Hot air balloons...and some more owls

Little Imp's feature wall gets busier.

I hung all of the frames I have finished so far yesterday afternoon and this morning I received the payoff when Little Imp stood up in her cot and saw the designs coming together on her wall.
'Wow' she exclaimed, with the enthusiasm only a 21-month-old can muster at that time of the morning!

The Hot Air Balloons frame is an embroidery I did years ago (1993 according to the date on the back).  I used a design from a library book, but no idea who to credit it to.  Anyhow, it fits perfectly in one of the frames I have for Little Imp's feature wall, so in it goes!

The balloons, clouds and landscape were embroidered onto calico that I had dyed blue and then I remember using mum's water colour paints to extend the scene onto the white cardboard frame.  A long time ago...

And some more owls....

Appleville

Another two frames completed for Little Imp's feature wall.

The main print fabrics used for both of these is from a Robert Kaufman collection by Suzie Ultman called Appleville. Cute apple faces and rows of houses.  My designs are inspired in part by some of the other fabric prints in this same collection.  3 apple picking girls in little felt dresses with apple picking pockets and 3 little houses under an apple tree surrounded by free motion flowers.

Two little birds

The next installment for Little Imp's feature wall.  Two Little Birds.

Mini quilt - in a frame

I've finished the first frame for Little Imp's feature wall!

I wanted to combine some of the sewing techniques I have been playing with and practicing over the last year or so, quilting, free motion embroidery, applique.  This is how it turned out.  As you can see, I'm still getting mileage out of one of my favourite fabrics - an owl print I've used to make many owl baby grows already, and a number of the other owls are earmarked for other frames already.  So there will be more!

I'm not sure that this is truly a 'mini-quilt', but the background has the look of lots of tiny pieces of fabric being pieced together like a quilt.  To achieve the haphazard layered look I cheated a bit by ironing my little bits of fabric onto a pre-cut piece of heat-and-bond, including the owls.

The pieced fabric 'sheet' before being ironed onto the aqua backing fabric

Then for some free motion embroidery.  Haphazard stitching around each little piece of fabric, sometimes going around more than once to reach the next section.  This is what the back looked like.  Almost tempted to frame this, I do like geometry designs.

And here are some close ups of the design detail.

Tree positioned just so Mrs Owl can perch on her branch

An appliqued tree and leaves, edged with free form stitching and some little flowers. 

Some free form flowers embellished with  buttons

Not all of the pictures for Little Imp's feature wall frames are going to be this detailed.  But it actually didn't take too long to make once I had worked out the design & how I would put it all together.  One picture frame down....

Decorating for Little Imp

This is currently the fantastic 'feature wall' in Little Imp's room.  More like the 'wonky empty frame wall' in Little Imp's room.  And this is how it has looked for months.

It was probably mid last year when I started sourcing all the picture frames, either finding cheap white ones or buying second hand op-shop frames & painting them in gloss white.  I  thought I was powering along with the project, working out the layout & banging hooks into the wall to hang them all.   I even got as far as deciding on a general colour theme.
Aqua - to match with the blue chair in Little Imp's room and the aqua elephant frame (a gift hand made by one of Little Imp's great grand parents)... and maybe a small dose of  poo-ba to girls generally not having blue.
Red - to match the red chest of drawers in her room and the red button bird picture (a gift from one of the hootchies).  Thought a few red frames would also add some interest & help the red theme along.
Pink -   I am a bit anti-pink, so this colour choice wasn't planned, but just happened when I found the inspiration fabric for the project.  I needed something that would pick up the red & the aqua & the print that grabbed me (the floral one in the picture below) also happened to include pink.  Going through some of the charm square packs I bought I found a whole selection of fabric pieces in these colours ready to be put to use in designing the 'feature wall'.

I temporarily filled one frame with a photo I'd taken of Little Imp's baby legs and Aunty Diddums filled the big red one with autumnal leaves collected after a play in the park.

And then nothing more...until this week.....

Freedom continued...Finished placemats

Finally, here are the finished placemats made using the improvisational pieced skew-whiff squares I made a while ago now.

The squares were blanket stitched using my machine onto the green background fabric before assembling the mats.  I took the easier path by not using binding to edge the mats, instead stitching front back and batting together before turning right side out.

Detail of the 3 front squares and quilted lines in coordinating coloured thread.

Table mats always get dirty so quickly, so I figured I would make them double sided - the back just has a single square.  Twice the use before needing washing!

Decided single smaller mats for hot plates would be more useful than a table runner.  I used two layers of batting to make them a bit more heat resistant.  Again double sided - one with a big block and the other with a single small block.

More Elephants

Keeping with the elephant theme after making many a George the Elephant Kings / Queens (!) I crafted an applique elephant baby top for a friend who is awaiting her little boy's arrival.  I bought a large piece of elephant print stretch material on sale last year with the idea it could become a summer sleeping bag for a little one, or a great stretchy swaddle.  I loved stretchy swaddles when wrapping up Little Imp - so much harder for her to escape from her mummified state in stretch fabric!

After making the elephant softie for my friend I decided an elephant swaddle and matching applique top would make a perfect gift bundle.

Swaddle material in the background & copied elephant ready to applique

Basic 'How To'
I used fabric pens to copy the elephant design onto plain cotton fabric which I then roughly cut out & framed with strips of matching printed fabric scraps.  After using 'Heat & Bond' to iron the whole piece to the top I used a smallish sized blanket stitch around the outside edge to fix the fabric to the top & stop the edges fraying with wear and tear.  A straight stitch on the plain fabric to frame the elephant finished it off.

And then I made another one, and another.... The more girly ones also had a free motion embroidered flower embellishment added for fun.

I labeled these tops using the alphabet embroidery card on my sewing machine to stitch 'OneLittleImp' on felt,  & then sewed this label on the back neck line. Much neater than the handwritten labels I've made in the past.