hattie the rabbit

do you ever make something and just fall madly in love with it? i am seriously in love with my latest finished project! 

so i'd like to introduce you to hattie the rabbit :) ooh isn't she just soo cute?! and i had soo much fun stitching her together. she is made with this pattern by alicia paulson

she is all hand-stitched, which if you know me i do not like hand-stitching at all! but hattie was worth it!

hattie loves to explore and loves playing with fabric (of course) she loves flowers and pretty dresses, she's not really girl-y but likes lots of girl-y stuff! but...

...her absolute favourite thing to do is climb trees and go on adventures, but she wishes she knew how to tie her shoe laces so she doesn't keep tripping over them on her adventures!

i used the kit to make her but instead of using the liberty fabric to make her dress and ears i used my absolute favourite print from wild and free by maureen cracknell i think i will be making many more dresses for her for all the seasons!

it wasn't one of the easier projects i've done, just because it's all hand sewn and i had to learn all the stitches (but seriously how fun is blanket stitch?) i'm glad i persevered and finished her, because she is just too cute to be left sitting in the big pile of all my other unfinished projects!

rachael x

linking up with fabric tuesday

today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic

i love craft-y books! and when i saw that amy from nanacompany had a book coming out i was beyond excited! i couldn't wait and just HAD to get an advanced copy from nanacompany etsy shop (it officially comes out in april!)

there are sooo many adorable projects, but i knew i had to make the cutest bear cushion first! and i couldn't just make one! i think my next project will be the jam-jar pincushion.

see? i told you they were cute! i first started making a super-girly pretty one (using the same fabrics as my hexies) and in the middle of making it, my bundle of hello, bear! arrived, so how could i not make a bear cushion with bear fabric, perfect right?

it is such a fun pattern to make and we all know how much i love to make cushions they are just soo cute! i also had so much fun taking pictures today, i love that the better weather is coming (i'm one of those people that likes to talk about the weather!)

oh and how lovely are my three bird pictures by ashleigh bickerstaff! my desk will be getting its own blog post soon

i have listed the super pretty teddy cushion in my etsy shop

you can find the listing here

rachael x

linking up with fabric tuesday

how high does the sycamore grow?

oh how i love pretty fabrics! playing with them, rearranging them and coming up with the perfect project. 

milk, sugar & flower ahh it's sooo adorable! those little birds might be my favourite! add in a little pam kitty garden and some 1930's repro's and you've got the sweetest little bundle! 

i didn't have a project in mind for these fabrics, but when they arrived they just screamed 'hexagons!' and super cute fabric deserves super cute {smiley} hexagons from wild olive! this is going to be a slow project for when it all gets too 'busy' that i can pick up and set down easily.

this fabric is perfect for fussy cutting! i have never english paper pieced (EPP) before but after reading lots of tutorials and watching lots of videos i finally started. and it's fun! ( i usually don't like hand-sewing) now i just have to figure out how to sew them together all nice and pretty :)

linking up with sunday stash

rachael x

layers of charm - a {free} quilt pattern

i am so happy to participating in the fat quarter shops new layers of charm quilt-y blog hop. remember ages ago i was doing some secret sewing? well today i get to share what i was making! 

this is such a cute and easy quilt to make, all it takes is one layer cake and one charm pack, and the best part! there is no cutting required *yay* the hardest part of making the quilt is choosing the fabrics!

i chose the boat house by sweetwater and a blue bella solids charm pack and i think they go so well together! i really like the whole nautical theme of the fabrics (and i had way too much fun taking quilt-y pictures with the boats!) i quilted with a big stipple because i thought it looked like waves (see the nautical theme again)

it is the perfect pattern to make over a weekend while watching movies! i watched how to train your dragon 2 while piecing, frozen while quilting and the lego movie while binding, that's how quick it goes together and that is with regular instagram breaks as well :) perfect! 

if you fancy having a go at this great pattern hop on over and have a look at the youtube video to see how it's made! and then grab a layer cake and get sewing :) it is a really good beginner quilt!

thanks for stopping by!

rachael x

: : hibernating : :

hello! i am slowly coming out of my christmas hibernation, did everybody have a good break? i did absolutely nothing and it was wonderful, after a busy few weeks at college and home it was nice to simply potter about the house and do things at a leisurely pace (mainly watching movies and eating cake!)

i'm going to try and be super organised this year! so i treated myself to an erin condren planner and it is just beyond amazing! and also super adorable! i already feel more organised just having it! also this is going to be my motto this year 'believe you can and you will' this year i'm going to believe in myself and not doubt everything and that i CAN do this!

how fun are paint chips? i am cutting lots and lots of triangles to make a big doodle-y, colourful forest. i am having so much fun playing with the layout and patterns. this is the first stage, hopefully the rest of my idea will work. oh and how cute is that 'R' banner made by the lovely ink and bobbin!

i haven't touched my sewing machine in 4 weeks! but i fixed that on monday night. it is so bloomin' cold (actually i love this type of weather) it had me digging out my hot water bottle and it drastically needed a new cover. so with this brilliant pattern (seriously so easy! and even more easy if you read it properly and don't have to unpick lots) and some super cute unicorn fabric (i just stashed 5 yards of it!) i had a new pretty cover for my hot water bottle! after seeing mine, my mum has already picked fabrics for hers! 

and i'm having a little sale in my etsy shop, use coupon code JANUARY25 to get 25% off (expires 31st january). i've been having a wee think about my 'business' and i've decided i'm going to change a couple of things around *exciting* so watch this space!

rachael x

flutterby mini quilt - winged blog tour

hello! and welcome to my stop on the winged blog tour by bonnie christine! i'm so happy to be taking part today and if you don't know bonnie you need to go and follow her at her blog going home to roost. 

today i'm going to show you what i made with this wonderful fabric. bonnie generously sent us 4 fat quarters (and wow! it was super hard choosing only four!) there are two colourways and i decided to mix them together to make a mini quilt featuring the butterflies (and the perfect purple)

{fluttering up the garden fence}

{this little one is my favourite}

i had so much fun with this project! when i saw the butterflies fabric i knew i just had to make them a feature! i used the garden fence block by hyacinth quilt designs and fussy-cut the butterflies for the centres. my idea was to have the butterflies fluttering around in the garden, so i cut out the rest of the butterflies and sketch-stitched them on top of my quilted top and ta-dah! a flutterby in the garden mini quilt!

be sure to follow along with the tour, all the makes are so lovely!

rachael x

: : a study in pretty

today is a lovely autumn day, you know the kind where it's sunny but also wonderfully cold, i love these types of days and it's the perfect kind of day to take some quilt pictures!

while i was taking my pictures i had a little dander around the garden, all the trees are bare and it's all quite brown, but there are some spots of colour left and i think they are a little bit magical, the colours of autumn are my favourite!

i have always wanted to be able to do 'pretty' in my quilts (like nanacompany and pretty by hand) but they never seem to turn out quite 'right' so this quilt is my *a study in pretty* (any sherlock fans out there? study in pink?)

i went to my fabric closet and started pulling lots of different prints in the low volume/pink/vintage-y category, i was going to choose white for my background triangles, but while i was searching through my fabric i came across a few yards of the stone-y coloured polka-dot by bonnie and camille and thought it went  better with the look than the white would have.

this quilt involved a lot of unpicking and i would say it's probably the hardest quilt i have made! and because i like to be different, i decided to add in a few patchwork hexagons (i seriously want to patchwork all the things at the minute) i think they might be my favourite part of the quilt! 

i used a cute little butterfly print (that totally looks like spools of thread) for the back. it's a print from flo's garden (i think) and it fell into the low volume/pink/vintage-y category, so it was the perfect match.

on nearly all of my quilts i do a stipple or swirly loops, this time i wanted to try something different and since i was completely out of my comfort zone anyway, i decided to go for a continuous figure of eight quilting. i used this tutorial by stitched in color which i highly recommend if you fancy trying it! there was a few blips but once you get into the rhythm of it it is really enjoyable.

i'm not sure i really achieved the 'pretty' look that i was going for, but i'm really happy that i went out of my comfort zone and tried something different (especially the patchwork hexagons *love*) all the triangles now has me wanting to make a triangle quilt!

rachael x

linking up with fabric tuesday

...oh and you can find the wonderful pattern here