patchwork Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Handmade by Carolyn

Little house pillowcase, and old slipcover

11/08/2011 5:43 am \ 9 Comments \ Carolyn

I made this pillowcase for my niece when she was born five years ago, and have had it back the last few days for a few minor repairs…
Yes, the patchwork is intentionally wonky. I am normally very obsessive about exact squares and perfectly matched corners and edges, so this sort of inexact “naive” style was a nice change. I enjoyed the randomness of it!
The design is my own. I had the vision in my head of a little pink cottage with a skewiff picket fence in a field of green; but made it up pretty much as I went along, based on a few similar sorts of designs that I’ve seen over the years in homewares magazines and such. I chose the sharp lime green/hot raspberry pink colour scheme because it was fun and funky; and feminine without being too over-the-top girly.
D’ya wanna hear something funny? My son asked if it was a Space Invader. He’s thought it was one for years. LOL!

The back view… and here it is perched on top of my very first attempt at a slipcover. Don’t look too closely at the slipcover, because this is years old now. It has served as a kitten scratch-post more than a few times, and is a bit thin in some places, a bit ripped in other places, has a few permanent stains, and has a few wonky seam-lines. But I like the less than perfect look of it.
At least I know no one’s been afraid to sit on it.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: handcrafts, home wares, lounge suite recover, patchwork

Sam’s quilt

19/07/2011 4:15 am \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

An ongoing part of this blog is the documentation of stuff I have handmade in the past, including the small collection of quilts I have made for my family. I have shown here before Tim’s quilt and Cassie quilt, now here is Sam’s quilt.
Like the others his quilt still lives permanently on his bed, but unlike the others has never had to be repaired and, apart from some fading of the colours, is in very good nick. This is probably due to three reasons; firstly probably because it is the newest of the three, but also possibly because Sam is not the sort of boy who played on his quilt like the other two did. He liked to hang out with his older brother and sister so would go and play on their beds instead! And lastly, because I had finally learned about finishing a quilt in the traditional way this one is actually finished off “properly”, if there is such a thing!
The design is a simple arrangement of squares of fabric that I chose because I liked them, and I thought the soft antique-y shades of yellow, red and blue suited Sam’s sunny but shy personality. The squares are enclosed and showcased in a grid of pale yellow strips. The quilt is bound in the traditional method with self-made bias binding. Each of the squares is bordered by hand-quilting. I embroidered my name in the bottom corner and the year in which I made it.
Every now and again I read on the internet about the “slow-sewing” movement; a trend that is about taking the time to appreciate the sewing process and work meticulously and carefully on getting a perfectly handcrafted result… Of course, nearly always such references are about a garment of some sort; a project that would take a few months at the most, whereas to the quilting fraternity (sorority) that time-frame is hilarious!
A handmade quilt is the very definition of slow sewing. Making someone a quilt is a labour of love, not a project to be taken by someone after a quick-fix result. Each of the quilts I have made has taken me a year to complete; no exaggeration. I have usually machine pieced the top so this can be put together in a few days, but the hand-quilting process takes at least a year. Anybody who has made a quilt will attest to this highly labour intensive hand-made craft, so I always have enormous respect for people who quilt. I don’t think I personally have the patience for another quilt (although I have at least one more, I think, to show here.) so I am pretty proud of these that I have made!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: handcrafts, home wares, own design, patchwork, quilt

Cassie’s quilt

23/05/2011 5:29 am \ 7 Comments \ Carolyn

“Now here’s one I made earlier”… I think this is might be the next thing in my chronological documentation of my creations. And luckily another one that is still used and loved on a daily basis. I’ll have to admit to a bit of necessary repair work before it was anywhere suitable for its photo shoot today! The second time in its life this quilt has had a major repair and maintenance session. I’m just glad she obviously loves it so much…
This was made, according to my hand-embroidered signature and date in the corner, in 1993. Like Tim’s quilt before it, it is just based on a very simple design; just same-sized square patches, and is machine pieced and hand-quilted. Unlike Tim’s however, I had learnt at least a teensy bit about quilts by this time and the border treatment is a little better. This time, I folded the outer border over the edge and under, and slipstitched it in place over the backing, then quilted in the ditch on the back, making a little quilted border of about 2cm width all around on the top side. Still not the proper or recommended method of finishing quilts, mind you, but since when have I ever cared about properly following recommended methods, anyway? Yah, I’m such a sewing rebel…
The backing is simply a single sized bed sheet, and yes that rather garish blue colour is far from a perfect choice for the very soft, antique shades of blue, pink and ivory of the topside fabrics, but meh. The back wasn’t very important in my back-then eyes, and sheeting fabric is tough and cheap, also priorities to my back-then self. Since the back is, unlike the topside, in absolute perfect condition, I guess it turned out to be a good choice.
The part I was most pleased with was the border quilting design (which I designed myself); a little arrangement of quilted hearts and nesting hearts, joined with garland-like rows of quilting stitch. And I did quite a good job, if I say so myself. I’m glad I still have things like this around to remind myself of how patient I used to be with regard to my sewing projects. Seriously, I don’t know if I could ever do something like this ever again.

above; all these are the original fabrics…

above; fabrics added later over two major repair sessions (“major” = “now covering nearly a third of the quilt”)

below; border quilting design and (retrospective “what-was-I-thinking” moment) backing fabric

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: home wares, own design, patchwork, quilt

Introducing Mum…

14/05/2011 8:43 am \ 35 Comments \ Carolyn

I will say straight out this amazingly beautiful ensemble is not made by me but by my Mum here. I had to put a picture of it here, because I couldn’t resist; Mum will never ever get herself a blog and this outfit is too creative, clever, immaculately made and finished, and lovely in itself not to share.
My parents have been staying with us recently, and when Mum came downstairs one morning in this ensemble on her way to attend Grandparent’s Day with my Dad and Sam, I literally stopped in my tracks. Then raced to get my camera, simultaneously begging Mum to let me post her outfit on the blog. She graciously agreed.
(Of course I would not be human if a little bit of me thought it might not be a good idea, posting Mum’s creations here on the blog. After all, they will just serve to highlight how my skills are but 1% of Mum’s. But let’s not be petty now…)
The jacket: Mum bought these tweed fabrics, sold as small patches or “salesman’s samples” from a shop called Peppertree in NSW which she visited as part of the Australian Sewing Guild convention last year. She pieced the different sized pieces together in an attractive random patchwork pattern… and anyone who has attempted patchworking will know that randomly shaped rectangular and square patches are not easily put together. There are also one or two patches harvested from my Dad’s old tweed sports coat that has finally bitten the dust after many years of good service (a Re-fashion!). The pattern for the jacket is a Vogue pattern by Donna Karan, (pattern number to be provided when Mum looks it up and tells me) Please note the perfectly constructed welt buttonhole, made from tweed too. And I have to especially point out, see the piece of mustard/dark green houndstooth-y looking fabric, on the right, or buttonhole opening side of the front, just under and by the lapel? Mum knitted that bit in fair isle, to tone in with the other tweeds. On a seamstress’ note, she wanted it mentioned that the knitted section required extra underlining and stabilising, as of course knitted fabric is not as sturdy as woven tweed.
The jacket is fully lined in dark grey acetate lining.
Mum made the skirt too, from charcoal jersey knit. I think she might have made the pattern for that herself.
Thank you Mum, for this bar-setting self-sewn moment!
Later edit: Jacket: Vogue 8605, shortened; Skirt: Vogue 2911

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: jacket, Mum, own design, patchwork, skirt, Wardrobe Refashion

Cathedral window cushion

10/05/2011 3:15 am \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

This is a cushion cover I made for my mother a few years ago. Actually more than a few. I think it was for a mother’s day … oh btw, Happy Mother’s Day for last Sunday to all you yummy mummies out there! I’m sorry I didn’t manage to blog this cushion cover for that day as I intended, but I’ve been having a few problems with Blogger… (grrr)

When my Granny had to move to a home, and after we had finished cleaning out my grandparents’ house we had a big pile of things to find new homes for; many really beautiful things that found instant homes in the children’s and grandchildren’s homes, some things for charity, and some things that were too personal and beautiful to toss out, but really had no useful purpose for anyone…. one of those items was a beautiful paisley silk tie once belonging to my grandfather. Mum gave it to me, saying something like “here, you could use this lovely fabric for something or other if you like”.
Obviously I wasn’t going to toss it out but equally obviously you can’t just drape a tie over your couch as an ornament. But I still felt like it was important and needed to live on somehow. Bit of background applies here; my grandfather used to own and run a highly respected menswear store in London, and later here in Perth, so he always wore the most beautifully tailored suits and shirts. So to me this wasn’t just an old tie really, but much more; a symbol of intrinsically who my grandfather was, a representation of his life and his trade.

Now, a tie has only a very small amount of fabric in it. Not enough for anything much. I thought about what to do with it quite a lot, before deciding to be brave enough to cut it up…

And I made a cushion cover for Mum to have, so she could still have the fabric there to look at as a little memento of Grandpa about the house. I took this picture of it in Mum and Dad’s house the last time I was there.

So this is a patchwork design known as Cathedral Window; used to showcase small pieces of really beautiful fabric like this. The backing fabric is calico. The design is interesting, because you end up needing like three or four metres of calico for one little cushion cover, and just mere scraps for the “showcased” fabric. You cut huge squares of the calico and fold them in an intricate origami style design, down into much smaller squares in which is sewn the little pieces of beautiful fabric. I remember having to be quite clever to cut the tie strategically to get sufficiently large squares for the cushion. It measures 50x50cm, and has a cream coloured dress zip on the back for a cushion insert. The top is completely hand-sewn.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: handcrafts, home wares, patchwork

Tim’s quilt

10/01/2011 1:29 am \ 9 Comments \ Carolyn

I’m a bit embarrassed putting a picture of this up here now, because it’s quite old and worn now and has really seen better days, but that is the nature of quilts, right? That they are supposed to age gracefully and naturally, like fine wine (and women) and take on a character and story all of their own with each little rip and patch?
And I did set out to document as much as I could, even things that have had a rough life…
This was my first effort at a full bed-sized quilt. I hadn’t really done any quilting prior to this, apart from a little baby floor quilt which was done totally on my machine, posted here.
So, in my usual way, I rocked up to Calico House (as it was called then, now Calico and Ivy), just bought a selection of boy-ish type of fabrics and went home to nut it out for myself. I can recall the ladies in the store were a bit scandalised that I wasn’t going to take any lessons, or even buy a book. How hard could it be, I reasoned? Patchwork and quilting is hardly rocket science. Me being a bit gung-ho, I inwardly scoffed at the idea of needing instructions… I just did up a rough mud map of what I wanted and then made some measurements of numbers of squares times dimensions, added all up, to work out how much fabric I would need. The backing is a single sized navy blue flat sheet.
It’s a very simple design. The edging is very amateurish, I turned under the edges and overstitched by hand all around the edge. I only quilted around the edges of the quilt; both in the ditch and a few stars, moons, suns and swirls in the border by hand, the middle part of the quilt is knotted at the corners of each square with surgeon’s knots. Right now I will confess that this is an inferior method to traditional quilting; it looked nice but did not make for a robust quilt. As a toddler Tim used to love to sit on the side of his bed and slide himself along with the quilt on to the floor… yeah… Activities like this, coupled with the flimsy knotting do make for a short life-span… and as you can tell, some of the fabrics in the middle have worn and ripped with use and been patched with other fabrics.
And, early in its life I used to carefully handwash in the bath tub, but nowadays I just toss it in the washing machine.
C’est la vie. I’m a big one for believing things should be used and loved on a daily basis and not tucked away preciously for special occasions, and this quilt has definitely been much loved and used, and still is to this day. That’s all that counts for me.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: handcrafts, home wares, own design, patchwork, quilt

Green quilt

29/11/2010 1:45 am \ 7 Comments \ Carolyn

Sometimes I forget that I set out to document all my handmade stuff here. Including the old stuff.
This is a quilt I made a few years ago. The fabrics are all green based, and all “floral” in the sense they all are leafy, fruity, and/or vegetable-y (I do like to make up words when I feel like it) I collected fabrics over about six months until I had found enough to satisfy my criteria, in both the quantity and in the prints. There was almost NO leftovers when I had finished, making the quilt “green” in a colloquial sense too… That’s the beauty of quilts based upon basic square shapes, you can plan them to be very economical with fabric.
The patch arrangement is based upon a Kaffe Fasset design from his quilt book. The edges are hand bound with bias binding, made using two of the fabrics. The top is all machine pieced, and I started hand-quilting the three layers together before I lost enthusiasm and finished the quilting on the machine.
Purists will shudder, but… meh.
It measures approximately 210cmx240cm (7ftx8ft) perhaps a little smaller, but not by much.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: handcrafts, home wares, patchwork, quilt

Cute patchwork skirt for a little girl

27/06/2010 4:01 am \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

It is my youngest niece’s birthday tomorrow and I wanted to make her a frivolous and girly little skirt because she is luckily still little enough to love pretty dress-up clothes. A dress I had made her for a previous birthday could well be the most appreciated present I’ve ever made anyone, as she wore it lots and lots. It was a hot pink satin princess dress, with a sweetheart neckline, puffy glitter sleeves and a glittery tulle bustle and I was thrilled she was so happy with it.
For this skirt I bought this row of pretty patches joined together. The idea for this skirt came from the very creative Sophie who owns and operates Materialize. She had made some adorable patchwork tutus for very little girls and had joined this strip together like this when I bought it.

Now I’m making a skirt here not a tutu, and obviously the skirt was going to be way too short with just these pieces so what was necessary here? of course a petticoat! So I bought some broderie anglaise and a little bit of broderie edging and cut to the suitable length; gathered the patched strip to fit on top. I did it this way because I wanted the overskirt to be gathered in an apron-like fashion over a straighter petticoat… At this point I had also removed some of the patches, partly because I realised the strip was going to be too long and partly because I didn’t like some of the fabrics so much. Then I attached the broderie anglaise edging strip to the bottom edge…

I also got some of this adorable lime striped bias binding to use for the tie waistband, and attached it to the top edge. The petticoat, being a rectangle, required only a little gathering to fit my niece’s waist measurement. Using some leftover lilac cotton I made some more bias binding to line the waistband.

The lilac bias binding was sewn to the lime stripe bias binding, leaving the skirt top open to enable turning right sides out. Here in this photo the waistband has been sewn together and one tie end has been turned out and pressed.

The waistband opening was slipstitched closed on the inside, and the waist ties topstitched on the right side out. Finally the centre back of the skirt was sewn closed, leaving enough of an opening for my niece to step into the skirt. I finished the open edges of the centre back with narrow hems.

Et voila! This skirt would be a good way to use up scraps of leftover fabric that’s too pretty to throw out, or if you’ve ever been lured into buying a set of gorgeously co-ordinated fat quarters.