Let’s Get Acquainted Blog Hop Day

Hi, in case we haven’t met, I’m Janine and I’m delighted to welcome you to Let’s Get Acquainted Blog Hop Day at Rainbow Hare Quilts! I have five grown up children, a dog, a sheep, rabbits, chickens and ducks and I live with my husband in the beautiful Sussex countryside (UK). We grow all our own vegetables and try to be as self sufficient as possible (I think in the US this is called homesteading). I would say that I sew in my spare time but if I only sewed when I had time, I’d never sew anything!
I’d like to thank Beth from Plum and June for organising this fab event. It includes the Blog Hops every Tuesday and Thursday + an Avice for New Bloggers Series, a Let’s Figure it Out Together series and Monday Link Up. Oh and some flickr groups! I really don’t know where she gets all her energy from but do visit her and keep up as best you can. She’s fast building a wonderful resource of all things quilt and blog related.

My blog mate today is Jamie from Sweet Baby Jamie, so do go and check out her post, and, in case you’ve missed them Tuesday’s Hop posts this week were from:

Katie from Kati’s Quilting
Claire from Sewing over Pins
Caroline from Quilting in the Cold

This is my first Blog Hop so I’ll follow the suggested format.

Firstly, here is a flickr mosaic of some of the things I’ve made:
 

1. Union Jack Quilt 1, 2. Checkerboard finished, 3. my first ever quilt, 4. blue whirl quilt front 1, 5. ruby butterfly front, 6. scrap quilt, 7. Sasanka: Marked with the Hare, 8. from the heart, 9. SAM_2091, 10. drunkarks path, 11. SAM_2160, 12. SAM_2144, 13. SAM_2263, 14. SAM_2271, 15. SAM_2139, 16. corn godess, 17. brown hare in tree 1, 18. 3 cushions pile, 19. table runner nearly done front, 20. rose stripe cushion

Secondly, here my responses to a few questions:

– How long have you been quilting

About a year, although I used to do a lot a dress making and I taught knitting and embroidery to Junior School children.
– Favorite quilting tip(s)
Practical – Wind lots of bobbins before you start quilting and use basting spray! Philosophical – Everything will be all right in the end. If it isn’t all right, it’s not the end!
– Favorite blogging tip(s)
The first duty of a blog is to make it’s owner happy. Don’t let blogging become a chore.
– Favorite fabric (or wish list fabric)
Trade Winds is my favourite print range at the moment but, as a rule I LOVE solids.
– Favorite craft book
Not technically a Craft Book, The War of Art is a great encouragement to stop procrastinating and get on and create!
– Favorite book (or book you are currently reading)
I’m an avid and compulsive reader so I could go on forever here…if you haven’t read it, I’d encourage you to read A Room of One’s Own
– Favorite children’s book
Again, I could go on forever! I think Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep (by Eleanor Farjeon)  is an especially lovely book and it’s set not far from my house.
– Favorite quilting tool
Rotary cutter.
– Favorite music to listen to while quilting/Favorite TV show while hand stitching
I don’t watch TV or listen to music much but I’m a big fan of TED
– Binding – by hand or by machine?

Hand so far…
– If I’d only known – what you wish you knew about blogging before you started your blog
There are some things it’s just as well I didn’t know before I started blogging like how addictive it is and how it can become a virtually full time job! Neither did I realize how much I’d enjoy it though – how many wonderful, encouraging and inspirational sewists I’d meet and how much it would motivate me to keep sewing, which I love.

Thirdly, here is my Tutorial:

The Princess and the Pea Pocket Cushion / Wall Hanging Part One – The Princess Pea Pocket Bed

Every little girl could use a cushion with a pocket – think tooth fairy, letters to santa, treasured possessions…But this quick and easy project could be just as easily adapted to make a wall hanging/ organiser. Although I’m using solids in this tutorial, it would be a perfect way of using up left over strips from other projects.

 
Ingredients:
 

1. Cushion Front/Background

1 x cushion pad 18″ square
2 x  20″ square fabric for cushion front 
1 x 20″ square wadding/batting

 

2. Mattresses
Top Pocket
1 x wadding/batting 7 1/2″ x 3″
1 x fabric 7 1/2″ x 4 1/2″
2 x fabric 7 1/2″ x 1 1/2″ strips


Lower Pocket

1 x wadding/batting 7 1/2″ x 4 1/2″
1 x fabric 71/2″ x 5 1/2″
3 x fabric 7 1/2″ x 1 1/2″ strips
1 x brown fabric 7 1/2″ x 1″

 

3. Bed Ends
1 x wadding/batting 10″ x 3/4″
1 x wadding/batting 9″ x 3/4″
1 x brown fabric 10 1/2″ x 2″

1 x brown fabric 9 1/2″ x 2″

 

4. Pea
1 x green button or bead
Method:
Use 1/4″ seam allowance throughout.
Cushion Front
Take your ingredients from 1. Cushion Front (above).
Make a quilt sandwich with 1 x 20″ square fabric placed with the right side facing down. Then your 1 x 20″ square wadding/batting. Then 1 x 20″ square fabric with right side facing up. Pin all three layers together and quilt as desired. 

 

Set this aside.
 
Mattresses

Take your ingredients from Top Pocket (above) and sew together as shown below.

this photo shows bottom unit sewn together (left) and top unit sewn together (right)

Press seams to one side. Then fold your unit in half wrong sides together, as shown below, and press.

photo, again, shows bottom unit (left) and top unit (right)

Open your unit and lay it right side down. Then place your 7 1/2″ x 3″ wadding so the top edge aligns with the pressed crease and the bottom edge is 1/4″ from lower edge of the fabric unit, as shown below.


Fold the top half of your fabric over the wadding. Pin and stich in the ditch between the coloured strips as shown below. Sew a line as close as you can to the open edge just to keep this edge stable for joining to the cushion front.

Take your ingredients from Lower Pocket (above) and make up as for Top Pocket. Make sure your 1 x brown fabric 7 1/2″ x 1″ strip is the last strip sewn.

photo, again, shows bottom unit (left) and top unit (right)

Set these aside.

 
Bed Ends
Take your ingredients from 3. Bed Ends (above).

Select you brown fabric strips. Fold them length-wise and sew across the short ends at the tops and bottoms. Fold right-side-out.

 

Carefully insert your wadding strips and press.

 



Set these aside.

 
Assembly:
Take your cushion front/background and position your top pocket 8″ from the bottom and 6 1/4″ from each side.

Flip downwards, pin and sew across the top edge. This will be the bottom edge of the pocket and is the yellow stripe in my example. [I’m sorry I’m sure I took a photo of this stage but it seems to have vanished!] Flip the pocket back up and pin, as shown, below.

Repeat this step with the lower pocket, aiming to slightly overlap the bottom of the top pocket.

 

 Align the raw edges of your bed ends with the raw edges of your pockets, pin and sew.

 

Tuck in the corners, as
shown.

Flip over the bed ends and pin.





Finally, sew down the open edge of the bed ends. There is quite a lot of thickness here so I’d recommend you either use a walking foot or hand sew these egdes. I decided to have a cup of tea and hand sew!

END OF PRINCESS AND PEA POCKET PART ONE
Part Two will follow in a week or so and will show how to make this up into a cushion and how to make a cloth doll princess. I will also beg, borrow or steal a button or bead to sew under the bottom mattress to be the pea by then! If you you have any questions, please email me.
I’m posting this on Wednesday night because I’m leaving at 6.00am tomorrow to work for four days at an Art Festival. Hopefully, I’ll have internet access in the evenings but, if not I’ll be back in blogland on Monday.
If you’ve read this far, Thank you, Have a lovely weekend and Happy Sewing!
———————————————————-

37 thoughts on “Let’s Get Acquainted Blog Hop Day”

  10. Books_Bound says:
    Reply

    I stumbled over your blog the other day thanks to your gorgeous Union Jack quilt! Nice to see you pop up on the Blog Hop, now that I'm finally catching up for this week. Your tutorial idea is adorable!

    Like

  12. Irene says:
    Reply

    It's nice to know more about you and your philosophy, and guess how you find enough time for all you do!
    That rainbow of mattresses is a great idea, can't wait to see the second part!

    Like

  14. Sarah Ashford says:
    Reply

    Hi there, what stunning quilts you sew, and all your own designs, they are just fabulous. The tutorial is great, looking forward to the next part :-) I have just received the Trade Winds collection int the post too, I ordered it as I couldn't resist it, it's so pretty! Have fun at the art show, that sounds very exciting. PS I used to live in Kent, yes Sussex is beautiful, it sounds like you have a busy, lovely life!

    Like

  19. Anne says:
    Reply

    Nice to meet you Janine. Love your Philosophical – Everything will be all right in the end. If it isn't all right, it's not the end! That's one to remember. I'm working on a TradeWinds quilt right now. Top finished but don't have backing yet. Keep an eye on my blog for the finished TradeWinds quilt.

    Like

  25. Marta says:
    Reply

    You're the first person on the hop who watches TED talks while sewing! :) Don't you love them? I always learn so much and feel so inspired after watching. Great tutorial, too.

    Like

I love to receive your comments and, where possible, I will respond by email and visit your blog. I will manually approve your first comment on this site to help avoid spammers :)

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.