When I visited The Great Northern Quilt Show earlier this year, there were so many amazing stalls – it really was like Christmas had come early! One of my favourites by far was Colouricious, and they had the most beautiful hand carved wooden stamps. I bought a few Colouricious stamps (and it took a while to choose, I must admit!) and a bottle of decolourant, which looked fab. Well, yesterday I finally got around to trying them out! 

Testing my Colouricious stamps

I had pre-washed my fabrics so that I was ready to go, and started with the square geometric blocks. I just played around really, as this is the first time that I had used decolourant. It basically does what it says on the tin – it removes some of the colour once you have stamped and ironed over it. The more you use and the more you iron, the more colour is taken away, and the fun thing is that you don’t really know how the colours will look!

My first attempts on the purple looked like this once I had ironed them, and I tried some out on pink too. I really like the contrast between the colours here! I decided to make a few patchwork squares which I’ll use in a future project.

Christmas stamps

I recently added some of the Christmas stamps to my collection, and have some ideas for creating a few cards – whether I’ll be able to get them made in time for this Christmas is another story! I stamped some snowflakes and a tree onto some red and green fabrics – the red was definitely more successful than the green.

I’m really excited to start working on some new projects with these gorgeous stamps, so look out for more in the future! I would highly recommend these stamps – the detail is wonderful and they are such good quality. Visit the Colouricious website for more information (link at top of this post).

The post Colouricious stamps appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I decided that I’d make a quilted cover, so chose some white fabric for the inside lining – it didn’t really need to be jazzy because no-one will see the inside! For the binding I picked out the pale aqua colour to co-ordinate, and got myself a bias binding-making tool too.

The first thing that I did was measure my machine with its plastic cover on – I measured from the middle of the front to the back, and then the width of the front. I also measured the width and height of the side. When I had the measurements I drew out some templates on craft paper, and to get the shape of the side pieces just right I drew around the side of the cover.

Once the templates were cut out, I then cut out all the pieces of fabric and wadding. I layered up the side pieces first and then pinned them together.

I tried out my quilting guide attachment for the first time today, and it’s brilliant for sewing evenly. I haven’t used it before because I’ve only ever used thicker polyester wadding, and not this thinner cotton wadding. I love the thinner stuff – it’s much easier to sew with! I decided to stitch between every other row after experimenting on some scrap pieces.

Once I had quilted the side pieces, I did the same with the large rectangular piece. This larger piece needed more pins to keep it all together, but I quilted it in the same way.

Once all three pieces were quilted, I pinned them (wrong sides together) before stitching. To make the cover fit a little better, I trimmed the excess afterwards.

The final thing to do was to make and attach the bias binding. The tool was really easy to use and it didn’t take as long as I thought! I also got a binding attachment for my machine, but I could not get the hang of it at all when I practised using it…so to save making a complete mess of my cover, I just pressed the binding in half and pinned and stitched it on.

Ta-dah!

I’m so glad that I chose this fabric – it certainly brightened up a very gloomy day today! Hopefully I’ll be able to sew dust free from now on…

The post Sewing machine cover appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I love embroidery and I love badges, so this little project is perfect as it combines the two! It’s also a really good way of using up fabric scraps – I hate having random little bits of lovely fabric left over with no idea what to use them for. I’ve made these badges using coverable buttons – the small one is 29mm and the larger one is 38mm – and they are so versatile. I’ve got lots of ideas for these badges, so look out for more projects to come soon!

You can get a tool to make coverable buttons, but the biggest size on the tool is 29mm. I was worried that this would be a problem, but the larger buttons are really easy to pop together so it doesn’t matter. When choosing fabric small patterns work best, and I’ve chosen contrasting colours so that the embroidery stands out. To mark out the letters you could use an invisible pen (mine disappeared too fast for me to be able to see it!) – here I used some parchment paper and embroidered through it as I find this much easier. This paper is actually baking parchment but it makes amazing pattern paper – this is my top sewing tip!

You will need:

Metal self-cover buttons (I found these on Ebay)
Parchment or pattern paper
A pencil
Some fabric and embroidery thread
Sharp scissors
Needle and pins
Tweezers
Some brooch backs
Superglue

Step 1:

Remove the wire from the inside of the front of the button, and draw around it on the the parchment/pattern paper, leaving a bit of room around the edge. Then write your word(s) so it fits inside the circle (don’t go too close to the edge – and keep your word choice short enough for your button size!). Cut out the paper and pin onto your fabric.

You may wish to use an embroidery hoop to keep the fabric steady – I find it easier to hold a smaller piece, so I cut it out. Do whatever works for you!

Step 2:

Thread the needle with your chosen colour cotton and then sew over the letters. I prefer to use a split stitch, but you could use any you like as long as the letter is clear.

Make sure that when you change a thread, tie a knot and trim the excess as close as you can to the fabric.

Step 3:

Carefully remove the parchment paper. You may need to hold on to your stitches at times! Use tweezers to remove any small, tricky pieces.

Step 4:

Place the fabric face-down on a flat surface, and then line up the front of the button over the embroidery. Hook the excess fabric over the back of the button and adjust as necessary. Once lined up, place the back of the button over the top and pop into place.

Step 5:

Very carefully, use the superglue to attach the brooch back to the button, making sure that it is horizontal in relation to the embroidery. Make sure that you don’t get any on your fingers! Leave to try for a few minutes.

There will be a little bit of discolouration with the superglue, but it is on the back so who will know?! I’ve tried loads of other glues and none of them hold, so this is the best option by far!

That’s it – as soon as the glue is dry, your badge is ready to wear! There are so many options with this project, and the possibilities are endless. I have some others in the making but I can’t share them with you just yet…you’ll have to keep looking out for them!

The post Fabric button badges appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.