Abakhan Secret Sale!

Posted on 19 July, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Well you can tell from the title where I went this weekend! Yes, the Abakhan Secret Sale again! It all started with this in the post:

Secret Sale Golden Ticket

this exciting ticket entitles the bearer and guest to enter the Abakhan Secret Sale an hour before the general public. I was lucky enough to be sent one again and as my friend and I had enjoyed the last one so much we couldn’t wait to get to this one!

This time the sale started earlier and was in a much larger building with more space to look through all the lovely things. There are boxes and boxes of craft bits and bobs as well as fabric bundles, rolls and bolts. There are also slight seconds of things like foam, wadding and cushion inserts which don’t seem to have more than a few dusty marks on them or a small piece of foam pulled off. I especially like the uphostery ex-display fabrics which hang up on a rail as there are some real bargains £1 a display hanging which has fabric priced at £15.99 a metre in some cases! It was also lovely to meet Will Abakhan who had sent the tickets out and was on hand to greet customers as well as helping in the cafe later in the day!

Some pretty fabric – few metres worth

Our complementary refreshments after an hour of bargain hunting!

As a golden ticket holder we were also provided with a hearty bacon bap to aid our recovery after athe early start (8.30am) and bargain hunting!

After a very tasty bacon bap and coffee we embarked on the next bit of the day – buying things from the ordinary shop with our 15% discount! This proved far too tempting as every time one of us found something and wondered whether it would be suitable the other was all encouraging and ‘yes it’s perfect’ type thing – so we egged each other on until we had to go back to the car to offload all our stuff! The staff were fantastic all day – they carry things to the car for you and are very helpful all round.

I think Mostyn is the best Abakhan branch of all and I am so lucky to live near it. In fact I can easily get to the Birkenhead, Liverpool and Chester branches as well which seems unfair when lots of people don’t have a branch at all!

I havent ant got any pictures of our special dessert which we received after our second shopping spree but it was delicious! It’s definitely worth looking out for the next secret sale in a few months, especially if you keep an eye on their Facebook page and spot the chance to win a golden ticket. It’s a smashing day out for crafters!

Marilyn enjoying our breakfast baps

Linking up with Handmade Monday again this week!

Welcoming Charlotte

Posted on 5 July, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Great surprises this week! Firstly my daughter had her baby a week early last Tuesday! Labour started on Monday evening while my mum and I were having dinner with them. I soon found myself bathing two boys, struggling with pyjamas and reading about a shiny goldfish, then massaging my daughter’s back as the pains just got stronger. She didn’t feel like it was actually imminent so I made it back home and got into bed at midnight only to get the call to go back round and babysit at 1am!

I was too excited to sleep as my son in law was texting me the updates – 2am – 5cm, 2.30am – 9cm, 3am – she was born twenty minutes ago! I celebrated in the kitchen with a tea and fairy cake before going back to bed exhausted.

3.30am ‘ping’, daughter sends picture to my ‘phone! 4am ‘ping’ more pictures! 4.30am I give up trying to sleep 😞 and text her to see if they are keeping her in or not. 4.30am ish I must’ve passed out 😴 5.20am ‘boom’ wahhhhhh’ wail – where’s mummy? Yep, the monsters were awake. We sat in their parents’ bed looking at pictures of their new sister which was feeling rather special – for about 5 minutes – then it was ‘Granny, can we go and play on the X box?’ – needless to say as soon as I said ‘no’ it was ‘mummy lets us’ . Ha! do they think I don’t know all the tricks!! Poor Mummy and Daddy arrived home at 6.30am to find the three of us staring out the bedroom window at them. 😃 As their dad went to get the bags out of the boot, the eldest one said in amazement ‘ they’ve put her in the boot!!!!

my new little granddaughter is Charlotte, but not because of the other Charlotte, unfortunately Daughter had already chosen the name when the royals announced it! She wasn’t very pleased!

My Three Grandchildren

So so that was my main excitement – secondly however was seeing my tweet printed in Craftseller this month!

My tweet!

LINKING with Lucy Blossom Crafts!

Cutting a straight edge on fabric

Posted on 28 June, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Been making curtains this week – for my sister’s new (secondhand) caravan. We got some really nice flowery fabric in the style of Cath Kidson as my sis wants to do out the whole ‘van in floral vintage style. The fabric is from Abakhan in Liverpool and is incredibly wide – it’s the widest I’ve ever worked with at 6 foot! The pattern repeat is quite small so it’s made it fairly simple to match up a pair of curtains.

The pretty roses on the fabric

One major problem I have when using patterned fabric is how to cut straight edges so that the pattern doesnt go wonky across the curtain. With rotary cutters and a long ruler it’s easy to cut a neat straight line but it could be a straight line which doesn’t follow the straight grain of the fabric and hence the pattern ends up wonky!

I thought I’d describe how I make sure my curtains are properly squared in case anyone else out there has been wondering how to do it, especially when there is no selvedge as a starting point!

Firstly inspect your fabric for some nice frayed ends – you might need to pull a bit to get hold of an end but tweezers come in handy for this bit!

Nice easy to grab strands!

See the strand coming out

Strand removed

Two strands removed to form two cutting lines at 90 degrees to each other

So with a bit of gentle pulling of one or two strands of fabric you can pull them straight out and leave a blank line – it’s a bit like drawing up curtains – pull gently and then smooth out the fabric and pull again till the strand comes right out.

As you can see above once you have pulled a vertical and horizontal thread out you have two perfect lines to cut along!

Once you have your perfectly aligned cut fabric you can move onto hemming! My Wonderclips come in very handy here as they’re much easier to use than pins – for a start they don’t hurt you!

Keeping the hem in place with Wonder-clips

So that was my week – and will be more of the same next week as I haven’t finished them all yet! Hopefully I can take a picture of the caravan all decked out soon!

Linking up with Handmade Monday again this week 😀

HILLARYS CRAFT COMPETITION

Posted on 19 June, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Exciting!! Some time ago I was invited to take part in the Hillarys Craft Competition again! I took part last year too – you can read about my entry here.

First you have to select your fabric, I chose the Daisy Pistachio, It was quite hard to decide what to make as I really wanted to incorporate the reverse side into my design. I spent quite a while thinking about what would be useful at this time of year, ie summer! I really love taking lunch out into the countryside but one thing which always bothers me is having to eat lunch on dirty picnic tables and how to keep crisps from blowing away and fruit from rolling away on our typical British summer day and our ‘rustic’ ie wobbly countryside picnic tables!

My daisy fabricIt’s a very silky, tactile fabric and the reverse side is pretty cool too!

The reverse side of the Daisy Pistachio fabric choice

So here is my idea using some hessian I already had! I have made picnic mats for me and my husband and think I can get about 3 or 4 more out of the Daisy fabric, just need more hessian or any similar fabric

Finished Picnic Mat!

I cut two pieces of hessian to make fairly large sized placemats. The size is completely up to whatever you feel is right for you and your family.

I thought the reverse side would make a good pocket for the cutlery !

Pocket pinned and waiting to be sewed in position

To get round the food blowing/rolling away idea I made a fabric bowl from an idea from my Patchwork class teacher. It’s a very simple and quick way to make a pretty fabric container.

You put a large circular object on your fabric and draw round it. I used the lid of my sewing box!

Lid of my sewing box

Gathering the sides of the bowl up with tacking stitches

You can line the bowl and even use interfacing to stiffen the fabric but with this fabric there was no need to interface and I wanted the cool lining on show!

A quick round of large tacking stitches are sewn round the edge of the fabric and then drawn up (like you do with curtains) and it magically brings up the circle into a bowl shape!I To keep the shape and size I pinned the gathers and then cut a 4inch strip of the fabric to bind the top. As it is a curved edge to bind I cut the fabric at a 45 degree angle using my 6×12 inch ruler. If you are unsure about binding there are so many tutorials to google I haven’t gone into detail for this bit.

You do need to keep the gathers in place with pins or clips whilst you get the binding into position.

Wonder clips are great for keeping thick fabric in place instead of pins!

Place the two pieces of hessian right sides together with the cutlery pocket and bowl in the middle

Completing the mat is just like any other two sided mat or table runner – place right sides together and sew all round the edges and then turn right sides out through the little gap you remembered to leave on one side! I left about a 6 inch gap to ensure I could get the bowl through!

If you want to make a tie for keeping the mat neatly rolled up then make this from a 3 or 4 inch wide strip of fabric. Folding each side into the middle and then folding the whole thing in half lengthwise so that there are no raw edges on show. Sew it lengthwise and then fold it in half and insert it between the two pieces of hessian at the side of the bowl. The folded edge goes in the seam with the two lengths of the tie laying towards the middle of the mat.

Folding the 3 inch strip sides inwards then in half lengthwise to make a tie strip. No need to iron it with this pliable fabric!

If everything has worked you should have a two sided mat sewn together with your cutlery pocket and bowl on the top and you ties at one side!

Picnic mat ready for use – no need to get your lunch near that messy table!

Ready for lunch!

Finished Picnic Mat!

The bowl

Squashing the bowl prior to rolling up the mat!

Rolled up with cutlery and bowl inside

Nifty eh? 😃

All I need now is some warm weather!

To check out the other entries either click the Hillarys Craft Competition link or go to Pinterest and check out the board!

Baby Bunting and paraphanalia!!

Posted on 14 June, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Gosh been a busy couple of weeks!

This is is why:

4 Weeks to go!

new granddaughter will be here soon!

We we had the baby shower a couple of week’s ago for which I made some baby bunting!

The bunting on the wall

I had fun making this little pram for one of the flags!

The little pram I made!

we had cake, coffee and chat! A lovely day with lovely family and friends!

Now I am hard at work trying to recreate the ungirly black cabriofix car seat part into prettiness! It’s quite fiddly!

The car seat fixing thing!

think I’ve nearly cracked it – just need to sew the binding then arrange the pieces in the right place and bind both together! Sounds easy when I type it anyway! 😀 So much paraphanalia with babies!

So that’s been my recent work – next is the Hillary’s Blinds Competition and here is first glimpse of my fabric!

My daisy fabric

Well now I’m off to link up with Handmade Monday. Next post will reveal what I have made with my competition fabric!!!

Patchwork and Crochet!

Posted on 22 May, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Finally finished binding the new baby quilt I posted about last week so I can now return to making blocks for the quilt I am doing at my patchwork course on Mondays. So far I’ve only done a Dresden plate and half of along cabin! If you are not a quilter you won’t know what I mean so next week I will be including some pictures of the finished blocks and their names! The other project I am making is a cotton crochet blanket for the baby. I loved the colours in my vintage rose bouquet so much I thought I would crochet a blanket based on the Japanese Flower pattern I used for my mum’s scarf in this post. Here below is a pic of the flowers and the first two flower motifs.

My mothers’ day flower bouquet

First two motifs

The motifs won’t sew up into straight lines but as it will be used in July it should be ok to be a ‘ holey’ sort of blanket!

As well as making things I am still mulling over the course I recently completed – the same one Vicky did – as yet I am unsure as to which direction I want to go forward with my Folksy and Etsy shops – in terms of what I make so I am not adding anything yo them until I make my decision. It does make my shops look rather forlorn though with only a few items for sale. However it’s worth taking time to get things right and I do have a new granddaughter on the way so need to make things for her!!

link up with handmade Monday

Using a Seam Ripper – aka Frogging!

Posted on 10 May, 2015 by patchworkfairy

I’ve really enjoyed making the ’round the world’ pram quilt and am finally at the binding stage. I had to look at a you tube video again to remind myself about making mitred corners – can’t seem to retain any information on how to do things like that any more! I also made a lot of use of my seam ripper – aka frogging! Rip it Rip it Rip it! Here is the quilt just before binding.

Round the World Pram Quilt

I decided not to over quilt it and just do some heart shaped lines in the middle with straight lines round the outside. The centre heart is made using variegated quilting thread and an embroidery stitch, whilst the overlapping hearts are in delicate Aurifil thread.

Despite using the seam ripper rather a lot I still have some points not matching! The worst thing though was sewing a whole strip of pink spotty border on wrong way up! And of course it was the last one and so just when I was about to stop for the night grrrrr. This is why it’s often better to stop when you’re tired rather than keep going to try and finnish things! Whilst I was frogging away I remembered the blog post I read somewhere about using seam rippers correctly and how amazed the writer was that they had used it incorrectly for years. It was quite funny because I had inadvertently realised there was a better way to use them only a few months before I read the blog post but I thought it was just me being silly – never thought other people might be using it the wrong way too!

So, how do you use yours? If you pick at the seam, breaking the thread every few stitches, and pulling out sections bit by bit, as I used to do, you will be amazed to find there is a much faster way to frog! I have tried to take a picture of how it should be used but it was quite hard to get it to clearly show the action. Basically you hold the seam vertically in your two hands and then run the ripper downwards between the two pieces of fabric, – parting the seam easily and quickly. It can be tricky to hold the fabric and use the ripper, but once you get in position it’s fab!

Pushing the ripper vertically down the seam

If you’ve never tried it like this you’ll be so excited you’ll be hoping you make a mistake just to hear the satisfying riiiippppppyyyyy noise!😃

I’m linking up with Handmade Monday again at Lucy a Blossom Crafts now!

April 2015 ATC Swap – “Home”

Posted on 3 May, 2015 by patchworkfairy

April has been a mixed month! I’ve been trying to complete things for my new granddaughter’s arrival whilst also taking part in the Very Berry Handmade April 2015 ATC swap – “Home”. It’s too late to join in this one but if you fancy the idea just keep a look out on the blog for the next one, probably in about 2-3 months. April is my birthday month and we went to South Wales for a few days which rather slowed me up completing my ATC, especially as after a fabulous few days I went and tripped full length on the car park during a rest stop on the way home! My arms took most of the fall and luckily I don’t seem to have set my sciatica off again but – honestly – I am a danger to myself!!

Firstly let me show you my ATC – the theme was “Home” and so quite open to interpretation. After a ~~short~~ ridiculously long ‘think’ I decided that I am very happy at home when sitting in front of the window in my craft room, sewing, with a large mug of tea at my side! I hope my swap partner likes it!

my ideal day at home!

As I said, it was also my birthday at the end of this month and so I enjoyed myself whilst watching Create and Craft one day by spending some birthday money (thanks Mum!) on this lovely book by Janet Clare. All the quilts and embroidery pieces are inspired by nature and it’s a very interesting read as well as really making me want to start one of the projects RIGHT NOW!!

Birthday Book

The book has all the information for making your own mixed media art pieces as well as quilts. There are plenty of instructions, such as for ageing fabric and for applique work and also lots of templates to use as you wish. Two of the quilts which I really want to attempt first are the “Joys of Spring” and “Nature’s Beauties

Joys of Spring Quilt

I thought I would make my own version of the nature quilt and this spring season is a good time to start taking some photos for my ideas. The garden has bluebells growing just now so I think they would make a lovely pretty applique!

Well now I am linking up with Handmade Monday at Lucy Blossom Crafts and I’ve just remembered that I need to finish my HM ATC and send it to Lucy, I wonder how many she has received yet?!!

Finishing Quilts and Starting Quilts!

Posted on 27 April, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Gosh can’t believe I’ve missed two Handmade Monday Link-ups this month. I really need to get into the habit of scheduling posts in advance! Family dinners and outings and all of a sudden it’s Tuesday and ‘oops! Missed it!’ I haven’t actually done lots of crafting – I’m so excited to be able to walk properly and drive again I am enjoying going out as much as I can manage. I have however, managed a little bit of patchwork!

I finished both the grandsons’ quilts and they seemed genuinely pleased to have them which was nice after all the hard appliqué work. I then started on the Moses basket quilt for the new baby Using a pattern called ‘Round the World’. It is rather fiddly when sewing up small squares, although there is a much quicker method for making this pattern by sewing strips of colours together then cutting them into squares and arranging them into one quarter of the pattern. Then repeat three times and you have a whole round the world!

To have the best chance of all your points matching in patchwork you have to cut carefully, sew a consistent quarter inch seam allowance and then, press the seams of pieces to be sewn together, in alternating directions, so that you get them fitting together perfectly. This is the theory – ha! It never works for every single join in patterns with lots of them, especially on small squares! (No cheating and zooming in on my pictures!)

Here’s part of the completed round the world bit – I was trying out the effects of adding either one pink floral border or a cream floral border, then a pink floral one.

Trying out border colours

Trying cream and pink borders

DD decided she liked the two borders best which didn’t take very long to cut and sew. Now just the quilting and binding! Hopefully once it’s all complete and being admired at the baby shower I wont respond to every compliment with ‘ oh yes but I’ve made a mess of some of the points here and here, which is just what the Patchwork Course teacher tells us not to do! 😳 Perfect patchwork does needs lots of patience though, and can’t be rushed, which is why I prefer small sized quilts, as I get the to the end result before boredom sets in!

Oh well must get back to patchwork 😉 and, of course, reading some other crafty blogs!

Patchwork Quilts and working in the Garden!

Posted on 8 April, 2015 by patchworkfairy

Now finally I have finished the sewing and quilting part of the grandsons’ superhero quilts I have to force myself to do the ‘finishing off’ – getting rid of all the pesky thread ends and tidying things up – boo – the worst bit for me. Here is part of one of the quilts with Sonic – but can you make out what I have free-motioned in the blue space between Max and Sonic?

Patchwork quilt in blue and red with super heroes on it

The mine craft stay cool square!

The other thing I’ve been doing this week is wading through the workload of the e-course I mentioned last week, It’s very intense but it does focus your mind on your hobby/business very well. And the best bit about being unable to go out much? It means my ‘office’ and my admin work is wherever I choose to make it!

My workspace!

There’s a lovely feeling about drinking a cup o’ tea in the garden and working in the shade! Don’t think it’s going to last though as cold and rain will return