Teddy Bears

As part of our Oranje quilters guild outreach program, we donate teddy bears to one of our local hospitals annually.  Great was my surprise when I discovered that I could stitch up 10 different bears with all the embroidery designs I have.  I bought some polar fleece and started stitching and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

All the bears were made in the hoop with the only hand stitching being done was closing up the opening where the bears were stuffed.

The teddy bear on the left is from Bee Stitchin Embroidery , the centre one is from Baby Embroidery Shop and Little Ted on the right is a free design from Kreative Kiwi Embroidery

These 2 beauties are also available for free from Kreative Kiwi Embroidery

Boy and girl teddy bears from Oma's Place

Ofnah's bear

This adorable bear is from the big footed collection of Dolls and Daydreams

and last but not least, this beautiful Flower Teddy from Louisa Meyer Originals which I embroidered on bridal satin.

This was so much fun.  

Ironing mat / carry bag

During August's group meeting of our quilting group, we made a carry bag for our iron which, when opened up, convert into an ironing mat, perfect for going to classes, retreats etc.

The bag

My cute little travel iron

Snug as a bug inside the carry bag.

And opened up

The inside

and the outside.

Above is a photo of my different irons depicting just how small the traveling iron is.

I decorated my bag with some buttons of which I have loads.  Below are my containers containing all my embellishments, the top one for beads, buttons etc. the next one lace, ribbon etc. and the bottom big one packed with fat quarters.

I do not have a big stash of fabrics as I usually only buy fabric per project.

This was a very satisfying project as I only had to add the binding and buttons after our group meeting.  Not another UFO in the making.  

Now on to making some teddy bears for our guild's end of the year outreach.

Scrap quilt 3

The quilt is finished well in advance of the end of October and I am pretty pleased with the outcome. I was able to construct a border out of the scraps as well.

  

Stack and cut squares jacket - complete

 The jacket I wrote about in this post, is finally complete and I am really happy with the final product.

Scrap Quilt 2

I stitched another 13 blocks for a total of 25 - enough for a lap size quilt after sasching and border is added.  There is a total of 20 designs in the set, so only 5 blocks were duplicated, but with the quilt being so busy, it is nearly impossible to see which 5 blocks are similar.

I was originally going to zig zag the blocks together and gift the quilt, but my husband wants the quilt for his Bowls club to use for fundraising.  And he wants sasching and borders added.  Oops.  If I had known that beforehand, I wouldn't have stitched the satin stitch border as it will now be inside the sasching.  But I must say the sasching between the blocks does calm it down considerably. 

After stitching the first 12 blocks, I decided to combine the meandering to the pattern and not do it free hand afterwards, so the blocks is totally finished when it is taken out of the frame.  This meant I had to put the first 12 back in the frame and added it to the finished blocks.  It luckily went smooth with no hiccups.

With all these blocks done, there is a little dent in my scrap stash, so I might continue with another one at a later stage.  This one must be finished by the end of October though.  

Some of the fabric went really far and I was able to use it in all of the blocks to keep a little continuity throughout.  I used a little of the sasching fabric also in the blocks, so the only thing I have to figure out is what to do for a border.  I really enjoyed this and was able to use really small bits and skinny strips which would have had otherwise no use. 

The designs are from Molly Mine and available here.

Scrap Quilt

Over the years since I started quilting in 2010 I thought from time to time about making a quilt from all the scraps left over from all the different quilts as I just can't get it over my heart to throw fabric away.  So I kept all the tiny pieces and when I saw this design set from Molly Mine I knew this was exactly what I needed.

I started last week and finished 12 blocks of 7" square thus far.

Although the stitching time on the machine shows approximately 20 minutes, each block takes about 2 hours.  I add the batting and backing before stitching the satin stitching around the block, so the block is all done when I take it out of the hoop ready for free motion stitching.

This quilt will be gifted when done.  

Dog bed

After languishing the whole winter in front of the fire, I finally started doing some stitching. At our monthly quilting meeting I am busy working on my Stack and cut squares jacket (see this post) which is progressing well. My 84 year old Mother was in hospital for a month with cellulitis and heart problems which also kept me occupied, but I am hopefully back on track again.

Our small dogs loves to keep me company in the office during the day whilst I am working, so I decided to stitch a bed for them.  The stuffing was made from the covers of our new lounge set which we bought in 2020.   They have been sleeping on the covers but manage to scratch it all over the place, so they now have a nice bed to nap on.

The completed bed.

Jack Russell, Mica (15 years old), could not wait to try it out.