Gifts for Guys

Thinking of things to sew as presents for males is a bit of a struggle. I find that so many patterns are aimed at females, and I'm so drawn to 'pretty things' that putting together gifts for guys is a problem!

My boyfriend's bedroom was a typical boy-cave - very bare and plain and crying our for some soft furnishings! He asked me to make him some curtains lined with blackout fabric. I got a bit carried away and ended up making him a double quilt from scraps, plus two cushions!

This cushion design came from Love Patchwork & Quilting Magazine (my favourite lie in read!) and is based on tetris shapes.

The second cushion is now named 'Beaky' and came about because poor Richard said he didn't mind "something quirky"... I think he might be regretting that statement!

Wall Hanging

For Mothers' Day this year I made my Mum a wall hanging for her newly decorated spare room. The pattern came from Love Patchwork & Quilting Magazine.


I used blues and whites in order to match the décor in the room. This was all made from scrap fabric. I put a payer of interfacing onto the wadding to make it a little stiffer.

Quilted Advent Calender

It might seem way too early to be even thinking about Christmas yet, but as sewing projects can take a while I wanted to start this one early! My Mum has a lovely quilted advent calendar that I have long coveted. I borrowed it from her over the summer so that I could copy the design and work out how to make one myself.

I copied the basic tree design pretty much exactly. On Mum's calendar she has cross stitched ornaments for the 25 days. I'm not much of a cross stitcher myself, so I decided to make felt sewn hearts to hang instead.

I'm very happy with the finished result, and have already made one for a friend as a gift. I'm taking orders for these now, for sale through Vintage Bee.

Gender Neutral Baby Quilt

I'm starting to make more items to sell, which is exciting, but also quite daunting! I'm trying to appeal to a wide range of tastes while also staying true to my ethos of 'Vintage Bee' - vintage style, quirky and original items.

This baby quilt is intended to be gender neutral. In my opinion far too much baby stuff is either blue or pink, it gets a bit boring and stereotypical. This cute cream fabric was an ebay purchase. The squares on it are tiny and took me ages to sew around but I love the finished effect!

As you can see, I've started adding by Bee label to items for sale! This quilt is for sale on my Vintage Bee Facebook page.

Pencil Cases

I'm starting a sewing & quilting club for the pupils at school. The long term plan is to make a large display quilt to hang in the school hall, with pupils making squares that represent something about the school. 

To teach the pupils the basics of quilting I'm going to start by showing them how to make small items that they can use in school - quilted notebook covers and pencil cases. 

I've been making some example ones to shoe them, and then hopefully will sell them at craft fairs. they make great makeup cases too!

Lou's Baby Quilt

My lovely friend Lou is expecting her first baby this summer. She will just be the most wonderful mum, and I wanted to make her something special for her daughter.

Using fabrics from my stash pile I made her a patchwork baby quilt. Even though she's having a girl I didn't want to make it too pink, as I think this gets a bit boring - plus Lou is a classy lady! ;)

The backing fabric came from Ikea - my current favourite place to get fabrics, especially for quilt backing. Because Lou doesn't have a name planned yet rather than sewing on a quilt label I stitched on a small heart. All made with love!

Remixed Flying Geese - Quilt in Progress

The finished quilt top

I'm still working on my 'remixed flying geece' quilt. It's huge! I'm making the Queen size version, in the hope that Ash & Bronwyn won't be able to steal all the quilt that way! Unfortunately the quilt is now so big that I don't have room in my house to lay it out to pin! I took it into school so I could use the huge tables in Textiles. One of my lovely pupils Ellie helped me pin it all out & it took the two of us an hour to do!

I've finished the quilt top - phew! - and have sandwiched it together with the wadding & backing. I've used Ikea fabric for the backing, white with grey writing, which worked out at the very reasonable price of £12 for the whole back. 

My job now is to quilt through the whole lot, which is taking AGES! I'm using free motion embroidery in a random scribble pattern in order to contrast with the straight lines of all those triangles. 

Photos of the finished quilt will go up once I'm done - currently I still have a third of the quilting to do and a very sore pair of arms from pulling all that fabric around!

Coffee Warmer

 

I'm currently working on ideas for items I can sell at craft fairs, in the hope that this little hobby of mine will turn into a business. 

To me, coffee is an essential. And cold coffee is a crime! I've been making quilted coffee pot covers to keep the coffee warm. The design is a simple rectangle, quilted through, bound with ribbon and done up using buttons. 

This project uses such a small amount of fabric that it's ideal for using up scraps. You could even make the front of it patchwork and really use up all those little bits of leftover fabric. 

Lap Quilt

Our house is pretty cold most of the time as we have no heating apart from a log burner in the front room. Therefore I thought it was high time I made a lap quilt for snuggling under while watching tv. 

The design is just simple patchwork squares in gold, mustard & blue. I particularly love this 'Lady Sybil' Downton Abbey fabric:

The back is a tablecloth I picked up in a charity shop for £1.50 - bargain! I've quilted it in a 'sunbeam' pattern using free machine embroidery. 

As with most things in our house, Bronwyn now thinks it belongs to her!

Recovered Cushions

When I was little we had these big floor cushions in the house that my Mum got from Habitat in the 1970s. When I moved out she gave them to me and I've moved them with me to each house I've lived in. Recently I finally admitted they were on their last legs - both had rips in them & the stuffing coming out, repaired with gaffer tape!

I recovered both cushions with a gorgeous dark blue fabric printed with bugs that I got in Ikea. Once I'd covered them the rest of the cushions in that corner looked scruffy, so of course I had to recover them too! 

The last cushion I made a patchwork cover for and embroidered it with boats, reflecting the fact that both Ash & I are kelpie children from a seaside town. Once of the boats has an A for Ash, one has a B for Becky and one is HMS Bubbs for Bronwyn - cheesy but cute!

Quilted Petal Cushion

This sweet little pattern came from the latest edition of Love Patchwork & Quilting, which I highly recommend if you, er, love patchwork & quilting!

This is going to be my Mum's Mothers' Day present. The front is quilted in a spiral using free machine embroidery. The back is an envelope style opening, un-quilted, with additional petals to match the front. 

I added a cute little label which I got free with the magazine. 

Grey Flying Geese Quilt

I've started a new quilt. This one is going to be for our bedroom, and I've chosen to use various grey patterned fabrics in an attempt to make it less 'girlie' for Ash! 

The pattern is free on Robert Kaufman's website - a great place for free patterns, take a look!
http://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting/quilts_patterns/remixed_geese/

I plan to make this a HUGE quilt so that it hangs right down both sides of the bed & we no longer have to fight each other (or Bronwyn!) for warmth!

Patchwork Quilt

 I finally finished my first 'proper' patchwork quilt! I started this back in October, following a quilting book Ash gave me as a present. This block pattern is an Ohio Star (nine patch with quarter-square triangles)

I kept to red, pink & light green for the colours. The paisley fabric is Cath Kidston, and the pink binding is an old skirt that's recycled here. All the rest of the fabric came from ebay.

Building a Fabric Stash

I have a lot of fabric squirrelled away in my house. Some would say too much. (They are of course wrong!) I like knowing that if I decide to start a sewing project there & then I will have fabric to use. If a friend's birthday suddenly sneaks up on me I can make them something pretty without having to drive to the nearest craft shop. 

Patchwork bag I made for Ash's niece Isabella using scraps left over from my patchwork quilt

I keep my fabric by the metre stored in baskets in the sideboard in the sunroom/ sewing room. I used to keep all the scrappy offcuts in small baskets, but my stash was growing too much. So I decided to use this lovely vintage suitcase to store all the off cuts and odds & ends I've built up over the years. 

I keep all the small bits lefts over from my sewing projects. I also keep old clothes that have ripped or no longer fit, as long as it's a fabric I like. I also have friends who donate things to me - old curtains, bed sets, clothing. All of these things get a second lease of life in my fabric stash. 

Now that I've started quilting this stash is really going to come into it's own!