the joy is in the planning: star block baby quilt

I'd not made a quilt for quite some time (over two years ago in fact!) and stitching this one reminded me of how much I enjoy it, the sewing and quilting yes, but actually it's the planning I love the most - figuring out which blocks to stitch, how many I might need, what fabrics to use, how big the quilts needs to be - it's all very satisfying.

I gave this latest quilt to its teeny recipient on Saturday as a christening present, I hope they liked it :)  I made a similar star block quilt for his sister three years ago and I thought it'd be cool to replicate the design albeit in different colours.

It took about 4 months to complete, but I really did take my time with it, and, like I say, I probably went a bit over board in my planning stages.

There's not much else to say really, it was great fun to sew and because it's a baby quilt it was very manageable under the machine and not unwieldy to quilt by hand. Another friend is having a baby in about two weeks so I'm tempted to start another one but I might need to replenish my fabric stash, any excuse for fabric shopping :)

Me Made May

For the last three of years I've seen lots of sewing bloggers partake in Me Made May, which, for those who don't know, is when people wear an item of clothing made by their own fair hands everyday in May and post it (yay!) on instagram, twitter, blogs etc inspiring and encouraging more people to do the same. This year (and it might be every year) it was also linked in with #whomademyclothes creating awareness about where your clothes come from and the conditions in which they are manufactured. This year I was dead set on taking part but quickly discovered that 1. I didn't fit into most of the dresses I had made myself. 2. I just didn't have enough 'everyday'/work appropriate stuff I could wear. So, not to be defeated, I set myself my own challenge: wear 3 me made items every week...

Week one: knitted jumper, 2 x zippy tops (sans zips)

Week two: zippy top, pastille dress

Week three: self drafted summery top, zippy top, pj bottoms (I stopped taking crappy mirror pics at this point because, let's be honest, they're not great are they?)

Week four: pj bottoms, scout tee, self drafted jersey tee

As you can see, I didn't quite manage it BUT it has taught me that if I want to participate in next year's Me Made May (and I do!) I gotta up my game. I need more casual items of clothing.  I need to try more patterns (my Me Made May would've fallen apart without the zippy tee). And lastly, I need some skirts and dresses! Compared to the beginning of the year when I had about two handmade tees, I've now got quite a selection but only one work appropriate work dress; it's time to get sewing and I've got my eye on the Fen Dress :)