A Whole Quilt-full of Buttons!!

I was asked by my friend Gemma, to make a couple of padded button throws for her 2 daughters' new bedroom.

She wanted them to look like some produced by a large high street store as she liked their look but couldn't afford their prices!!

I used some dusky pink faux silk dupion and after a lot of searching found buttons that were a great match.

The throws themselves were easy to make - 2 layers of fabric with a layer of wadding between - but instead of "traditional" quilting the buttons had to be sewn on to hold the 3 layers together.

As you all know, hand-sewing is not something I enjoy (in fact I usually try to avoid it as much as humanly possible!!) but in this case there was no getting away from it.

96 buttons later the throws were finished. PHEW!!

I was glad to hear that they were well received - that made the sore fingers all worth it.

SewConnected3 - March

I haven't blogged for a while as we've has the Easter holidays and we went to visit my sister in Eastbourne. DD returns to school next week so I'll be back at my machine with a vengence!!

I just thought I'd update you on how the SewConnected3 Quilting Group is coming along.

We are a group of 18 quilters brought together on Flickr. Each month one member (or in our case sometimes 2) send out some fabric to each of the others. They then each make a 12.5" square block (or 2) within the month and send back.

At the end of the process we will all have enough blocks to make a complete quilt.

For our first month March, Sew-do-I and Rocklilly's fabrics took centre stage.

Sew-do-I who lives in Thailand, gave us freedom to do whatever we wanted with her fabrics.

Scouring the web, I found I liked and although it was tough to do - and my slighlty wrong calculations resulted in me having to add a small border to make it the right size, I am pleased with the results.

I had enough fabric left to make a second - much simpler block - made from triangles.

Rocklilly lives in Australia and wanted a square within a square block.

I felt the Amy Butler Mermaid fabric she included needed to be highlighted, so I made this the centre of the block and included as much as I had.

Both blocks have arrived back to their respective owners, and I'm now working on April's block - but more of that another time!!

A Swap from the Heart

I signed up to a Heart Swap organised by MollyCupCakes.

The idea was that you send your partner at least 6 "heart" objects, at least one of which had to be handmade.

My partner was BekisBloggyBits.

After stalking her blog to get an idea of her possible likes and dislikes, I settled on making a little wall-hanging using TallGrassPrairieStudios's "Be Still My Heart" tutorial.

I used green and pink fabrics that I received from ChickPeaStudio's Spare Change Swap.

In backed the hanging in just squares.

I was undecided if, or how, I should quilt it but at the last second decided on a heart shaped spiral.

I really liked how it turned out and I plan to make a few more.

I also made Beki a little heart shaped hanging - again in the pink and green stripes.

For the other heart items, I send a few lengths of ribbon, a cookie cutter, some fleece, some buttons and a packet of "Love Heart" sweets.

In return I received a gorgeous bundle of goodies from Beki.

There was a tote bag (which will great for out shopping), an ice-cube tray, heart shaped head pins, a packet of "Love Heart" sweets (lol!!), a little notepad, a gorgeous little magnet, and to finish it off a fabulous heart shaped hanging made from red buttons.

It must have taken her ages to thread them all onto the wire. I just need to find the right place to hang it to show it off.

I really enjoyed this swap.