I got a new sewing machine for my birthday on Monday!! It’s a Frister and Rossman professional. I’ve never used an electric one before, it was always manual so it took me a while to understand how it functions. Especially as the manual is translated from German in a very odd way. So my geek helped me and decided that the manual was easy to understand as it was written by Yoda (“start button will no action to operate”). Hmm…. I still need to understand the tension bit as my thread from the bottom bobbin is not tight enough  even when I change the tension. If anyone has an idea I’m all ears!

I had lots of accessories coming with it and presser foot i didn’t even know existed! I’m going to have fun!

It does lots of stitches, simple ones and really crazy stuff that I don’t know when I’ll use them but they’re really cute:

I was so happy I had to make a quilt! I decided to rummage through my stash of fabrics and found loads of lovely fabrics I had forgotten were there! I made a baby quilt for my son’s teacher who will be having a baby boy soon:

Love the bright colors for a baby:

 I’m off for a couple of weeks hunting the sun! Have a happy sewing holiday everyone!

I know I couldn’t find another title… I’m open to suggestions!

As promised I finally manged to finish my tutorial and to actually blog about it!

I think it’s important for kids to learn how your body functions, what’s inside and how it works why. So I came up with this idea to make an apron where you could stick the main organs on. If you’re squeamish turn away from your computer now!

So here is what you’ll need:

A stash of different colored fabrics, different colored threads, the organ templates, a meter of felt, and some sew on Velcro tape and your sewing equipment.

Start by cutting the organs from the templates, and trace around the templates on your fabrics:

now sew a small rough side of the Velcro onto your fabric:

now fold your fabric and start sewing on the drawn line leaving a small gap to stuff the wadding in:

Stuff it with wadding but not too much it needs to stay quite flat:

Cut around and with satin stitch sew all the way round again:

Do the dame for all of the remaining organs:

using the felt fabric cut a strip (it doesn’t matter the width) and sew on it a piece of Velcro:

in the middle sew a piece of soft side of the Velcro:

you can now attach the brain:

now fold your felt in two and cut a larger piece of the  remaining felt (about the width of your child)

no on the folded edge using a small plate trace half a circle or even smaller:

and now cut on your drawn line:

now decide where the organs will be placed and pin some soft pieces of Velcro onto the felt:

sew them on and place your organs on them. Et voila! you’re done!

I know I haven’t been blogging for the past month or so, I know I should have and trust me I wasn’t thumb twiddling.

I’ve been caught up by life planning birthdays for my geek and kid, I’ve been filling up application form for jobs and not getting them so I spent a week crying, Went to so many school trip/sports day/and I can’t remember what else, I’ve been reading THE book, I’ve been working (because, you know, other wise no money to spend on shoes, bags, fabrics and other essentials), I’ve been planning my holiday (I know life’s too tough), I’ve been cleaning my fridge and kitchen-whoop-whoop!, and I’ve been volunteering at school and at the family center. SOoooo I’m exhausted and really fancy a break!

In the meantime I received the awsome chevron fabric that I have been dreaming about for ever. I think I went a bit mad because I had to buy the fabric from America and ended up paying more for P&P than for the fabric itself…. And I can’t even say I have more money than sense because I don’t have more money….

But look it’s just too beautiful!

I also bought the most amazing book called 99 modern quilt blocks.

I meet up with my sewing friends on Tuesday evenings and we sew/chat/bitch/giggle. We’re off to the Birmingham quilt show (oh yeah!) and this year they all presenting a quilt except me. So next year we decided that each one of us will make a sampler quilt and we will sew it together to make a huge quilt to present at the show. I cannot wait to choose the fabric and get started.

here are a few of my favorite blocks:

In between all the stuff I’ve been doing I managed to make a small kids tutorial. It’s all about  the body and it will be coming soon, hopefully tomorrow! here’s a preview pic:

So now I need to help tidy up the living room because there’s a Playmobil invasion…..

Oh and by the way, I love that you all come and visit my little blog but I’d love even more to hear from you! it’s a lovely feeling to receive messages from viewers! Any ideas for a modern block to make a modern quilt?