Finger Pin Cushion Tute

Towards the end of September I got together with Susie, my friends, Ivete and Andrea, owners of the brand new online fabric store Gotham Quilts - (if you haven't visited their website I highly recommend you head over there, as soon as you've finished reading this of course!) and Nancy to celebrate Nancy's birthday.  Anyone who frequents The City Quilter knows Nancy - she's the store's resident fabric guru, doll maker and felting genius, in fact, there's not much that's crafty she's not a guru on!

Here's a pic of me with Nancy at Rhinebeck New York State Sheep and Wool Festival enjoying apple pie!

We decided we'd all make handmade gifts for Nancy and I came up with the idea of making 3 small items using some of the French General Petite Odile fabric I had left over from making my Daddy's Little Girl sampler quilt.

So I made a tiny fabric pot using my own Stacking Basket tute;

I trimmed a hand towel with this fussy cut section of Petite Odile fabric - don't you just love the vintage costumes and toys?; and

I made this finger pin cushion.

Nancy loved her gifts and especially the finger pin cushion - in fact, everyone loved the finger pin cushion so I thought I'd share how to make one, they're sooooo easy - like 15 mins max!

Finger Pin Cushion Tute

• 1 x 4.5" fabric square

• Right sides together fold in half diagonally.

• Using a 1/4" seam stitch along two raw edges leaving a small gap for turning and stuffing.

• Turn and stuff and hand stitch gap closed.

• Pull the two longest points round to meet each other and overlap slightly - good to try on your finger at this point to see how far to overlap these two points. You can custom make a perfect fit though it's not essential, it can be a kind of 'one size fits most' project.

• Hand stitch overlapped points into place.

Go on make a whole bunch and see if you get the 'I have to have one' reaction I did!

Happy Birthday Nancy :D

Here's another one I made too - small prints are so cute on these finger pincushions.  You can see more pics here

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Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

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Pillows Or Cushions, Zippers Or Zips - Whatever, It Was A Great Class!

Yesterday I finished teaching my Hidden Zipper Quilted Pillow class at The City Quilter in Manhattan (oh dear, do you have any idea how hard it is for me to type that? It's a cushion and a zip and always will be for me, you can take the girl out of England and all that!!!).

It was a two session class - the first class we quilted the cushion front and second class we created the zip backing and completed the cushion.

Loved every minute, such a great group of ladies and here's a round up of the pics

Andrea

Erica

I got Erica to lift the flap so you can see the zip.

Jo (who doesn't like having her pic taken ;D)

Linda

Trudy

Everyone adapted the pattern to suit themselves - the direction and width of the quilting, fabrics and thread used and Trudy very successfully added piping to her cushion as well as using the most difficult fabric and thread!  With more fabrics already chosen, cut out and even quilted I know there'll be plenty more cushions from these ladies very, very soon - Andrea actually finished two cushions in class but I forgot to snap a pic of her second one.

And here's the obligatory line up of all our work, including my What's Your Hobby? class sample, You're all stars and I'm super proud, hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did :D

Can't finish without saying thanks to Jo for supplying Whole Foods Chocolate Chip cookies at each session - I really wish she wouldn't because then I have to eat them ;D and also to Linda who bought this pressie for my new Grandson Oliver to the second session and made me fill up with happy tears.

If you'd like to see more pics from the class click through to the store's Facebook photo album for the class and you can click through on the icon below to find out about more of my upcoming and past classes :D

 

 

 
     

Amy Butler Talks Fabric

Last weekend Quilters Take Manhattan came to, well, Manhattan!  It's the busiest weekend of the year at my LQS, The City Quilter, so it's all hands to help on the shop floor meaning I don't get to actually attend the event anymore.  It's not all bad news, I do get to meet all the quilty names that drop by the store to teach classes, give talks, meet up, etc.

This last weekend was no exception - in fact, it was marvellous - and the absolute best bit was that I got to nip over to FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) to meet Amy Butler, escort her back to the store, then host the Saturday afternoon Amy Butler Talks Fabric event.

Amy was, as anticipated, super lovely - and very understanding when I apologised for taking a 5-second peep at my mobile phone to see if my Grandson had been born as my DIL was in labour!  As it was he kept us waiting a further 3 hours!!!

Anyway, time to share with you the pics I took on behalf of The City Quilter during Amy's talk.  

 The Glow Trunk Show collection

Piecing, quilting and ribbon embellishment

Check out the handles on this incredible tote - a fab reuse of one of Amy's leather belts.

Beautiful surface detail and texture.

Ocean Wave Knit Pillow - made with Glow Knit fabric.

that knit fabric is super soft

Amy showing off her Glow Voile Quilt with a little help from the artist and designer Luke Haynes - made with Glow Voile and solid ivory voile.  Read more about my workshop with Luke Haynes here.

The back of the Glow Voile quilt

The Glow House Quilt - pattern designed by Lucy Fazely.

Amy's dress matches her projects!!! - If you love it like I do the pattern is from the I Am Cute Dresses book by Sato Watanabe.

A close up of Amy's Glow House quilt.

Eye candy everywhere!!!

Amy talked us through her design process from concept to fabric production to sales point.

And that's me with Amy - Amy's soooo tall (and I'm not!), in this pic I'm on my tip toes and Amy's bending down!!!

If you'd like to see more pics from the event you can follow this link through to the store's Facebook photo album

What a great weekend :D

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my sidebar :D

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.