DIY terracotta plant pots

I have always loved plants. When I was a kid I used to save up my pocket money to buy African violets...very rock and roll of me, I know. 

Since we moved to London I have been slowly accumulating a new family of house plants and a couple of years in, some of them are in need of re-potting....which was a good excuse to do a DIY I had in mind for plain terracotta pots.

Pots are annoyingly expensive and most of the time not what I really want anyway. I really like terracotta but it does get a bit same-y if you have a lot of plants in one room.

I picked up a few different sizes of pots from my local hardware store. They were only a couple of quid each. I also got 2 pots of gloss paint in magnolia and turquoise - look for little 'small project' or tester pots to save money unless you have other projects in mind for the rest of the pot.






Stuff I needed: pots, masking tape (I actually used packing tape as I didn't have masking tape to hand which was fine but masking is probably better), brushes, white spirit and gloss paint.

I just wanted to try something simple so decided to try one colour block type-pot and one drip...






So for the drip one...

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I upended a pot and started by painting the base and slowly easing the paint towards the edge until it began to form drips and trickle down the sides of the pot. 

I think in retrospect I could have thinned the paint down a bit. I was quite thick and when it dried it went a bit crinkly. I don't really mind it though and James just described it as looking 'organic'. Fine. 

For the colour block one I taped off the base of the pot and painted the upper half. I also painted the inner inch and a half or so in the pot... I just think this gives it a more finished look but its down to personal preference.

I left it to dry for a few hours and then peeled off the masking (packing) tape. Very satisfying.

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They aren't perfect but I think they turned out well and unlike some other projects I have done, I don't mind the imperfections.

I really like the colour block ones - I'll be doing more of them for sure. And maybe something with more stripes or zig zags? I'll need to pick up some masking tape for that!

I think my plants look pretty happy with their new homes.

Catching up on Christmas crafts

It's Easter Sunday and after my my last mammoth post on finishing my quilt I figured I needed to catch up on some of the other stuff I have done since. 

It feels a bit untimely but oh well. 

This past Christmas was the first one that James and I spent on our own. Aside from the initial panic of having to do a Christmas dinner, which turned out awesome in the end, it was really great to have total freedom to do what we wanted when we wanted. 

We got up unpleasantly early to get our lamb shoulder in the slow cooker. 

We more or less followed this recipe - I stuck the shoulder with anchovies, garlic and rosemary and it turned out really great, the gravy was especially good. 

We rewarded ourselves for our early start with some bucks fizz with freshly squeezed orange juice and champagne. 

Check out our vintage juicer - I love it. 









This was our Christmas tree - bigger again than last year but due to all the felt ornaments I made last year it was pretty full. 

It did need some bigger ornaments though so I took some inspiration from a xmas decoration given to me by a friend a few years ago. 


These hearts were quick, easy and I really liked how they turned out, they looked great on the tree too. 

I cut out 2 heart shapes from some felt, used a basic backstitch to embroider a snowflake in a contrasting colour with embroidery floss on one of the hearts, used another colour for a blanket stitch to sew the hearts together, leaving a small hole to stuff the ornament so its a little plump, and then blanket stitched the hole closed.

I finished then up with some floss as a hanging loop adding a few sequins for decoration. I'll be making more of these for sure. 

 

Elephant baby quilt - done!

I have finished my quilt! 

It was a LOT of work but it went really well and I got it to it's intended baby before he was more than a few month old so that was a result. 

I didn't blog about all the steps in between where I left off and the finished piece - I was all focussed on just getting it done. The previous posts on my quilt progress are here: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

So, the elephants are done and stitched to the quilt top and next I moved on to the balloons. I decided on 3 different red fabrics for them, and decided on an arrangement that worked with the position of the elephants and sun. As with all the other elements of the quilt I first drew and cut the shapes on to tracing paper and then fusible web. I then used the tracing paper templates to cut out the balloons from the three red fabrics - I prepared the appliqué balloons the same way as the sun - turning in a 1/4 inch seam allowance around the edges of the shape. 

Once these were done I was able to assemble the quilt and adjust placement of all the elements:

And then blind stitch/applique them all down on to the quilt top - it was a good feeling to finally have all these bits and bobs come together into one unit.

So after that, I employed some very basic embroidery to work in the elephants tails and the strings of the balloons.

I used chain stitch for the balloon strings and most of the elephants tail and satin stitch for the end of the tail.

I really have no experience in embroidery but I liked doing this and how these bits turned out.


So at this point I had a finished quilt top. Awesome. 

Next up, putting it all together. I knew my backing was going to be this great blue and white polka dot, but I wasn't sure on the binding... I was thinking about red or yellow but they seemed too close to the balloons and sun so I decided to bind the quilt with the backing fabric. 

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1. To make the quilt 'sandwich' you need enough floor space to lay the quilt flat. I laid the quilt backing, right side down, on the floor smoothing out any wrinkles. Then I laid the quilt batting on top - getting this positioned and flat can be tricky, batting is sort of clingy. 

2. Next the quilt top goes down - face up. You can see that the batting is cut slightly bigger - I find it easier to do this and then trim it down to size. 

3. I used a few pins to secure the 3 layers together. I find it best to start in the middle and work out toward the edges, smoothing it all flat as you go. I folded over the edges and clipped them together.

4. Finally, I used a basting stitch, starting at the middle and working toward the edge in straight lines and then again in increasing concentric circles. This is a sort of annoying and time consuming task but it is really worth it. It makes it much easier to work with the quilt all the layers are well fixed and not slithering about. 

SO THEN...actual quilting...finally. I don't really have any pictures of this as its hard to photograph but basically I used small running stitches in matching colours (yellow for sun, red for the balloons etc) to outline the different applique elements. 




The sky and grass had some large areas which needed some additional quilting to keep the layers together so I added some quilted clouds in the sky and some scattered flowers in the grass. 

Once all the quilting was done it was time to do the binding. I trimmed the quilt top and batting to 1 inch less than the backing fabric. I folded over the excess backing fabric twice, first fold with the raw backing edge against the edge of the topper and backing, then over again on the quilt top. 

I used the much more detailed instructions over on the super helpful tutorial on cluck cluck sew.

I added a last minute label to the back of the quilt - my name and date I finished the quilt. I guess this is a thing that's done? It's a good idea. 

And it's done! After a final wash in the machine (on gentle). 

I'm really pleased with it. And so was my friend, the baby seemed indifferent. 

This was a pretty all consuming project for a while and sort of bumped all other crafting and papercutting out of the picture for a while. I did manage a few other projects since then so more on those next...

Making a baby quilt - Elephant ears and eyes (part 3)

More progress on the quilt - I'm in the middle of a couple of fiddly bits on the elephants to sore them out. Ears and eyes. 

First and also undocumented (oops, sorry) I stitched all the pieces of the elephants together with invisible stitch - so the elephants are a now a single unit rather than a head, body and bunch of legs.

Ears, much like the other pieces are based on a paper template, fusible web and turning in the cut edges. I then pinned this to the elephant and stitched together:

On to the eyes. Embroidery - arg. I have embroidery thread from old cross-stitch endeavours, but really I am just winging this and basing what I need to do on stuff that my Mum taught me when I was a kid. 

So the eye. I used a basic satin stitch for the white and black of the eye and outlined with a running stitch. It's not my forte at all, but luckily this turned out ok, I think. 

I'm chuffed with this - they look cute. I like how they are taking form. 

Next is the balloons - I would have had more on this but I forgot to wash the fabric - and I'm a grown up now and know this isn't a stage you miss (see here). But happy with the result so far!

Making a baby quilt - Appliqué sun (part 2)

I mentioned my first steps of my baby quilt in my last post, here.

I made some good progress this weekend, luckily as the baby was due last Friday - luckily the baby is shy and hanging on and buying me some time (thanks baby!).

When I left off I had done most of the elephants - folding in the edges of the various pieces they are comprised of and securing with fusible web. 

Next I tackled the sun. I wanted this placed in the top left corner - I find it helpful to have the quilt topper out so I can test composition options:

I used a conveniently yellow piece of scrap paper to check size and placement. 

Also at this point I was looking at different options for binding - the red at the bottom was considered and then discarded. I have other plans for red. 

Back to the sun - when I tried this I decided that I wanted a spikey (?) sun rather than a smooth round one. Nice. Much more work!

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1. I used the paper template to trace a circle of fusible web and yellow fabric with a 1/4 in seam allowance. Two points to note here - first, the little 'v's nicked out of the seam is a good trick to help turn in a round seam. Second, I folded the template circle into eighths to give the width of each of the sun-rays (spikes!)

2. Folding in the seam allowance bit by bit and pressing as I go to secure with the fusible web.

3. All edges folded in and secure, on the reverse side.

4. Right side up - main bit of the sun done!

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5. For the spikes/rays I cut out a triangle template with the edges of the same witdth of the folded template in picture 1. I cut out eight triangles of fusible web, and eight triangles of yellow fabric (with a 1/4 inch seam allowance). I placed the triangle of fusible web in the centre of the fabric, nipped the corners off to help with the folding in, and pressed in each edge of the eight triangles. 

6. I pinned each of the triangles to the circle and stitched together with invisible stitch. 

Sun: Done. 

 

DIY - Hanging a massive print

I am in the middle of a massive post about my quilt project but in the interim I thought I'd mention this DIY I did this bank holiday weekend.

We bought this great old Dutch (?) map when we were living in Crystal Palace last year. As far I can tell it's a map of textile and petro-chemical industry over Europe - just what every home needs! Anyway, it's great and we love it but its about 1m x 1.5m and quite heavy paper and displaying it is a bit of a challenge.

We moved house about a year ago and I'm ashamed to say that this has just been rolled up in the spare room while I figured out how to hang it. I'd ruled out conventional framing as it would cost a fortune and make it difficult to transport. I had seen the hanging systems of basically a rod at the top and bottom to weigh it/stretch it out and wanted to have a go at doing something similar myself. 

So to do this I needed the following:

- 2 lengths of wood measuring 110cm each (I wanted a small amount of overhang as the map is 103cm)

- matt varnish and brush) 

- small hooks

- 4 bulldog clips

- picture wire

(side note: buying the wood was a full on nightmare here in London. I have no idea why. Numerous DIY shops either didn't have wooden dowels or lengths of wood over a metre. I finally bought 2 mop handles and a saw to saw them down to size!)

1. So the first thing I did was saw my bits of wood to size and sand down any ragged edges. If you are luckier than me in terms of suppliers of bits of wood in your local area maybe you can skip this bit. (On the up-side I now have a saw which makes me feel very capable.)

2. Next, varnish the wood. I just used a matt varnish so the wood didn't look so raw. But you could use a stain if you wanted the wood a specific colour or finish. Make sure you wait for it to dry. 

3. Figure out where you want the bulldog clips - I wanted them right on the edge of the map to minimise the corner curls. Once the clips are in position line up the holes with where the hooks will need to be on the wood and make a little mark. Do this for both the top and bottom pole.

4. Screw in the hooks. I used a hammer and a small nail to start off the hole and make sure that the hook would screw in straight. 

5. I screwed 2 eyelets onto the opposite side of the pole to the hooks to attach the picture wire to the top pole. I kept the wire fairly tight as the poster is so big but it can be made more slack to adjust the distance from the nail/hook.

6. Finally, hook the hooks through the holes in the bulldog clips. The good thing about this is if your hooks aren't perfectly placed you can shift the clips up and down to adjust them. I hung the top pole with the map attached and finally hung the bottom pole off the bottom clips. 

Done!

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. And best of all once I had got all the stuff together it only took a couple of hours to finish. 

I'd recommend this as an easy, cheap way to display a large piece like this. Just bear in mind the weight of the paper - this is very heavy duty. I'd worry about a thin piece possibly perishing under the weight of the bottom pole. 

I'm happy that this map is finally out of its packaging and on display.

Now back to the quilt....more on that soon.