Two little projects last week....

Number 1.
Well my kitchen here would fall under the 'somewhat basic' category.  For ages we have had a sideboard with no doors or usable drawers. It was painted about 6 months ago (see before glimpse below!) - and finally i got around to putting a bit of material on it. Also the kitchen floor was truly nasty - bleach cleaned but still very yucky. So I painted it. That still needs finishing, but I'm much happier letting Chops crawl on it now.

before...

before...(last christmas)...

after...

with lovely 'spices and stuff' shelves Matt made

Number 2.
I made a water carrier for Matt. He is off in Juba (South Sudan - we live in the North) for the week - so I wanted to get it finished before he left.  Its padded etc so it should keep his drink cool.

Oops there's a number 3..

I am making a mat for the table (but its only nearly finished - not finished!)

If only cloth could talk ...

Before we were married (or even dating) my husband bought a wall hanging in Kenya.
I think it is made of old saris/scarves or something like that, and is from somewhere like India or Bangladesh -  but I'm not sure...
I think it is made from whatever colours they have and is then dyed (in this case red).

At first I didn't like it but more recently I've been looking at it more closely, wondering who wore these different pieces of cloth and what the story of the fabrics in it is. Now I really like it!
If only cloth could talk...

Quick Quilt

Well I spent alot of time looking at the Quilt Festival Quilts (so many really nice ones - lots of inspiration - i had lots of fun looking!) .... then internet went down ..... then power cuts... finally here I am again!

This week I made an quilt for a 'sudden' baby shower.  I had planned to make a little quilt for this baby, but had to accelerate my plans rather quickly!

It was fun to make as I never made one so quickly or simply!  However there are a gazillion things that I would change/do differently next time I make one like this - mainly to do with machine sewing.

I was pleased how the binding turned out as I did the 'make your own bias binding' thing.
The animal /spotty fabric is Ikea (again)(bought when we were in the states this summer). I appliqued some of them on and the others are just the fabric.
These are my favourite drivers!

Things I haven't quite finished...

Well, I like making stuff but sometimes it doesn't quite get finished...
I'm not very good at following patterns and I think half the fun is making it up as you go along.
In fact often when I try to do straight lines, follow patterns etc it ends up looking pretty er..well rubbish would be a good description.  Here are some things that I am enjoying and have enjoyed doing....

This crochet I started about a week ago and I'm doing pretty good at keeping going with it.  I think my plan is just to keep going and see how big I can make it...

I learnt to crochet when I was about 10 for a school project, but haven't done any since then, so I sort of had to reteach myself.  I think I need to work out what the stiches I do are 'officially' called so then I can follow some of the free patterns online.  The hook is a size 'n'.  So it grows quite easily!

This is going to be a big cushion. I started it ages ago (well 4yrs ago) when i was visiting my parents in the UK. My mum let me use some of her many coloured embroidery threads so I just started sewing flowers. It's a bad photo (needs ironing etc), but hopefully you get the idea.

For a few years it stayed in England and then about 2 yrs ago it made the trip to the US and then a year ago to here!  The fabric is fake suede stuff. And I will just keep on sewing flowers on until it's all filled up.

This I also did a few years ago.  I once went to Liberty (in London) and ogled over their fabrics and bought 2 bits of Kaffe Fasset stripey fabric.  I kind of like how it looks on the stripey sheet thing (kikoy) underneath.

The trees are 3D with thread and beads. I think it will be a cushion. But it would get destroyed very quickly here, so I'm not sure what to do with it.  Anyone have any ideas?

Quilt Festival

So there is an online quilting festival and you are supposed to post your favourite quilt.  Not sure if your s'posed to post it now or later... but I figured now was OK.

Here's mine.  It's a present for my brother and his wife's baby (due fairly soon). I've only made 4 quilts so didn't have many to choose from!

I made it here (Sudan)- took it with us to the UK and then the US in a bag, then posted it from the US to where he lives in Japan.  Can't post it from here  as it would never make it to Japan, and US is cheaper than UK!

The animals were cut out from some IKEA fabric.

The surrounding fabric was whatever I could find that I thought would work.  A couple of shirts, T-shirts, jellabiya material (material you buy here to make a dress thing for guys here to wear), some fabric Matt got me when he went to Kenya, and various other bits and pieces bought in the US and UK.

Sandwiched in the middle is a white cotton sheet as you can't buy batting here.  Actually I like how flexible and 'comfy' it feels with no batting.

The backing is a sheet.

I 'handquilted' (sewed as i don't know how to 'handquilt' really)  around the animals/squares with different coloured embroidery threads.  I like how it looks on the back - but my photos of the back weren't very successful.

(In case you're wondering, the photos were taken on our washing line in our yard - and it's entirely normal to have a bed in your yard here.)