Thursday 4 October 2012

The dog!

Here's some cute pictures of my puppy Pippa 

Aww - sleeping like a baby!
In her new pink polka dot hoodie!
Isn't she the cutest thing?  I don't think I'm biased either.  She's so gorgeous and yummy!!

Christmas Pinwheels

Inspired by an online tutorial by misouri star quilt co I've decided to make a small table runner - just to even out the work and effort in trying to get my huge king size through the machine!

I went to my local craft store the other day and bought a couple of Christmas fabric bundles and started cutting them up into 6 inch squares to make pinwheels.  So far so good.


Start with some pretty christmassy fabric

Cut them up into 6 inch blocks
Choose two to piece together (right sides together) and just sew a 1/4 inch right around by pivoting with needle down at the corners

Then cut them along the bias until you have 4 perfectly formed triangles for each square
You then need to iron them out (choosing one colour to iron flat - I usually go with the dark), then piece those together to get your pinwheels!

Pretty pinwheels!
So now I need to get some kind of lattice fabric and do a lattice to join them.  I'm thinking something white with a slight print and then use one of my main colours for a border and binding.  I think I've got enough fabric to do 2 or 3 so I guess some folks are getting Christmas table runners for presents! 

This was lots of fun and a really easy project to get in to!  It's always nice to do the quick and fast ones as it gives you the inspiration and encouragement to tackle something bigger!  I can see that king size coming off the top of the wardrobe this weekend and being stuffed through my machine again!

I got a quote from a quilting shop for how much they'd charge me to do the quilting for me!  £180.  Can you believe it?  No way.  I'll manage it myself for that price.  Tho it did make me wonder about investing in a long arm machine!