After having fun making the mini quilt for the Maileg bunny and creating her a handmade outfit, I decided to make something for my little boy to play with. I'd ordered some flex foam to make a laptop case for myself, but whilst cutting it out (it still isn't sewn together!) I realised how versatile this foam is and it gave me lots of ideas for how to use it to make toys. My first idea was to make a little tent for a Maileg explorer mouse and it worked really well. So here is a little tutorial for how I made it. You can of course play around with the size of the tent and use any fabrics you like. This is a great project for using up leftover fabrics and scraps from other projects. You will need:
The tent is constructed from two pieces, a rectangular base and a square 'roof' which is folded down the middle to create the tent shape.. 1. You need to create two quilt sandwiches, one for your roof and one for the base. To do this, lay one fabric right side down, spray with spray glue and place the flex foam on top. Spray the flex foam with glue and lay your other piece of fabric on top, right side up. If you aren't using spray glue you can use pins to hold the layers in place. 2. Now quilt the layers together. I quilted my base with straight lines about half an inch apart but you can choose how you would like to quilt it. I quilted the roof every two inches to make it less rigid. 3. Now you need to attach the binding to the short ends of your base and the two opening ends of your roof. To do this, line the binding up with the raw edges of the quilt sandwich and pin in place. 4. Trim your binding to make it level with the edge of your quilt sandwich. Fold it over and sew in place. 5. Fold the roof in half and sew along the top ridge as close to the edge as possible on the right side of the fabric. This will help to keep the tent's shape. 6. Now for the trickiest part, attaching the roof to the base. Line up the long edge of the roof with the long edge of the base, with the insides facing and place your binding on top with the raw edges together. Because there is a lot of bulk, I used quilting clips to keep the layers together. 7. Trim your binding leaving just half an inch extra either end and turn this in on itself to conceal the raw edge. Sew along this edge using a quarter inch seam allowance. If your machine finds it difficult to sew through the layers, try starting in the middle of the edge, sewing along then turning around to sew back to the opposite edge. Sometimes sewing machines struggle to start sewing thick seams at the corners so this technique helps with that. Fold the binding over and sew in place with a half inch seam allowance. Repeat for the other edge of the tent. 8. To make the doors, turn the tent on its end and draw around the triangular opening with a fabric pen onto your fabric. Use a ruler to straighten your lines and add half and inch seam allowance all the way around the triangle you have drawn. You need four of these. 9. Cut the triangles you've just drawn out of the fabric and cut them in half down the middle. You will now have eight small triangles. Take two and place them right sides together. Sew along two of the edges using a quarter inch seam allowance. Turn the triangles right side out and fold the bottom edges in and sew them closed. Repeat for the other three. Sew them in place by hand on the inside edge of the opening to make the doors of the tent. Your tent is complete! I made some bunting in coordinating fabric to give it an added touch but you could decorate it however you wish. Why not add ric rac or pom pom trim? If you give this a go, I hope you enjoy making it and I hope the little person in your life loves playing with it too! Happy sewing.
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When I bought this cute bunny in a little bed, I knew she needed a sweet little quilt to keep her warm. This is going to be a gift for my little niece, so I set to work creating this EPP quilt. I used pretty scraps left over from other projects and instead of paper hexagon templates, I used hexiform ones from a company called Ashmead Designs. The great thing about their hexiform shapes is that for small projects like this, you don't need any wadding/batting. I used 1/2 inch hexagons which is the smallest shape I've ever worked with. I absolutely loved making something so miniature and I'm sure there will be more in my future! Something I love to do is combine different types of sewing, and with the hexagons being made of hexiform, it was easy to embroider tiny details on some of the hexagons. I kept adding hexagons here and there, without worrying too much about where to put them. Once it was the size I needed, I attached a border in coordinating blue fabric and bound it with liberty bias binding. I hope this will be a treasured gift for many years to come!
If you have got the English Paper Piecing bug but would like a quick project rather than a quilt then this is the project for you. The layered hexagon flower cushion is fun and quick to make. Here's how... You will need: *Seven hexagon paper templates in each of the following sizes; half inch, three quarter inch, one inch, one and a quarter inch and one and a half inch. *Scraps of fabric. *Two 28cm squared pieces of background fabric. I repurposed an old pillowcase for this, which makes this project more sustainable. *A needle and thread. Note- I didn't include any fastenings in my cushion. If you want to be able to remove the cushion cover then you'll need to include a zip or buttons and you'll need to add some length to the back piece of fabric to allow for this. You'll need about an extra inch to add a zip. Begin by wrapping your hexagons in fabric and joining the hexagons to make five separate flowers. For an in depth tutorial on how to do this, check out my English paper piecing video. Once you have sewn the hexagons together to make flowers, you need to remove the paper templates. Usually, in English Paper Piecing, we do not remove templates until all sides of the shape are joined to another shape and this is because you can distort the shape. For this project, the templates need to be removed even though some edges of the shapes are not joined to any others. To minimise the chances of distorting the edges of the hexagons, I made sure I ironed all of the flowers first to ensure nice, crisps folds along the edges. Next, I removed the papers carefully, pulling from the centre of the hexagon out towards the edge (see photo below). I then used the iron to quickly press any edges under that had become unfolded and this technique worked well. Once all papers are removed and you have pressed your flowers with the iron, place the half inch hexagon flower on top of the three quarter inch hexagon flower. Centralise the smaller flower within the larger one, making sure there is an even border all the way round. Line up the seam lines of both flowers so they match and when you are happy with the position, pin in place. Use a blind applique stitch to attach the small flower to the larger one, sewing all the way round the edge. When you have finished, repeat the process by placing this flower on top of the next flower up in size. Line up the seams and stitch in place. To speed this up, you could easily use a sewing machine and either a zigzag stitch or other decorative stitch to applique them in place. When you have layered all of the flowers, position the motif in the middle of your backing fabric, pin in place and stitch it all the way round the edge as you did before. You can now choose to finish your cushion however you'd like. I chose to make a piped edging and I really like the way this looks.
I hope you have fun making this cushion. If you would like detailed instructions for making piping or for finishing the cushion then leave a comment below and I will make a tutorial for that. Of course you don't have to applique this flower onto a cushion at all! You could put it onto a bag or you could make it into a wall hanging, or if you did want a larger project, you could use it in a quilt design. It's up to you! Whatever you make, I'd love to see it so if you post it on Instagram, remember to use the #rosepetalpatterns. Happy Sewing! |
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My name is Emma and I love all things sewing, especially EPP. My little blog is the place where I document what I'm making. I hope you enjoy reading what I'm up to! All opinions are my own and I only share things that I think you will love. Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Archives
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