Place mat tutorial

 The Valentine's Day place mats I mentioned last Wednesday are finally finished! I was not sure about the binding and in the end used the colour of the writing. The pink fabric is from Summersville available at Etsy. 

Finished! 

 So how did I write the quote on the linen fabric and followed the Wit and Whistle tutorial. Here is what you need: 

• Linen fabric
• Fabric Marker Pen (Sharpie pen)
• Letter stencil

I would advise you to put pages underneath...

Here we are.. Simple really. Let me know if you are making one!


It is Wednesday... Just... SO I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Placemats are finished, yeah! I can move on to the next quilt - involving shirts and upcycling, more on this next week...

New Toy - Part II

Pictures of the sleeve for my yarn winder are finally uploaded! I think M is soon going to be sick of grey and yellow - I hope you are not yet, because I am hoping to make one more grey and yellow 'thing' for our little room this weekend.

Let's start by the fact that I love this yellow fabric bought on Etsy at Stefanie's shop. I have a bit of a thing about geometrics as we know, and this is undoutedly my favourite fabric. I love how the top of the sleeve turned out. I was not sure how to end the sleeve as the yarn winder is cylindric. I decided an easy closing method - using strings. It makes it much easier to use.

As I mentioned on Monday I made a second cushion cover (well only the top part) which I really did not need (it stayed 6 months untouched - that was clearly a sign, right?). So I cut it (breathing in and out along the way) and rearranged to make a square pattern. The cushion cover was too small for the length of the yarn winder - hence the need for more fabric at the top and bottom.

I was also going to add my fav yellow fabric at the bottom - but hmmm well maybe it was too much. Added some Kona solid banana from Simply Solids that I had left from the Cherry House QAL. Not a lot of quilting involved, a couple of lines at the bottom and at the top between the grey and yellow fabrics to reinforce the change.

So as we are Wednesday I have finally a chance to link up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced!

Off to Paris this afternoon, I am hoping to fit in a trip to La Droguerie (totally on the way back to the Eurostar - or not).. Will let you know how I got on Friday!

Le Defi'13 du froid

As I mentioned last month, I now take part in the French Defi'13 - so on the 13th of each month you can expect something from me! This month's theme is 'Moi, froid jamais' (Moi, I am never cold)... This was the perfect excuse to actually make my own hot water bottle cover. To be fair, I have been drooling over the Toast ones since I received their Christmas catalogue. And I have been pondering on to make my own version for a month and here we are. And it was finished (and started) last night. It was only a matter of sitting down and just getting on with it.

My version Defi'13

Mon Defi'13 etait l'occasion de finalement coudre une enveloppe pour ma bouillotte. Ca fait au moins un mois que je me dis qu'il faut que je m'y mette. Et puis j'ai remis plusieurs fois a plus tard. Mais pour respecter les delais du Defi'13 je me suis assisse a ma table hier soir et il etait clair que je n'allais pas la quitter tant que mon projet n'etait pas fini. Vous le comprenez, je suis tres bornee quand je le veux. Mon inspiration vient de Toast, l'une de mes marques preferees.

The TOAST version

So I started by outlining the pattern around the water bottle. I added 1cm around the core (I think I would 2cm next time and would not draw the top so close to the original pattern - there is a bottle effect that make it akward to push though the bottle). Basically I should have looked at the TOAST pictures a bit more attentively - but I was on the roll by then.

J'ai trace le patron autour de ma bouillotte. J'ai ajoute 1cm autour du patron d'origine et je crois que j'aurais pu etre un peu plus large - 2cm peut etre. Je me suis rendue compte (trop tard) que j'aurais du etre beaucoup plus large au niveau du goulot pour que la bouillotte passe mieux - enfin comme la photo de la version TOAST quoi...



I used three different layers. So the top layer that you can see is a piece of fabric from an old Kimono I bought through Ebay made of silk. It is super luxurious - but really thin. So I added some wadding that I had laying around and I finally cut out a piece of fabric from a top that was way too big for me, but really goes well with the Kimono fabric.

Le tissu du dessus vient d'un ancien Kimono - un bout de tissu qui contient de la soie achete sur Ebay recemmenent, qui est tres fin. J'ai ajoute du rembourrage. La doublure vient d'un haut beaucoup trop grand pour moi mais dont le tissu m'avait vraiment plus (et que je n'ai donc pas renvoye - heureusement!).

Probably the pictures where the colours are closer to the real thing

I quilted following one of the sashiko techniques - following lines and symetrical patterns, of course, although with the machine rather by hand. I did not want to stand out as much and only want the texture to be a bit more interesting - the fabric is a bit shiny already.

J'ai choisi un motif de quilting suivant la methose sashiko - des formes geometriques, of course. J'ai tout cousu a la machine, je ne voulais pas que le quilting se voit trop mais donne une texture interessante au tissue qui brille un peu.

Sew everything together, et voila!

Your own TOAT Hottie for a fraction of the price, and a Defi'13 project submitted on time - Pheww.

Et un nouveau Defi'13 releve - juste a temps et une jolie bouillotte pour cet hiver!