Swedish folk pattern and some WIP

Hi, dear friends.

I have been really busy lately with my sewing machine and other stuff.
I am learning quilting. Here is my second attempt. (The first one was a simple piece sewn together from 10 x 10 cm squares, not very well - I am still thinking to do something with it.)

I was trying to do a log cabin quilt. I cut lots of 5 cm wide strips and started working. I don't have a real fabric stash, absolutely no quilting fabric, only some odds and ends that I bought in second hand shops or got as donation from colleagues. I tried to pick some light and dark fabrics, and started sewing them together. Here are some pictures of the process, but mostly I was too excited sewing, so I didn't take many photos.







As my blocks grew, I had to realise that my seams are not precise and my cutting was not ver exact either, so some of the lines on the blocks turned out to be a bit wonky. After some thinking I came up with a "brilliant" solution - I will make the blocks so that the log cabins are leaning a bit to the left and right, this way it won't be so visible that they are not perfect. Ha! As if this was a solution - for someone who is a beginner!
I saw some pictures and calculated for myself what size triangles I need for the edges. And I didn't have much fabric that was good with the other colours so had to be careful. Of course, I made mistakes when cutting and sewing again, so at the end it turned out even worse. There were even more seams to match.


In the close-up you can see the not-so-matching seams:




But there are some that are almost OK - purely by accident, though:





Anyway, here is the final result - and in spite of all the mistakes I am VERY happy with it. :D





This is only the quilt top, now I am going to learn how to quilt it. I don't have any batting, need to buy something for the back, too. Until I can do that, I will practice with smaller pieces. It will have to be straight lines quilting, because I also need to buy a free motion foot for the sewing machine and buying all that might take some time.


I have also been knitting a pullover for my daughter. It is almost ready now, I only need to sew in the sleeves. It was made, as most of my knitting, without patterns, just improvising. I knitted the body on the round, and the cowl neck, too. One of the problems with improvising is when you have made one sleeve, it is terribly hard to duplicate it - so I decided to make the second sleeve different. Purely for laziness - but I think it looks really cool. I hope Eszter will like it. It is absolutely soft and warm, it is an alpaca boucle yarn from Drops. Of course, since spring is here, she will need a really warm pullover - NOT. But I didn't manage to finish it in winter, so she will have to wait until next autumn to wear it. :=/







And I also crocheted a little cat for her, to go in the packet when I send the pullover:



This was also made without pattern. Perhaps I should try and write it down?


And here is a small Swedish folk cross stitch pattern for you all to enjoy, I think it is lovely. It was inspired by some old patternbooks I have.

Have fun :)

My new dress

I have been sewing again.

This time I chose a commercial pattern that, luckily, we have at school. It's an Onion pattern, 2032.
It is good because it goes up to size 48. I actually thought I need 50 so I drew my pattern a bit bigger - than had to reduce it when I sewed it together.
I had this nice knit fabric, which is not very stretchy, just a bit. It wasn't easy to sew though because the edges curled up, even though I ironed it. Anyway, I managed.
The pattern description is in Danish (!!!). I did understand (or guessed) some of it, based on the little Swedish I know. Those two languages are quite near each other. But I wasn't sure I understood how to sew the pleats in front, so I just did it as I thought and they didn't turn out perfect. But they are not too bad.

Here is the result. All in all, I think this is a really good dress, considering how much experience I have. I used an overlock stitch to sew most seams, then cut off the excess fabric, and a stretchy straight seam for the hemming. So it looks almost professional from the inside, too. I am VERY happy with it.




It was March 15th, Hungarian national holiday, that's why the Hungarian ribbon. In the background, on my pinboard you can see a photo of my Mom.


What do you think?

Easter biscornu cross stitch freebie

Sorry for the misleading title, but I realised that I need to put the cross stitch freebies in the title otherwise they get lost and nobody sees them. :D This happened to my Easter eggs - the blog statistics show that much fewer people saw those than the other patterns.


But now that you are here, I can admit that first you have to suffer through my sewing and stitching pictures before you see the freebie. (Unless you scroll down :D :D) .

Some of you might remember that I bought a new sewing machine not long ago. My regular visitors might even remember that I started to learn how to sew clothes last summer - using the sewing machines in school because my old one gave up. Now I can sew whenever I want, and my own machine is so much better than the ones in school. So here is my first blouse I made with it:



I used this peasant blouse tutorial to make the pattern, but had to adjust it a bit. Maybe it was me, but when I sewed together the parts, I didn't get a nice round edge at the neckline, but at each meeting point there was a pointed edge, or a triangle protruding - so I simply had to cut those off. Also, I measured myself and then added a bit because I wanted a loose fit - and the result has become more a tent than a blouse. :P It is OK, I can wear it, and it is actually a good feeling that I have at least one piece of clothing that is not too tight or too small, as everything seems to be lately. But I think I would like to redo it if one day I have the patience to take it apart, cut the pieces smaller and then sew together again.
The fabric comes from one of my second-hand shopping sprays, I think it might have been a curtain, but I thought "peasant blouse" right away when I saw it.

Then I finished a bag that I started sewing a month or so ago, in school, whenever I had a few minutes at the end of the day, but could never do really much. It is a bag from Cath Kidston's Sew! book, the cover kit that was given with the book. I didn't have to cut anything, just sew it together. Which, of course, would have been boring so I decided to add lining, and then also added a zippered pocket to the lining. I had to take out the zipper once and sew it again, and it is still not perfect, my top-stitching could also be better, but all in all I am happy with it. I am still learning my machine and this was a perfect little project for that.






I have also started making a dress, cut out the pieces but had to stop, my back doesn't want me to sew again. :( Have to rest it for a few days.

I have done quite a lot of cross stitch, I made squares for the charity I like to help. We are making quilts for sick children and also for an orphanage. If you want to join, stitch or perhaps donate some money for the quilts, here is the Facebook group.

Some of my stitched squares:




(I just noticed that the fairy on the right misses her magic wand, need to add it quickly.)



It warms my heart to know that a child will find some happiness in them - a child who very much needs every minute of happiness.


And finally, as a reward for those who managed to stay with me through this long post: my Ester biscornu.




Find the downloadable pdf pattern here.

You will notice that I have changed the colours of the letters. I wanted to sew a nice pink button in the middle but of course, couldn't find one. So I used one without colour and sewed it on with pink decorative stitches.

Happy stitching, my friends. Wishing you all a quickly approaching spring (OK, not for those in Australia, but the rest :D :D ).

Craft Show in Stockholm and an Easter freebie cross stitch pattern

Warning: lots of photos today :D :D


Last Saturday I went to Stockholm to visit Syfestivalen - which is, although it is modestly called a "sewing festival" - the biggest craft event in Sweden. There was everything: sewing machines, lots and lots of yarn, scrapbooking, jewellery-making etc. However, there wasn´t too much embroidery, only at a few stands and those only had a limited range of patterns.
Anyway, I cannot say I was disappointed, I was there at 11 a.m. and came out at 4.30 - just because I was too tired.

Here are a few photos of the show:


This was the queue before entering.


The crowd.



Some embroidery...



...and some lovely yarn. In Sweden there is a huge variety of wool and knitting seems to be the most popular craft.



I took part in different workshops. I wanted to try some sewing machines, so I went to the Janome stand where they had a workshop making this cute little bag. It is covered with plastic. I think they wanted to make a point how well the machine copes with all kinds of materials - and it certainly did. Because of the plastic it is difficult to see that there is some lovely machine embroidery on the fabric. They had a clever little tool with a pin that held the fabric in one place and as I was sewing, the fabric rotated around the pin, thus sewing a perfect circle using decorative stitches. It was great fun.



Later I tried other machines, too: a Brother and a Pfaff.

I wanted to learn some new embroidery. I checked out Bunka Broderi first. Here we were taught how to work with a tool that looked like a mini punchneedle and some polyester thread - it is supposed to have come from Japan. I made this Easter egg. It was fun but I don´t think I want to do this again - I am not a big fan of polyester :D



I also visited Skapande Broderi, and they were doing some tulle embroidery. Here is my work: a portrait in the style of Picasso - I think I do like this :)



Finally, I also learnt a crochet stitch that looks similar to nålbildning (needle binding?). I have always wanted to learn nålbindning, and I will, sooner or later, but this crochet was really easy, too. I don´t have a photo, unfortunately but will do some of this crochet later and then will take photos.


I did some shopping. I didn´t have much money, so I couldn´t buy the most beautiful yarns, but I enjoyed drooling over them, anyway LOL. I did find some affordable yarn, though, that I really loved: some 100 % silk, and some 100 % wool. Guess which is softer? Yes, the wool. The silk actually feels a bit coarse-ish. Who would have thought?



The wool is on the left, in skeins, the silk is on the right, in balls. Both are off-white.

The brown and red smaller skeins are plant-dyed wool embroidery thread, a gift for a friend.

In the back you can also see my lovely new knitting needles from KnitPro. I saw these in the knitting cafe where I sometimes go, and was so happy to find them here. The cables and the needles are interchangeable, and the cables don´t twist. Here is a closer picture:



I have already tried knitting with them, so here is a small sample of the silk yarn. I tried different stitches and different size needles. The smallest looks the best, but I doubt I will have that much patience to knit with those :D :D




As I came home, I was so excited about all the lovely sewing machines I saw and tried, that I spent hours browsing the webshops. I have been planning to buy one for long. So on Sunday night I took a deep breath and plunged in: bought one. And I decided to go for a really good one: a Pfaff Ambition. Tuesday afternoon it was already here. Oh, I am so happy. It has so many functions, it will take me ages to learn everything - but we have already become friends. :)



To practice, I decided to make a holder for my circular knitting needles - since I was thinking of twisting cables :D.
So I made this - it is really simple, two squares sewn together, with horizontal lines sewn all the way across, creating tubes for the cables. It was good practice for starting and ending the sewing, since it works a bit differently from what I was used to.



I also started to sew a peasant blouse for myself but got a bit tired so it is not done yet.


And now, for my newest cross stitch pattern. I am already thinking of spring, so I came up with a little easter pattern. I made two versions in different colour schemes. I hope lots of people will like it.





Happy stitching, everyone.

I am sewing clothes!!!

Yeah! I have done it! :D :D

I didn't know how to sew clothes. I have done a lot of adjustments, hemming and things like that, have made curtains and cushions but I have always wanted to learn how to make my own clothes.
So a few weeks ago I started. First I made myself a 3-layered skirt. It was really easy. I followed this tutorial with my own measurements, naturally.

The fabric was a thrifted sheet, the cover-type and it was so nice that it had coordinating fabric on the two sides, I didn't have to worry about whether they go well together or not :) . It is quite see-through though, so I added lining and I am really proud that it worked.





(Don't laugh at the funny way I am standing - it is because I cannot stand straight from the pain in my back. I had to hold on to the railing.)

Then I realised I needed trousers. Unfortunately my old trousers don't fit. Don't ask why, just look at the pictures. :( Making trousers pattern is not an easy thing but then I found this on the internet: how to take the pattern from an existing pair of trousers. So I went for it. Of course, I had to make the pattern a bit bigger than my existing trousers in a few places.

I have a piece of striped fabric I wanted to use but then I decided to start with a muslin and I used another thrifted sheet. It is good because when it was ready, I realised I need to modify the pattern a bit. It is a little too baggy in the front and after reading lots of descriptions, I understood that I have to make the front crotch a little shorter. So I have the pattern modified and ready, as soon as my back is better I will make my final version. But I think I can wear the muslins, too. If I wear a long t-shirt with them, you can't see the bagginess. What do you think? And I am so proud that I managed to make pockets, too!





The t-shirt is "new" as well. It was made from an existing one that was too short, and three others that were too small (two of them actually children size). It doesn't look very elegant but is so comfy. I love it.

Now the next step is to sew a blouse! I have some old patterns and I will try to find some nice fabric when I am at home in Hungary (much cheaper than here in Sweden). So watch this space!
Any advice from more experienced friends is more than welcome!