Hello.

For my post this month, I have made a felt tea cosy, started and completed a quilt, and my grand daughter photographed me in the denim jacket that I have worked on over the last few months.  Tea cosies seem very popular just now – I’m thinking about Lyn’s wonderful cosy from a couple of weeks ago – my cosy is a little more sober than Lyn’s beauty!

I had watched a video tutorial some time ago from Fiona Duthie; she was demonstrating a vessel in a vessel technique,  I thought it looked intriguing and so very effective.  I don’t think I had the skill to make something similar, but I thought perhaps I could make a tea cosy using the instructions.

I made a paper pattern for the cosy, then made a double pattern using some flooring underlay, and made it bigger by about 3 inches all round, for the inside and outside layers.  I was hoping that this would yield the correct size when shrinkage is complete.

I found the layout to be a little confusing, especially the inside out view of one side of the cosy.  I had the tutorial up on my laptop while I was doing the layout, along with a pair of socks – one right side out, the other inside out – to ensure I got it right.  I wanted the outside to be green, and the inside – that would be visible through some apertures – to be purple.  It is even confusing trying to describe the process here.

The felting went well, the shrinkage worked, and the size turned out as I hoped.  I think (know) that I made the green (outer) side thicker than the inside; I thought that the inside would not fit properly if it was the same thickness as the outside.  My other conundrum was where to cut the windows in the outside layer, how many, the shape and size – a one time only decision.  It is now dry and the inside fits very nicely.  I will probably try to do a vessel in a vessel next year sometime, and I hope to manage the challenge of the vessel’s narrow neck that is in the video tutorial.

 

So, onto the next item – my quilt. This has been brewing in my head for a little while, and I needed to get on with it. It is made using the many, many hexagon shapes that I have made and squirreled away over the last few years ‘for a future project’.  These hexies, small and large, some pieces of my old embroideries, and some vintage tray cloths, were used for the quilt top.  All of these various items were then appliqued onto nine rectangle shaped pieces of fabric (an old cotton high thread count bedsheet). These were then joined together using some coordinating fabric as sashing, into one large piece of ‘fabric’. I used some of the same fabric for the border around the quilt edge, and also used some to make the binding.

 I had to find some backing fabric, and batting for the ‘sandwich’.  The backing fabric is actually a deconstructed  king size duvet cover, and it coordinates very well with the quilt top.  Then all I had to do was to put the three layers together and to quilt ‘the quilt’.  I used my sewing machine to quilt in straight lines, in a sort of grid, but not a complicated design, and I drew the lines on with a Frixion pen.  It was quite heavy to move the quilt through the machine, and that was a bit tiring really! I am super happy with the result, and it looks just how I imagined it would. Quilts can be very expensive items to make, both in materials and time. The quilt top materials were all repurposed, and charity shop finds, the backing fabric – a duvet cover, was a charity shop find too, a good label though, so the batting was the only item I had to buy.

I had promised to show my jacket, so attached is a photo of me wearing it, and I am very pleased with it too, lots of compliments given which is very gratifying, there is a little difficulty in understanding how I completed the stitching – even after I have explained how I worked the shapes – eyes tend to glaze when I mention a grid!!

Some of these photos are very large again, apologies.