulder for that and it was really hard to send this little one away, I would've loved to keep it, but know that my partner will give it a great and loving home.

Yes, when seeing the picture above, I think I really went all out. The task of the swap was to just fill the pouch, but after I had spent 2 days going to basically every shop here in town for bee-related goodies, I just had to send everything that fit in the package weight wise, with 4 grams to spare lol!

And since I'm so addicted to swapping at the moment, I also just signed up for a new swap at the Quilting Gallery. Mug Rugs with the theme Summertime Memories. That sounds soooo nice and I love mug rugs, as I always use them as mini-wall hangings for decoration of my walls. :)

Can't wait!

Oh and since I have more sewing related goodies to show you, I will make an extra post in the next few days ;)

See you then!

xx Lia

Creative overflow!

2014-05-05T14:26:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone!

Lately I've been suffering from a creative overflow, if you can call it that. And actually it's not really suffering when you consider that I've not been really actively sewing for over 2 months.

But oh my God, I can't stop! I have signed up for several awesome swaps and for the past couple days have litterally been sewing nonstop and putting together swap packages and it's sooo much fun!

Hence me sharing a couple photos with you now, although I cannot show the complete swap packages, as I might reveal who my partners are in case they're following my blog, lol!

The first swap item was for the 4S Swap, also known as the the Simple & Sweet Scrappy Swap on Flickr. For this round we are making Fabric Buckets and Baskets and I used the Birch pattern for mine.

It was super easy to make and finishes at about 5 x 6 inch if using the smallest pattern, but it's quite roomy and big.

Next I signed up for the Mug Rug Revival Swap for the month May. The theme for this month is either a flower or a woodland themed mug rug. My partner gave me free range, but being inspired by all the lovely pictures in her mosaic, I decided to go with a flower theme and finally tried out the Swedish Bloom-Time Block pattern from the book Patchwork Please by Ayumi Takahashi, that I've had sitting on my shelf for a while now.

I didn't use the original block size, as it would've been too big for a mug rug, but simply scanned the book page, printed out several pages and cut them apart with the correct seam allowance, so that I could paper-piece this block.

This one is also readily packed with a bunch of goodies and will go on it's journey today, if I catch my postman. :)

After all the sewing with fleece batting that I've done in the past months, my sewing machine started to sound a bit like a tractor again, so I've taken it apart today to clean and it pretty much looks like a little teddy bear has shed all his fur in there.

It didn't take long to clean, but there were quite some big lints in there. Which always reminds me of the time that I read on a blog somewhere how someone hadn't cleaned their sewing machine in two years. That really seems impossible to me, I need to do it every other month and if sewing with lots of linty fabrics and fleece, I try not to wait too long to clean it, just for the tractor sound re-appearing.

But I'm wondering, how often do you clean your machines? Is it an easy task on your model or something you really hate doing?

Let me know :)

Until my next post, you'll find me in my sewing space, preparing the next swap package... ;)

xx Lia