I never meant to be silent for over a week, but as it happens, the combination of my kidnapped camera with the non-existent internet in the evenings has forced me into silence. Boo.
But nevermind, I shall not be defeated any longer by mere technical issues. I have 3 blog posts worth of content which I shall share in about as many days. HA!
Let’s start with a lovely little project. Well, 2 lovely little projects, actually.
The first one is a little bit of paper piecing. As much as I enjoy patchwork stitched with the sewing machine, from time to time, I like nothing more than sitting comfortably with some hexagons templates and scraps of fabrics and just stitch them together.
I started this project a while ago, and I just had 5 or 6 hexagons attached together. I picked it up again when our stuff arrived, and I’ve been adding more hexagons every few days. I really like how it’s turning out. I’m not sure what I will make with it? Probably just a cushion cover, I don’t think I have it in me to hand-pieced a full blown quilt. That’d be lovely, though, wouldn’t it?
I’m aiming to use each fabric only once. There are a few of my favourite scraps already in there.
The background is a piece of reconstructed batting: when I finish a big project, I take the discarded bits of batting and sew them together. This reconstructed batting works very well for smaller projects such as cushion cover, where the loftiness is not so essential. I simply make sure the edges of my batting remnants are straight and zigzag stitch them together: sew the 2 bits side by side, not on top of each other, with a wide zigzag stitch.
The other little project is a lovely needle book / mini sewing kit.
When you paper piece, you really need something to keep your needles, scissors, templates and scraps. This little thing I whipped up in half an hour out of remnants of fabrics does the trick perfectly.
I love those little matriochkas – the 2 pieces I used were leftovers from an iPad cover I made months ago, the binding was leftover from my newest finish.
Inside, there are 2 pockets, and a piece of felt to hold my needles.
There again, I used leftovers. The pocket fabric was leftover from the backing of the same quilt as the binding. The binding for the pocket was a remnant from an old project (am I the only one who keeps bits of binding for future use? I don’t think so!). Only the piece of felt was new!
The pocket you see is large enough to hold my embroidery scissors, as well as a bobbin with thread to baste the hexagons. The other pocket holds my hexagons templates, as well as the fabric scraps I’m going to use next.
Sitting down to stitch on these little hexagons is such a treat! What’s your favourite “treat” project?
