Pockets everywhere you look

 

Looking back to the past two months, I was actually a busy bee. I started (and finished) an EPP rainbow project (more in my next blog), I started two Halloween bags and I made a number of zipper pockets. Let´s start with the overview of the pockets!

Pink is actually not my favorite color. Nevertheless, when I saw the pink, winged piglets, I couldn’t resist buying them. And what other colour to decorate them with if not pink?

In the meantime, I fell in love with fabrics by Heather Ross. I couldn’t wait for her new fabrics with those cute bunnies to arrive! It was the clear first choice when sewing a pouch for my daughter´s birthday (she chose the blue one).

 

I finally found time to play with the beautiful fabrics from the series Here Kitty Kitty by Cori Dantini. What a great joy! I love the motifs and the fine colors very much. I enjoyed the embellishing and embroidering immensely. 

I was a busy bee, wasn´t I?

Happy stitching

Michaela 

Starting Fussy Cutting

In the last few weeks, I´m totally fascinated by fussy cutting. I must admit, I´m strongly influenced by the book Fussy Cutters Club by Angie Wilson.

 

There is not much new patchwork know-how in it (I mean sewing on itself), but it´s a great source of inspiration for everybody who likes small or more significant prints and pictures, be it animals, flowers, or objects. Yes, I definitely am such a person!

Since the book arrived, I´ve been obsessively in search of lovely small prints. I have grand plans of course, but I started with simple squares. I enjoy the process of cutting out the pictures. In the meantime, I set up my boxes for different-sized squares and am adding busily more and more to them. I love the fabrics by Heather Ross, Cori Dantini, and Tula Pink! They are like being designed for fussy cutting!
I love the smallest squares the most, so it is no wonder that I started using them first.
Here the 1,5 x 1,5-inch squares

 

I´m working on 2x2-inch squares:

Other shapes will follow, I´m going to try EPP hexagons and other templates too.  

Happy stitching!

Michaela

Bag No.59 - Japanese Cats

When sewing a project, I like working on two pieces simultaneously. The same technique, the same project (bag, pouche, book cover…), but with little differences. The two pieces are like two siblings – both the same but still different.

Some weeks ago, I posted pictures of a „Japanese“ bag with bunnies. Now his sib was born – a bag with Japanese cats.

Like the first one is this bag also made of Yucata fabric collection by Debbie Maddy (the small squares) in combination with the original Japanese indigo fabrics (the lovely cats). The panels for both sides of the bag are machine-sewn and hand-quilted with original Japanese sashiko thread. I was going to quilt it immediately after the bag with bunnies, but I had to take a brake because of aching knuckles on both my hands, so I did not finish quilting until a few weeks later. The assembling of the bag was made quickly and my husband attached the handles at the weekend: an indigo beauty was born.

Here it is: 

Happy stitching!

Michaela

Slow Stitching at the Seaside

It´s here again! Holiday, sunbathing, swimming, and … slow stitching! Sadly, the holiday by the sea was only one week, but it was still great. Like every time we go on holiday I took a hand-sewn project with me, a fabric collage with a small bird. In contrast to the last time I didn´t work completely free. I took a picture of the collage and made a few black-and-white copies of it. During my everyday journeys by train, I sketched some designs which I used later on holiday as inspiration for quilting and stitching. 

I chose some of my dyed cotton threads and some thin silk threads by Oliver Twist´s. One week of hand stitching, it was really beautiful. 

The collage is almost finished, I´m only thinking about some beads or other embellishments. We will see.

Happy stitching! 

Michela 

Baroque Monstrance

As I mentioned before, I´m a member of two clubs. One of them is the local „Ladies Club“, which unites women of different ages, who love sewing, quilting, embroidering, knitting, and simply any kind of handwork.

The other one, the "Bohemia Patchwork klub", seated in Prague, is a patchwork and quilting club consisting of the classical patchwork section and the section of contemporary quilting (don´t ask me please which one I do belong to, I´m somewhere in between…).

At the beginning of 2023, the Bohemia Patchwork klub came up with a challenge for its members called „Baroque“. The quilt collection made within this challenge is going to be exhibited in June in a baroque area near Prague. After long thinking about the topic I finally decided to join the challenge with a quilt called „Baroque Monstrance“, despite the fact that I never sew big wall hangings.

It took longer than expected, but I finished it in due time.

For the background and border I used linen, for the monstrance I used golden curtain fabric and synthetic organza. A silk scarf was sacrificed for making the decorations.

I quite like the result but I'm also really happy to get back to smaller projects. I just don't have enough patience for these big quilts:)

Happy stitching!

Michaela   

Slow Stitched Needle Cases

A true reader of my blog knows that I like working with wool felt. I like touching the natural wool felt and I also like the TrueFelt and colours which offers TrueColours. The A4 sheets are just perfect for small hand stitched projects like my favourite needle cases for example.

Some time ago I was searching something and found two beautiful cats pictures printed on fabric. I bought those years ago from the author Zuzana Honsová.

I had to use them immediately. I spent a happy evening combining materials and threads.

My plan was machine sewing, I used a machine-sewn blanket stitch around the pictures. But then I decided for hand stitching and spent some following evenings stitching and embroidering the collages.

  

And here is how they look inside:

Happy stitching!

Michaela