She's 21 Today, 21 Today

Last week I flew over to St Andrews, Scotland to celebrate Flicky's 21st birthday with her. Five days of fun with some of my kids is just the ticket when I'm missing home.

If you've never visited St Andrews, or Scotland for that matter, it's absolutely beautiful with tons of history but also quite bleak and very cold.  I've put together a few photo collages from the weekend.

 There was lots of food and drink and a fab spa day at the Fairmont resort.

My son, Joe and his partner Katie joined us and, as it was their first visit to St Andrews, we did the touristy bit showing them around the town.

The University

The Castle...

...don't you love a loo with a view? (centre pic below)

and crawling through the tunnels underneath the castle was a lot of laughs too, though I think there were moments when we were laughing just so we didn't cry.

The Cathedral

Love this selfie of us all at the top of the Cathedral Tower.

The Gin Tour

We also visited the local brewery and gin & whisky distillery, Eden Mill, where we may or may not have sampled four G&Ts each as part of the Gin Tour.

If you're a gin girl (or boy) I highly recommend the gin tour.  All the Eden Mill gins are abs delish, the guys at the Eden Mill were super friendly and I think you can tell from the pics we had a lot of fun there.

Eden Mill Gins

Original gin - citrus and seabuckthorn - forget the lime slice add some pink grapefruit

Love gin - tastes of berries and citrus - try it with raspberries

Oak gin - tastes of whisky - great with an orange slice

Golf gin - made using hickory (golf club wood)

Hop gin - tastes of beer - add a sizzling chilli slice

And on Sunday, Flicky's actual 21st birthday, there was even a birthday cake...

...with candles that Rob and Colin, Flicky's two housemates helped her blow out.

It was over all too soon but I was almost glad to get back to slightly warmer weather on the US east coast and slightly pained in the knowledge it'll soon be just as cold or colder here too.

Happy 21st Birthday Flicky xxx

If you'd like to read more about St Andrews you can click through to my previous posts on the images below:

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Off To Tokyo With A Hand Tied Snuggly: Free Tute

I'm off to Japan on Friday morning for several weeks.  The first week my husband is working so I'll be exploring Tokyo alone and maybe, just maybe, there'll be fabric involved at some stage ;D  Weeks two and three we're on vacation and travelling a little further to Mt Fuji, Nara, Kyoto, Osaka, Miyajima, Kurashiki and Hiroshima.  

As always tips, recommendations and coffee/lunch invitations are very welcome :D

While I'm in Tokyo I'm spending a day with one of my students from Manhattan who has recently returned home to Tokyo after seven years in NYC.  This was her wonderful leaving gift to me just a few weeks ago.

Since her arrival home, Aya has given birth to her first son and I've made this snuggly to give to her when we meet up.

I know the snuggly I made for my Grandson, Oliver, last year is a firm favourite so seemed like a good idea to make another.

Do you need a baby gift? - you really can't go wrong with a hand tied snuggly so I've put together a tute.

20" HAND TIED SNUGGLY TUTE 

Materials:

20" x 20" square flannel fabric

20" x 20" square Sherpa fleece

90" x 2-1/4" fabric for binding

matching or contrasting thread for sewing binding

matching or contrasting embroidery thread for hand tying (you'll need approx 5" thread for each tie)

Tools & Notions:

basting pins (or spray baste if you're happy using it for baby items)

embroidery needle

small scissors

measuring ruler/tape

Place flannel and Sherpa fleece squares wrong sides together and baste together ready for sewing.

Working With Minky

Notoriously difficult to work with, don't let the Minky backing put you off making this quilt,  follow my 5 Step Guide To A Perfect Minky Quilt Back.

Zig zag around all four sides of fabric square - I use the widest zig zag stitch my machine can do - 5.5 mm.

  

Add binding using your favourite binding method.  I'm machine sewing my binding so I've sewn the binding to the fleece side first (above pic) then turned the binding to the flannel side to do the final visible stitching.

I've used a blanket stitch to sew my binding in place - I'm a huge fan of using decorative stitches to machine sew the binding.  

Once the piece is bound it's time to finish with some hand tying.

Using a non-permanent marker, mark the chosen tying points on your snuggly.  

For a 20" x 20" snuggly there's three good hand tying options:

9 x 5" apart ties; 

16 x 4" apart ties;

and 25 x 3-1/3" apart ties.

It's useful to know that creating each tie uses approx 5" embroidery yarn but the final choice obviously is yours and for a tute within a tute here's my technique for 

HOW TO HAND TIE A QUILT

To start: 

Thread your embroidery needle with embroidery yarn that's twice the length from your hand to your elbow (that's the longest pull you can physically achieve, helps prevent knotting from too long a length of thread and stops thread becoming damaged from passing too many times through fabric during sewing).

Tying Steps:

1: From the top of the quilt put the needle through all the quilt layers at your marked tying point - leave a 2" thread tail on the quilt top.

2: Bring your needle back up through all the quilt layers approx 1/8" from the first needle entry point.

3: Ensure there's still a 2" thread tail visible at the first needle entry point.

4: Put the needle back into the first entry point again and passing the needle through all the quilt layers.

5: Bring the needle back up again through the same return point as in Step 2.  Don't pull the thread tight through the quilt, leave a small loop of thread visible on the top side of the quilt.

6: Pass the needle through the raised loop on top of the quilt...

7: ...this ensures the tie is fully tied together and not simply looped through the fabric.

8: Pull the tie ends until the tie lies flat against the quilt - it should be firm but not overly tight causing the fabric to pucker (unless, of course, this is the effect you want to achieve).

9: Tie the thread ends into a knot.

10: Add another knot - creating a double knot.

11: Ensure knot is firmly fastened and lying snuggly against quilt surface.

12: Trim both thread ends to chosen length - I like a 1" length, I think if the knot was to loosen at this length it is less likely to come undone than if it were shorter.

The flannel's from my stash, I don't think it's available anymore - Quilting Treasures: Poky Little Puppy and the Sherpa fleece is a 5 mm ivory, also from my stash.

Snuggly Pattern Available In 3 Sizes

  

I love to see what you make from my tutes so if you do make a hand tied snuggly please share your photos with me on my Facebook page or Instagram using the #madebyChrissieD hashtag.  You can also add them to my made by ChrissieD & my Flickr group or you can email them to me and I'll share them on your behalf. 

Update at March 2016:

Aya sent me this photo of her son, Yu with his hand-tied snuggly, it makes my heart sing and he's just gorgeous :D

Made by You:

Here're some images of snugglies 'made by you' using my tutorial.  

Thanks for contacting me, it's such fun to see how others interpret my tutes - Chris :D

20" HAND TIED SNUGGLY TUTE 

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