Chevron Quilt Tutorial

I have been eyeing chevron (zigzag) quilts for a while now and the immanent arrival of my sisters baby gave me a great excuse to try this kind of quilt. I could also use plenty of the fabric left over from my Polaroid Quilt.
I looked for tutorials online but struggled a bit to understand them, so I thought I would add a quick bit of help for anyone who would like to make a similar zigzag quilt.

Chevron Quilt Tutorial:

To start I chose 2 contrasting fabrics, a white and a blue stripe cotton. Cut them into squares. 

Lay the fabrics on top of each other with the right sides facing each other. Then draw a pencil line from corner to corner. Trust me, you want to draw this line- I have tried eyeballing it, it it is waaaay too hard. 

Now, sew two straight seams on either side of the pencil line. I used the edge of my presser foot to guide me to keep the stitches parallel with the pencil line. I have done it in red thread to make it easier for you to see:

Cut down the pencil line to create two triangles:

Open out the triangles to form squares again. I ironed them open and I trimmed the corners to make them square. I don't think this is strictly necessary but it helped me to then start treating them as one piece.

And this is where it gets interesting. In the next two photo's I've shown you how these two triangles add together to form the pattern.

Lol! So, I only made 1 set of triangles but I used a bit of Gimp photo magic to show you how this all fits together to make the quilt:

And on to the quilt shots: (What a kind husband/clothes line!)

It was pretty overcast (yay UK!), so the colours are a bit odd but here is a close up of the quilt itself.

I used a lazy binding which is simply awesome. I folded over the backing towards the front quilt piece. (It's like wrapping a present but you fold it over from the back, making nice corners with an iron). I then top stitched the whole lot down. It saved me from the inevitable heartache of fighting with binding and is MUCH neater than I have ever achieved.

I used a deep red spotty fabric for the reverse and added my own label so the baby will know its from me in years to come.

I really like the spotty fabric as a backing because it shows off the quilting I did in the ditch of the seams: 

Thanks husband! No need to look so scary ;)

Leave a comment if you have any questions on how to make this type of quilt. It comes together far faster than expected and it feels awesome to see it take shape.

Happy Quilting!

Plush Dinosaur with Sewing Pattern

Finally the long awaited stuffed/plush dinosaur (brontosaur (Apatosaurus) vs diplodocus continues!) tutorial with sewing pattern! I've wanted a dino plushie/stuffie for a long time so I made three! :)

Edit: Click here to see Dino's people have made with this tutorial. Thanks everyone!

For this project you will need:

• Paper pattern pieces cut from the Stuffed Dinosaur sewing pattern Page 1 of 2 and Stuffed Dinosaur sewing pattern Page 2 of 2. To print properly to a full A4 you need to Download the images then print them. Each of these pattern pieces is an A4 or standard letter size sheet. Join the sheets along the dotted line and cut the pattern pieces. A seam allowance of 0.5cm (1/4 inch) is given, add more if you like.
• Fabric- I used good old quilting cotton here but any non-stretchy material will do, although heavier upholstery type fabrics will be harder to turn right side out. Use a fun contrasting fabric for the scales along the back or even a multitude of colours.
• 1 pair safety eyes- these are easy to find in craft store, fabric stores and on the net but you could replace them with felt eyes, fabric paint eyes, buttons etc.
• Stuffing- I used fibre fill but old pillow stuffing, sewing scraps etc could be substituted
• Scissors
• Thread

To begin:
Cut all your pattern pieces like so-
Note the blue scales at the bottom are two pieces of fabric each. For the scales I used three of the larger scales, two of the medium and one of the smallest. Remember to cut two of the sides of the bodies and only 1 of the underside of the body. You'll need four of the circles for the pads of the feet.

With the fabric wrong sides together, sew the all scales along four sides only, leaving the bottom edge unsewn to enable turning right side out, as shown below:

This seam allowance is only 0.5 of a cm else the scales get too bulky. At each corner snip away the fabric as shown so that the corners are pointy when we turn them right sides out.

Turn all the scales right sides out (and press with an iron if you wish) and place to one side.

Next take the underside of the body piece and fold the leg sections towards the middle of the piece. Then sew a shallow arc as shown in the photo- this will enable the legs to stand underneath the body instead of splaying out to the side. Do this for each leg. Do not worry if there is not very much left of the "belly" material left. It'll work.

 Next by matching up the leg pieces and starting at the feet sew the underside of the body to the side of the body. Note- DO NOT sew up the bottom of the feet. The photo below shows the three seams- front leg to chin, back of front leg to front of back leg and finally back leg to underside tail. Also note that the underside body only reaches to the chin and stops before the end of the tail.

Sew the other side body to the piece created above using the same method of starting at one of the legs. Here is a detail shot of what should happen at the the tail. It looks very similar at the chin. DO NOT at this stage sew along the back or around the head, Only sew the underside of the body to the side pieces. Not the side pieces to each other.

Another detail look at those legs before  sewing all together- as you can see the arcs on the lower body will make those legs sections shorter. That is OK! Since I can't regulate how shallow or deep your arcs will be this is variable so I made the legs the same length and you can trim them to the same length.

That is the underside of the body complete.

Take your scales and line them along your dinosaurs back. I placed mine largest to smallest.

Flip each of the scales towards the inside of the body, sandwiching each scale between the side body pieces. Pin these in place since they tend to move about.

I didn't get any photo's of the next few steps.
Sew the body closed by starting at the chest where the underside of the body piece ends, around the head and to the tail. The only opening should be the undersides of the feet. Sew three of the four feet circles into three of the four leg tubes to complete them. For help on this see "Making the Feet" in the Baby Elephant Tutorial. Use the remaining open foot to turn the dinosaur the right way around.
At this point  I loosely stuff just the head to get a feel for it and mark where I want the eyes to be. Then I remove the stuffing and insert the safety eyes according to their instructions. You can skip this step if painting or sewing on the eyes later
Beginning at the head and tip of the tail stuff the dinosaur firmly. If he is too soft his neck will flop from side to side. Once the stuffing is completed sew the last foot pad circle into the last open leg to close it.
That's it! Make an army of colourful dinosaurs and have a congratulatory cup of tea!
(The dino on the left was my prototype is a slightly different shape)

Please leave me a comment if you liked this project or, if you've made one, I'd love a link and perhaps I'll show it to everyone else in an update! Happy sewing!

PS Two of these Dinosaurs are available in the Little Black Teapot Shop 

Edit: Here is a quick sketch of how I close up the seams that are left using a whip stitch:
The "right side" of the fabric is the patterned side and the wrong is the other side. I have shown where the thread goes using dots but the dotty art will not be seen.
Hope this helps :) 

Single Sock Dog Update

Single Sock Puppy is a favourite of the peeps who visit here and so I thought I'd add two photo's that people have been kind enough to send me of their versions of the puppy.
First from Emma over at http://emmalm.wordpress.com:
She made a standard one and then a dragon from the same idea. Love it!

These three were made by http://www.cutoutandkeep.net user Kantia and her daughter and a friend.
She was kind enough to repeat my tutorial for a single sock puppy on the website and show other users her results

Pam over at http://pamandmatt.blogspot.com kindly pointed me to hers in my comments. One is a mouse but I think he is super cute!

Thank you to everyone who visits and posts comments! It really helps to know that people are positive about my/our work and that I'm part of such a bright and vibrant community :)

Quick and Simple Snack Bag Tutorial

So here is a project that is supposed to be super quick and easy to satisfy a need. What need? Well! I like to buy the larger packs of snack etc because it's cheaper than lots of single helpings. However, these packs are not very easy to handle- trying to reseal a large pack of biscuits with an elastic band in a moving car on a road trip is not fun! The second need is very simple. If you give me a new packet of biscuits in a car I won't stop and will eat them all! This way I can portion out only a few and car trips can cease being a weight-gain fest...

These bags are easy to squeeze into the small spaces left when we've crammed the car for holiday and are wipe clean (but can be turned inside out and really washed if required). They also satisfy me eco-conscience because I'm not constantly buying plastic bags and containers.

I  made some of these for an expectant mum and they went down really well! She has plans to use them for damp flannels to wipe dirty faces, sterilized pacifiers etc.

To begin:

We will need 

• Fabric- 1 window piece 20cm (8inches) by 24cm (9 and a half inches) and 1 back piece 20cm (8inches) by 20cm (8inches).
• Clear plastic 2 pieces to the same dimensions as the fabric. (A note: I had the plastic left over from a clear plastic table cloth protector but you can buy this type of plastic in smaller amounts too. If you're willing to sacrifice the display window you can even fuse some plastic bags together to create the lining)
• Hook and loop tape (velcro) about 8cm (3inches)
• Bias binding (this can be avoided if you serge/overlock the edges instead)
• Scissors
• Thread

 First, let's cut the window. Take the larger piece and cut a hole in the bottom half of about 8x8cm (3x3inches). Try and centre the window with and equal amount of space on the sides and the bottom. NOTE: Do not do like I did and get so excited about cutting the window that I cut it so the pattern is facing the wrong way! Doh! now my skull pirates are upside down :(
Next cut a 1.5cm (half inch) diagonal at the corners of your window like in the photo below:

 At this point you could iron the folds inwards - but this project is DO EASY. So it's not necessary if you don't want to crack out the iron and speed and instantaneous gratification are more your thing!

Here's is a close up of the corners for clarity:

 Next, sew the smaller back fabric piece to it's corresponding plastic backing with the right side of the fabric facing away from the plastic. It can be helpful to sew with the fabric side on your feed dogs (the little feet that move the fabric forward under your presser foot.) The plastic can get stuck on these whereas I found the plastic slid happily under my presser foot.

 Again- this project is about speed and ease. Don't worry if it's not too straight (see below), I include a chop off your mistakes step!

 Now, on one of the short 20cm (8inch) sides fold the fabric-plastic sandwich over twice to make a finished edge. Like this:

 On the same edge, sew one of the pieces of velcro:

That's the small back piece done! tea time!

OK. Now take the larger front fabric piece and sew to it's plastic counterpart with the right side of the fabric facing away from the plastic. Once this is done it is easy to fold back the window flaps under the fabric outer and sew down (I used a zigzag stitch).

 Close up:

 The inside now looks like this:

 Take the small back piece and the front piece and sew together with wrong (plastic) sides facing. See the yellow stitching below. Remember the top of the back piece will take extra strain at the seams so sew further than the edge.

 Your bag should now look something like this:

Trim off the pesky not-lining-up bits! This also makes adding the binding easier since it removes the bulk inside the binding's fold.

Sew around the whole outside with the binding. There are many tutorials online for sewing on the binding (from the easy fold in half, set machine to massive zigzag and go for it! to the sew one side then the other. Do whichever suits you)

 At this point sew on the other bit of velcro to the plastic side, on the flap of the front piece.

 That's it! Admire your work

 Fill with treats (optional: munch treats immediately after sewing bag!)

 Make more!

Leave a comment below and tell me how you used your bag or point me to photo's of yours!