Swaps and Bees

I mentioned the Pusheen Swap in my last post and here is part of my main swap item - a mini quilt. I designed and printed my own Pusheen fabric using my home printer. It's something I've done a few times and it works well as long as you don't want to wash the finished item. 

I printed two letter-sized sheets and then used them for applique. Here is part of the design...

It is quite an intricate design which I am applique-ing to a plain white background. 

For the Simply Mini swap (another one from Instagram) I had a big scrap dive using the hexagon fabric on the left as the main fabric. 

I'm trying some reverse applique portholes for this so I'll have to see how it goes. This palette is quite unusual for me as there is no red. Makes it a bit more of a challenge!

Something else unusual and slightly challenging was this pencil case. Isn't it adorable?

The fabric comes from Spoonflower with the design ready printed and instructions included. I got it completely free by combining a free-shipping day with some Spoondollars I had earned by selling my own design. 

Finally I said a few posts ago that I was going to join the 30's Farmers Wife Sew-A-Long, and had a crazy idea I might do it in Liberty fabric. Yeah. A bit of surfing showed me prices and brought me to my senses. Mind you, I did then splurge somewhat on Etsy, and add a few long term stashed fabrics, to assemble this lot. 

The inspiration behind my colour scheme is one of my Somerset-from-the-train photos a la this:

Lots of blues, greens and bit of brown. Lovely!

The Babe With The Power

There have been further experiments with my embroidery machine. I am trialling a handy piece of software called Sew What which looks a little old school in layout but allows you to put together your own designs to embroider. There are a few stitch options so I decided to try out a little applique, since I haven't used the machine for that yet. 

I ended up making this coaster for a friend out of some Cotton and Steel charm squares, an offcut of batting and some scraps of bias binding. On the software it was very simple - decide on one of the set alphabets in the software (there are about 30), get the size right and select "Satin Outline". I had to try a few experiments to get the outline thick enough and I still think it could have gone a lot thicker but it looks ok. 

The second thing I tried was a simple phrase. This is for part of my Pusheen Swap parcel and the recipient is a fan of all sorts of things I know nothing about. A bit of research told me she would like this. 

This one came out OK but it taught me that variegated thread doesn't really work on this kind of design. Having said that, I am still really happy with the way this basic design came out and the suggestions it offers for future development. 

There is one set of designs that I have been eyeing up - chalkboard type ones by Anita Goodman that I first saw on Instagram which you can see on this blog. I'm not sure where I can buy them from though so if anyone knows share that with me!