My Pink Quilt Guide

Finally finished quilt number two! Here is a stage by stage guide for this one...

Firstly use a 13cmx13cm square template to cut out 108 squares of material. I used twelve different materials and cut 9 squares of each.

My materials

I then lay out the squares for the quilt in a 9 square x 12 square rectangle. I didn't use a pattern for laying the squares out - they are completely random, so I just made sure the same ones weren't next to each other.

A stack of rows of squares

Then stitch the squares together in rows, before stitching the rows together. A great tip I found was to number each row to make sure you keep them in the right order. I originally used chalk but it rubbed off so I wrote the numbers on small pieces of paper and pinned them to each row.

Ended up with a bit too much wadding! I lay out the quilt over the backing material and wadding to cut it all to the right size. I then layered it: backing fabric wrong side up, wadding and then the quilt the right side up. I then pinned and stitched it all together. 

Then for the binding round the edge. I made my own using my new gadget! It's brilliant, I highly recommend getting one. 

I then attached the binding in the usual way all around the edge. The corners are a bit fiddly but they just need a fold on each side.

Tahdaa... The finished item!

Same Pattern, Different Dresses

My last post was of my first use of New Look Pattern 6143... this one is of my second and third!

The Suggested Fabrics for this pattern are mostly stiffer materials like cotton, linen and taffeta. I decided, however, to try it in jersey fabrics and it worked just as well:

Dress 1

Dress Two

Having watched the Great British Sewing Bee though I'm now very aware my pattern matching isn't great on dress 1! Definitely my new favourite programme.

New Look Pattern 6143

My new favourite pattern. 

I had been looking for a pattern for a dress this shape for ages before I found this bargain!

I chose to make the 3/4 sleeved dress in a pink flowery fabric. It's a bit more pink than I would usually go for but I love the material. I think the pleats work well with this material too.

The New Look 6143 pattern was simple and easy to use. The darts in the front and back of the bodice were easy to create and made it a great fit. The darts were the most fiddly part but even they weren't too tricky and they give the dress a great shape. You have to ease the sleeves and neck binding into place to fit but as long as you know that it isn't too difficult.

I'll definitely be using this pattern again.

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My step-by-step progress...

New Obsession

So I have branched away from just using my sewing machine for making clothes and have now finished my very first quilt! It took so long - even just finding all the fabrics to use took long enough! - and hasn't exactly turned out to be cheap but I am so happy with it. 

 I used the book Quilting In No Time as guidance, although I chose to use all patterned fabrics instead of half plain because I wasn't keen on how it looked on the one in the book:

Once I had FINALLY finished cutting out all my 15cm x 15cm fabric squares I arranged them in the order I wanted to sew them. I chose to make it a completely random order because I thought that would be most effective. It did take a lot of swapping to arrange it but it was totally worth it.

 I then sewed the squares into rows and then the rows together. I didn't make my seams quite as wide as recommended though which was then a bit of a problem when it came to getting the backing fabric. Because I had made the seams smaller the width of the quilt was a lot wider than the book had predicted it would be - 15cm wider in fact. This meant it was impossible to find a material wide enough to use as backing fabric. 

I was planning on using strips of material as binding anyway for the edges of my quilt, so I decided I would make the border on the back wider than that on the front, thereby adding more material to the back and solving the problem of it being too wide... Not as simple as it sounds though! The corners were so difficult and it took so many attempts to get them just right.

Next time I'm doing the seams properly and not making it so wide.

The finished item. Notice the matching cushion - definitely my favourite fabric.

Although this project was far harder work than I had thought it would be I'm definitely hooked. I've already got fabric for my next two...

Graduation Dress!

So today I had my graduation ceremony!! What a brilliant day!

And this is the dress I wore:

I was originally going to wear one I had spotted in Monsoon, but it wasn't really anything special or particularly well fitted. So I thought that since I had the time I'd make one. 



It's based on the Simplicity Project Runway pattern 2588. I really like it because it's smart but a bit different, particularly the sleeveless version which I opted for. I chose the fitted skirt rather than the bigger skirt because I thought it would be smarter for the occasion. 

It has been so comfortable to wear today and I've had a few compliments on it, which was lovely. I wore a thin black belt with it to highlight the waist of the dress. It also has pockets which came in very useful today! 



To anyone who is graduating soon here are two tips: safety pins and hair grips are essential! One to hold your gown in place, the other to keep the hat on your head!

Alterations

So I altered my first shop-bought item today! Two items in fact.

I've never altered anything I've bought before because I've been too scared of ruining it, but today I went for it. I tried on a maxi dress I have from Topshop this morning which has an elasticated back, but it was too big and was falling down a bit - really not ideal what with it being strapless! So I got the sewing machine out and took in the sides. It worked brilliantly and now my pretty maxi dress fits again! Although it does still need taking up (extremely rare for me at 5ft 10 - not sure who this dress actually fitted!) but that needed red thread finding and the sewing machine rethreaded...So that's for another day.

I also bought another top in Topshop the other day in a sort of flowery tapestry print. It was a couple of sizes too big but they had sold out on the internet and I really love it! So I bought it anyway because it looked easy enough to take in...and now I finally have! It's a much better fit now.

Next to do is take up my dress from Monsoon. This one's really nice, in a nice sort of berry colour and a flattering fit but it's a really awkward length, just below the knee. I'm just hoping this goes as well as my other alterations.

Almost Finished

I seem to have managed to end up with quite a few different projects on the go at once...oops. 

This is the one that is nearest finished though! 

Although it clearly needs to meet an iron...

It's made using the Lisette pattern K2246, which I got free with Sew magazine. It is the pattern for the larger sizes unfortunately, but I just made the seams bigger than I usually would and it is a pretty good fit so that didn't matter too much. 

I wanted a sleeveless dress so I haven't done either types of the sleeves and instead I'm going to finish the arm hole where they should have been attached. I started off doing this as a hem, folding it over twice. This didn't work very well though because it is curved, and so was bunching. I'm going to use bias tape instead because I've used it before for arm holes and it gave a really neat finish. 



I really want one of these! Then I can make my own binding tape in pretty fabric.



So spot the obvious thing that's missing from this dress...buttons! At the moment it would NOT be decent to wear! So the main reason that this dress is unfinished is because I need to learn how to put button holes in. I have a setting on my sewing machine that does them, so I just need to sit down and work out how to use it. I also need to buy some buttons. I'm torn between plain ones or maybe more quirky ones. Since it's such a plain dress at the moment I'm leaning towards cuter or quirky buttons. I saw some gold ones in the shape of dragonflies recently, which I quite liked.

It's not that far off being finished though, unlike some of my other sewing projects!