I’m so inspired by the quilts Ashley makes at Film in the Fridge. Recently she’s done a load of strip quilts and I decided to try one. I’ve only started, but I wanted to share the update.

I haven’t finished DSD’s Heather Ross quilt yet. I only just pinned it last weekend. It’s huge. I’m scared to sew it. So I took a break to work on this new project. It’s also excited because I mixed collections which, for me, is scary!

The fabrics here include designs from ‘Modern Meadow’ by Joel Dewberry, ‘Kumari Gardens’ by Dena Designs and ‘Nature Walk’ and ‘My Happy Garden’ by Cloud 9 fabrics. I love the colours and I’m so excited to see it finished. I have no idea what I’m going to back it with but maybe an Anna Maria Horner voile?

The pictures don’t really do the fabrics justice, but I’ll try to take more when I get a little further with the project.

Here is where things stand with my quilt project. I finally finished the star-pattern quilting and the first step of the binding. I think I’ve really made soooo much work for myself by trying to make things fancy with that quilting idea and using two fabrics for binding but I’m in the home stretch, only the hand whipstitching left to do I think!

I used this video tutorial for the binding instructions and found it really helpful. Well…maybe I shouldn’t give credit before I’m finished! If it comes out right it will have been really helpful! Thank goodness for YouTube, don’t you agree?

This weekend I taught DSD how to sew by hand and it was brilliant! I’ve tried to teach her to knit, which she likes but still struggles with a bit (she’s five and a half) and we’ve done some sewing projects on the machine that I let her help with (she presses the peddle but I admit that sometimes terrifies me!), but finally with hand-sewing she was able to do a project more or less on her own.

Sewing clothes for dolls and stuffed animals is a great way to start kids out. Our project, as you can see, was trousers for Bear (the top was the one he came with). They don’t really fit him properly as I just cut off a big square of fabric and didn’t do a lot of measuring but I don’t think that really matters – it was more about the activity than the result.

You don’t need to run out and buy fabric for this project – it’s a great way to use up your scraps or even bits of worn out clothes. DSD picked out the fabric from of my leftover quilt pieces that she determined were boy-appropriate (Bear is a boy). We picked a contrasting thread to make it easy to see the stitches and I helped her thread it on my biggest needle. Then I held the fabric tightly while she did the sewing, which made it easy to see where the next stitch would go. She caught on quickly and the level of dexterity needed for this was perfect for her. She tried big stitches and tiny close together stitches and zig-zags.

I highly recommend helping your kids learn to sew! It’s such a useful skill, it’s fun and it really doesn’t cost very much (if anything!) to do small projects like this.

Last weekend the organisers of the Knitting & Stitching Show graciously gave me and my friend L press tickets and we had a great afternoon wandering around about a million stalls full of gorgeous yarns and fabrics at Alexandra Palace.

The show was incredibly popular. I was told Sunday was the slowest day but it was busy to the point of being a bit exhausting. I’ve never seen so many knitting and sewing lovers in one place!

In addition to the shopping there were classes (which unfortunately were mostly full by the time I heard about the show) and galleries. But mainly I wanted to shop!

Here is the floor plan so you can see the incredible scope of the show.

We were first drawn to Fibres Exotica, which had the most vibrant silk yarns I’ve ever seen. This picture just does not do it justice at all. I bought some AMAZING cobalt blue yarn here and I thinking I’m going to make a neck cozy something like this.

Next we went a bit crazy for the designs of Purl Alpaca Designs.Don’t you just love that jumper?

We also fell for the incredibly soft, rich colours of Manos Maxima from Crafty Yarn. I bought the fiery red and I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet. Maybe socks?

We were also really impressed with the Toft Alpaca Shop. What is it about alpaca? I didn’t buy anything here yet but I’d love to make this jumper. You can buy the yarn with the pattern online.

I was over the moon to find Eternal Maker, a West Sussex fabric shop that imports fabrics from some of my favourites, including Anna Maria Horner. They have an online shop too!

Coats Crafts is also a brilliant shop, with FreeSpirit Fabrics. They have a great site with loads of free patterns.

We also found Loop, an Islington knitting store I haven’t been to yet, which had some gorgeous yarns as well.

And are these the biggest knitting needles you’ve ever seen? I’ve never seen anything like it!

The show is coming to Dublin and Harrogate if you’d like to go!

I was really excited to see the range of sewing and knitting kits on the Crafts4kids website and the company was kind enough to issue a voucher code for my readers to buy kits at a 10% discount. Just use code VMSK10 at checkout to claim. The code is good until 31 October.

Nottinghamshire-based Crafts4kids is one of the UK’s leading online retailers of educational toys and crafts for children and they have launched their autumn / winter range of sewing & kniting kits for kids. There are two new brands in their range, Buttonbag and Sparrowkids.

I love to knit and sew and I do a lot of projects with DSD to help her learn. When I was looking for knitting supplies for children for her last birthday I struggled to figure out what would be easy for her to hold in her small hands so it is great to see companies putting together these kinds of kits.

Here are a few of my favourites from Crafts4kids range. There are loads more projects and kits on the site!

Buttonbag Knitting Kit – £19.50 (age 9+)

Alex Toys My First Sewing Kit – £19.95 (age 7-13)

The Little Experience Stitch It Dolly Kit – £9.50 (age 6+)

What a busy, busy, BUSY week! I want to write more and get more GREAT DEALS up on the site, especially when I have so many new visitors dropping by because of the Disney on Ice contest! But work has been a bit crazy and time has been short and life goes on.

I did want to throw up a quick post though to talk about some things that are making me happy this week! First up, my shipment of gorgeous Anna Maria Horner fabrics arrived. These didn’t come cheap (especially after customs fees that I completely failed to factor into the equation) but it is hard to get them here. Aren’t they stunning? There are cotton voiles and flannels from the Little Folks range and cottons from the Good Folks range. I can’t wait to start sewing with them!

I also learned today about the knitting and stitching show next week at Alexander Palace. I’m really excited about this. Most of the classes are sold out but I think it will still be really fun to wander around and do a little shopping! I’m going to be a bit cheeky and see if they’ll give me a free pass as press (unlikely) but I plan to go either way.

Finally tomorrow I and I are going to a fun event I’ve been invited to by Mission Foods called We Will Wrap You. The event is promoting their new range of wraps developed by the cast of the musical We Will Rock You. I think it will be really fun because we get to see the show!

Okay, I’m now off to send a couple of work emails (bah!) and then to bed. Two days to Friday thank goodness!

We’ve been baking our own bread for about a month now and I’ve really enjoyed it. This week E requested a bloomer, so instead of our standard wholemeal loaves I looked up a new recipe. Oh my goodness it is HEAVEN! I’m eating a piece right now, warm, with butter, and it is so decadent. Our best loaf yet.

I adapted this recipe from BBC Good Food but I bought a new kind of yeast that doesn’t come in sachets so I had to modify it. I also used a tip from Budget Bytes, one of my new favourite food blogs, which recommended putting a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to create steam.

Here is the result. E actually said “oooh!” when I pulled it out of the oven, and it’s quite rare for him to get that excited over anything that is not related to Manchester United.

I’ve also been working on the quilt. I decided to try to quilt it together with a star pattern, which is taking ages but I’m so far happy with. As you can see I’m using tape to guide my sewing which was recommended by a friend.

I have been avoiding this because I know we spent too much on groceries during the period I tracked but I reckon it’s time I actually finished off my month for on this blog.

But first! Here is the finished quilt top. Now I just have to figure out how to sew the whole thing together. The back is the same as the border here (red, blue and pink pinstripes on white). Someone reminded me after I bought the fabric that that won’t stay white for long if it actually is used as a baby quilt, but oh well. It’s really quite warm, we tested it on our laps!

So on to the painful bit! At least I know the figure to beat. So what am I going to do about it? Well we’re keeping the Abel & Cole – we just really like it and we’re eating loads more fruit and veg. So that is about £100/month. After that I think we just need to plan ahead more and stock up on basics and things like chicken breasts during sales. I’m thinking of starting a price book too. I haven’t been tracking since this ended but I’m going to try to pick it up again properly in October.

Total: £204.69

15th September – £20.72 – Abel & Cole delivery
14th September – nothing!
13th September – nothing!
12th September – £5.50 on stuff for massive curry
11th September – nothing!
10th September – nothing!
9th September – nothing!
8th September – £3.97 – Abel & Cole delivery (you get your fourth box free)
7th September – nothing!
6th September – £3 for three boxes of cereal
4th September – £4.37 for pizza toppings
3rd September – nothing!
2nd September – £3.36 for two boxes of cereal
1st September – £26.25 for Abel & Cole delivery – fruit and veg, milk and eggs, plus pork mince for burgers (plenty will be frozen for another time) and more bread flour
31st August – £6.29 for massive block of parmesan (went on last night’s courgettes and pasta)
30th August – £4.25 for goats cheese (half off! to go on beetroot salad and baguettes) and £.89 for the baguette
29th August – nothing!
28th August – nothing!
27th August – nothing!
26th August – nothing!
25th August – £23.73 for Abel & Cole delivery, which included salmon and mussels (but we had a £10 off voucher)
24th August – £3.20 lunch stuff
23rd August – £28 misc lunch and dinner stuff (E didn’t save his receipts so this is an estimate)
22nd August – £5.20 baking stuff for chocolate chip cookies
21st August – £37.24 (guessing again here, as I also lost my receipt. argh!) mainly on fajitas stuff and also rye flour which we will someday use to make sourdough starter
20th August – nothing!
19th August – nothing!
18th August – £20.13 Abel & Cole order – fruit and veg, milk, eggs and bread
17th August – £5 on 2 x 500g steak mince, £1.50 on 2 x 750g tomato sauce
16th August – £1.80 on stirfry stuff for dinner, £.98 on cereal
15th August – nothing!

I’ve been wanting to try quilting ever since my friend A showed me hers. She also told me about Anna Maria Horner. If you haven’t heard of Anna Maria and have a weakness for fabric, I’m warning you, don’t click this link! Anna Maria makes gorgeous fabrics and has a gorgeous family and a gorgeous life. She’s even been on Martha Stewart, for the love. It’s hard to find her fabrics here so I ordered an outrageous amount via the interwebs.

Today I took a beginner’s quilting class at Tikki, a cute patchwork shop in Kew. My Anna Maria fabrics seemed to be stuck in customs (curses!) but I discovered Tilda at Tikki and chose some some really pretty fabrics from her range. Ultimately my plan is to make a quilt for DSD’s room but in this course we worked on a cot size quilt to get the hang of things.

Here is a quick snap of my quilt top which is nearly finished. It is meant to be sort of random. (getting that look took some effort though!) The class was great but I’m worried that this was the easy part – assembling the quilt and finishing it seems a bit more daunting.

When I got home from my quilting class, I got another sewing project: making outfits for DSD’s collection of go go hamsters.

Despite this being a fidgity project, I’m actually quite pleased with the results. Fluffy is wearing the trimmed off bit of an Ikea curtain and Stinker and Winky are wearing my old jeans. Yes, Stinker has a collar so he can show off his fauxhawk.

Stay tuned for more on the quilting project!

This weekend we made an apron from the fabric I picked up at the most amazing haberdashery I’ve ever been to in my entire life.

I’m incredibly pleased with how this came out. Sure, there are some small mistakes, but all in all I think it is adorable. Plus we made it from scratch – no pattern!

This is obviously a kitchen apron. Does anyone know if there is some kind of spray I can put on this to make it stain resistant?

Thanks to Purl for helping us pick out the fabrics, which include the strawberries from Kokka Fabrics and dots from Lecien.