Book Giveaway Day 1 - Debbie Shore's Half Yard Heaven

Hello to all.  I hope you had an enjoyable Bank Holiday weekend.

Here is the first of my books to be given away in my Blog Competition.

Half Yard Heaven

Easy sewing projects using left-over pieces of fabric

Debbie Shore

ISBN 978-1-84448-892-6

Price £9.99

www.searchpress.com

Debbie Shore has had a variety of careers through television, and is now a best-selling author of sewing titles, TV presenter and craft writer.

For any lover of fabric, we know all too well the lure of a pretty fat quarter, and you may well have a nice little collection nestling at home, wondering what small projects you can find to suit this size of fabric.  If you are not a quilter, then it is a fantastic book to come across, as it is specifically geared towards using small pieces of fabric to create useful and pretty pieces of homeware.

There are 26 projects contained in the book and they range in difficulty and size.  There is a cover for a wet wipes packet which is aimed at people with babies or pets.  But any textile artist who deals with mixed-media will know that there are a million clean-up uses for spilt inks or paints, especially when you can create new fabrics from these mop-ups.  So the appeal of making your wet-wipe packet beautiful for your workspace is appealing. 

 There are patterns for slippers, several doorstops, neck cushions and a craft caddy to name a few.  The latter is a good design for an organiser to keep threads, scissors or tools you are using for a particular project, and I think to use it with a strong stabilizer such as pelmet Vilene or Decovil, would make it a particularly useful hold-all for what you are working on.  With its handles, it becomes mobile and you can travel with everything to hand.

The projects would be a good starting point for younger sewers, as they are quite simple to tackle.  A noticeboard or placemat in fabric chosen by a child would be a good way of getting them involved.  And I like the approach of the book in getting you to use up those fabrics you may have been hoarding in your stash.  Debbie’s approach is fresh, her fabric choices pretty and appealing, and the projects are not daunting to a beginner.  It’s a good book for someone starting out with sewing because it introduces some simple sewing and quilting techniques such as piecing and applique, tackles both flat and stuffed pieces, and all the projects included here have a useful purpose.

Tomorrows book giveaway will be Sew Bunting by Debbie Shore.
My blog giveaway is running over the next few weeks.  Every day this week I will be posting a review of each of the books I am giving away.  Please leave a comment on my blog, comment on and Like my Catch a Crumpsey Facebook Page or email me at catchacrumpsey@gmail.com, stating which book you would like.

After the competition has closed, I will randomly choose a winner for each book title from those people who specified that book.  I will announce the winners on my blog and Facebook pages!

Closing Date for Blog Giveaway: Sunday 18 May 2014

Winners will be announced the following week!

In order for entries to be processed, your e-mail address will be passed onto Search Press with your permission.  I have been assured that your details will not be used for anything other than adding you to their mailing list to advise you of forthcoming titles and any promotions and your mailing address used so that Search Press can send your their new catalogue.  Your details will not be passed onto third parties or used for any other purpose.  Please email me on the above email address if you have any queries about this.

Paula's birthday

For my good friend's (Paula Watkins) birthday this year, I did a mini quilt to reflect everything Paula.

Quilt for Paula

I used cotton fabric as a base and did some simple piecing around the centre piece, which was text printed onto cotton on my printer.  First I had sprayed with a walnut ink wash, then painted over with Magical Mica pots.  These little pots of powder produce amazing colours when they are wet - you dip your brush into the pot before wetting.  For this I used Autumn Maple, Tibetan Poppy, Ponderosa Pine and Red Hot Poker. Because of the walnut ink, they look a little muted but they can be incredibly vibrant.

For the text, I thought of everything that Paula loves.  Anyone who knows Paula knows that there wasn't enough space for everything, so I needed to be choosy.  But I made sure that some of the essentials were there - woolfelt and her Sizzix particularly!

I hand stitched on the centre panel, but found that there wasn't a lot of space to stitch without covering the writing, which was a shame, because I think it could have done with quilting.  As the outside edges were securely machined, the centre piece puffed up a bit and creased. 

The outer panels were stencilled with some lime green paint and machine stitched to quilt.  I used pelmet vilene to create labels.  I used tissuetex to cover the labels and  TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) to put the images of the scissors on (using copyright-free images from the internet), and then I managed (after much blood, sweat and tears) to put eyelets in and hand-stitch the labels to the quilt.

copyright free images of vintage scissors were used

My label - nade with my wonderful Sizzix Wordplay die

 

I think she liked it!!!!  It was the mention of woolfelt that clinched it....