New to my craft room in October

It’s been a busy month in my craft room, but one where I’ve felt like I haven’t really got any sewing actually done. Though I seem to have been finding projects, and adding them to my list quite successfully…

Oops.

I shared that I’d fallen for Alison Glass’ colour study quilt heavily - and although it’s five weeks in and I have my colours sorted, and even four of the blocks cut out, none are actually sewn yet, so I need to fix that. I’m making the dark background version and so to make it work well I opted to extend my blacks a little. I think this quilt is going to be stunning.

My next purchase also adds to my sewing list, but it’s something I’ve been contemplating for a while now. Won’t this vintage quilted fabric - see the year 1979 on the selvedge - look great as a jacket?

I couldn’t resist the yellow with the embroidered bows either, and I’m hoping to turn that into a pouch to store my overlocker foot in. I’ve had a slight rearrange in my craft room, moving the overlocker out from the corner into a more practical, and hopefully more usable space, but that’s means it won’t be plugged in all the time, hence needing a pretty pouch for storage.

I’m already finding that the rejig has meant my middle desk is a more flexible space, and so I think this slightly amended layout will work well for me.

I’ve an interesting reuse pile this month - from the vinyl pouch which I intend to cut up and use as windows on some pouches, to the ribbons and red headphones and onion nets for my weaving with waste pile, which is another thing I need to start making use of soon - an idea is brewing!

My advent calendar arrived this month too, and while it looks as if I’ve had a sneak peek, I haven’t - honest. I’ve torn the wrapper to insert the stuff that came with the calendar, so I have everything together and aren’t tempted to investigate sooner.

Fabric-wise there’s been some more additions this month, with these browns and mustard fabrics coming from another stash buster at my patchwork group, and the new fabric shop in Newark respectively. I’d hoped there’d be enough of the darker brown to back my Flying Geese quilt but I’m not sure there will be, sadly. I thought the pattern on the mustard one was similar enough, and even though the colour was different I think I can probably make it work - but I’m just not sure how yet, it’s on my pondering list. I’ve quite a selection of these colours so with some thought I’m sure I’ll come up with a plan.

I saw in my sewing group Facebook group that one of the charity shops in Newark had received a large craft supplies donation and were calling for crafters to come in and help them out - well, who am I to resist a call such as this. I left with these two bags for £6 resisting similar bags of other colours, and wondering what I’d discover inside them - but at £3 each I couldn’t really go wrong.

Both have some great fabrics in, and the blue one has some part completed blocks which I’d spied in the shop and which swayed my decision. I’m not sure if I’ll make more of the blocks yet or not, but it’s nice to have some inspiration included isn’t it?

There’s a good length of the interlocking circles fabric in the green pack and whoever put this fabric together has done well, and clearly had a circles, spots and squiggles theme in mind.

My final purchase of the month was these Portuguese fabrics which we happened across quite randomly. I love both of the sardine fabrics, and you really can’t go wrong with anything that resembles a Portuguese tile can you? Though that fabric would be ideal for a bread bag especially as it’s where the inspiration first came from, but as I’ve recently made one of those I don’t need a third, but I’m sure I’ll know when I know.

In the shop MOH commented that the checked sardines fabric would make a pretty cool shirt - so now I have a pretty cool shirt to make for MOH. I think we’re both a little scared at the prospect!

Thank you for joining me for another month in my craft room, please check out my previous updates for earlier additions, and remember to let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.

New to my craft room this October

With crafting now seemingly part of my everyday life I think it’s true that buying, or acquiring, new supplies is a separate hobby to actually using them. And while I have plans to start using much of my stash it’s likely that there will always be new things entering the room.

My crafting outputs have definitely increased - you’ll have seen posts on my newly put into practice skills proclaiming my pouch love, and the updates to my quilty plans, and the accountability these posts bring is good, and that’s where this series of posts comes in. I’ll share the new things that have crossed the craft room threshold in the last month. Some months will be leaner than others, and some of the things I'll share I may have already been included in other posts on my blog.

Last month I said I wanted to make more clothes, and planned to start making some culottes. After a conversation at my Monday night sewing group where one lady asked if I had an invisible zipper foot - I don’t! - I set about ordering myself one. After a bit of a delay, it was due by the end of October but still hasn’t arrived yet - and is now due hopefully by the middle of December, so it looks like the culottes will either be a just-before-Christmas thing, or a next-year-thing.

While I’m on last month, I’ve already repurposed my old and much loved Joules t-shirt has into a new project bag, which is already in use. I used material from another top I loved as the lining, and it’s currently holding material for another project I haven’t told you about yet (but all in good time!).

Knowledge and truth

Probably the most valuable addition this month is my increased knowledge and confidence following my Bernina training day in London. It really was worth the time, and I’ve made a few changes to my set-up since then which have really helped me. So if you get a new machine and are offered training on it definitely take it up, and if it’s offered when you collect your machine and you think that might be too soon for you, then ask if it can be deferred.

And the truth? Well, I think I’m a Fabricologist.

But I think I love that - and I definitely love this greeting card which I picked up at the Festival of Quilts back in the summer, and have now framed. I can’t decide exactly where to hang this, so instead I have it propped up against a jar of ribbons where I can see it, and it makes me smile every time I do.

Learning from a fail

Despite my newfound knowledge I still had a spectacular fail when switching between my Bernina and my ‘take to’ machine, and worse is I knew it could happen and yet it still did! The smaller subsets of this block were sewn on my Bernina with a patchwork foot, when I assembled the complete block I used my ‘take to’ machine which didn’t.

Which as you can see meant my seams were out - by quite a lot! I even reminded myself mentally before I started of this potential issue, but carried on regardless happily sewing a very mismatched block. It’s the first time that I’ve decided to completely abandon a block, but it was probably easiest - thankfully as you’ll have seen the replacement block turned out ok.

To avoid restarting blocks becoming a regular occurrence I decided to get myself a 1/4” foot for my ‘take to’ machine - and it seems my timing was ok after all, as this was in the sale and cost me less than a tenner. I think it will be money well spent!

Fuelling my Fabricologist

I do like a stash sale, and follow a few people on Instagram who do this occasionally. I was pleased to spot a ‘low volume’ stash sale taking place, as buying low volume fabrics isn’t my forte. I’m drawn to the bright and bold colours more naturally, but I know that not everything can be bright and bold…

These are gorgeous though aren’t they? I’m hoping that the two silver/grey and white fat quarters on the right will work well with the various grey fabrics I’ve been collecting for my extended Floral Fancy panels, when I get to them. I have no immediate plans for the other fat quarters but at around twenty pounds I was pleased to get these, and I’ll have them for when the perfect project turns up, which I’m sure it will.

I also had a bit of a splurge on these Spread the Word fat quarters which I spotted in one of the Sew Hot newsletters, I was even more pleased to spot in a subsequent newsletter that these were included in the 20% off sale. When I saw them initially I was struggling to choose between them and with the reduced price I decided to have the full bundle, which with postage was around £35. I’m fascinated by words, and so words on material is a no brainer for me - these are likely to be admired for a little time before they actually get used, but we’ll see.

It’s on the wall!

Huge progress - the Vogue pattern pages picture is now on the wall, and looking fab. I’m really happy with how they were framed, and even happier to get them on the wall where they can be admired every day.

So that’s a wander through the new things in my craft room this past month - I’m off to the Knit and Stitch Show in Harrogate later in November and I’m looking forward to seeing the quilts there, and checking out what the suppliers have that I can’t live without.

Check out my previous updates for other additions and acquisitions, and let me know below what you’ve added to your craft supplies this month.