Gymnastics duvet cover

A friend in Brisbane asked me a few months ago if I would be able to make a gymnastics-themed duvet cover for her son, who is an elite gymnast. They hadn't been able to find anything online, and she knows I sew and design, and have a gymnast son as well...



Of course I was happy to help. She really liked my blue Rings fabric, so I ordered 12 yards (!) from Spoonflower. It arrived a few weeks later, and the first challenge was to wash it and hang it out to dry!



I had never made a duvet cover before. It wasn't difficult, just a bit awkward working with those big pieces of fabric! It needed to be a king single size, so 180 cm x 210 cm. I was really pleased with how it turned out:



The young man received the cover yesterday as a Christmas present, and I was told he loved it. Here is a pic of the cover on his bed (used with permission):



Her son is a few years younger than Hugo, but if all goes well they will be in the Queensland team together next year. I can't wait!

Gymnastics guards bag

In two weeks my youngest son Robert will have his first gymnastics competition of the year. He now competes in Level 4 and gets to use hand guards on high bar, so I made him a small bag to put these in. I made a similar bag for Hugo last year, using my Spoonflower gymnastics fabrics that I also used for Hugo's Big Cushion and for their gym bags



Yesterday Robert had a control test (mock comp) and he did really well. Go Robert!

Big Gymnastics Cushion, inspired by Mondrian

After the Big Doctor Who Cushion for my youngest son and the Big Dragon Cushion for my middle son, of course I had to make a Big Cushion (26'' / 66cm square) for my eldest son as well. He wanted a gymnastics cushion, so I used fabrics from my Gymnasts Collection on Spoonflower, in a Mondrian-inspired layout. I pieced and quilted it (simply in the ditch) with black Aurifil thread.



Hugo himself hasn't seen the finished cushion yet, because he is still at... gymnastics training (where else!). But it's waiting for him in his room, on the couch with the Aussie Quilt I made for his 6th birthday, under the Fly Away wallhanging I made in 2014.



Competition season has just started for Hugo (13) - on Saturday he had his first competition, the Senior Regional Championships, in his new Level, 8 Under 14. He did very well: passed his Level Test, won a gold medal (on pommel horse, his best apparatus), two silver and three bronze, and came third overall. The Senior State Championships are on April 15-16th, but he has already secured a place on the Queensland State Team that will compete at the National Championships in Melbourne in May. So proud of my boy, who has worked very hard to get here!



He is holding his Level 8 badge, which I have sewn onto his gymnastics bag, made from the same fabrics as the cushion:



Here is his golden pommel routine:

Kombi Van calligram and fabric collection

May I present... my Kombi Van Kalligram!

I can hardly believe it, but it's been more than three years since I made my last calligrams (in February 2013, the seahorse, platypus, mouse and crocodile). I still get lots of visitors to this blog who are searching for 'calligram', so I hope you all like this one!



As long-time readers of this blog know, I love Kombi Vans (VW buses / campervans) and I can't believe I didn't think of making a Kombi Van Kalligram before! I uploaded the design to Spoonflower and had it printed in eight different colourways. The fabric sampler arrived today:



Apart from the Kalligrams I also added some hand-drawn Kombi Vans to my collection. I really like this one:



And this one:



Well, I like them all really!

I have made the whole Kombi Van collection available for sale as fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap. Now to make some fun stuff with the fabric!

Bow ties are cool

Last year we discovered Dr Who, and now we are working our way through the previous series on dvd. My youngest son is a big fan of the 11th Doctor and a while ago he asked me if I could make a bow tie for him. Of course!



I found this cool Tardis fabric on Spoonflower and ordered a fat quarter. It arrived yesterday and after school I whipped up the bow tie (using this tutorial).



My son loved it and told me I was the best mum in the world ;-).
Now I have to make two more for his brothers...



It looks good on Bear too!

Another zippered pencil case

Yesterday I made another zippered pencil case. I liked the previous one, made with the tutorial from Little Red Window, but I didn't like that the inside edges were unfinished. I spent some time thinking about how I could get them to be finished, thought I'd figured it out, gave it a go and yes! it worked!



So now I have a Dutch Houses case with finished edges on the inside. It will be added to my Etsy shop this weekend.



Another plan for this weekend is to do a thorough cleaning and tidy-up of my sewing room studio. And when that is done I will start on a new art quilt. To be continued!

Pencil case with a zip!

Life is very busy at the moment, with work, kids and tennis (I have started playing competition! So much fun, wish I'd started tennis 30 years ago - but better late than never!), so not much time for sewing or quilting. I was really missing my sewing machine, so on the weekend I whipped up this zippered pencil case, using my Spoonflower Colourful Pencils fabric. Isn't it cute?



I used the tutorial I found here. I tend to avoid zippers, but this was really easy. Might make a few more!

Button cookies

The other day I saw a photo of button cookies on Facebook and I just had to try and make some. Aren't they cute?



I used a Dutch recipe for 'sand cookies', but of course you can use your own favourite biscuit recipe.
I don't have a round cookie cutter (I'm not really the baking type) but found an egg cup with a diameter of 5 cm (2 inch) and used that to cut out the shapes. A bottle top was just the right size to make the indentation, and a straw was perfect to make the buttonholes. My boys loved the cookies and are already asking if I can make them again!



And now for something completely different... Last week I noticed this photo on the Spoonflower blog - it's the classroom / community space at the Spoonflower HQ. See that blue fabric on the wall? Could that be my Dutch Houses fabric? Yes, I think it is! How exciting! :-)

Gymnastics bag 2

Yesterday I made a gymnastics bag for my youngest son Robert (7) who, like his older brother, is a competitive gymnast. He is in Level 2 now and had his first competition in June, where he won his first silver medal, on rings! This weekend he has his second competition, the Junior Regional Championships. Very exciting!



It's a simple drawstring bag made from two of my Spoonflower gymnastics fabrics and lined with plain white cotton. I made a similar bag for Hugo in 2010:



It has been used intensively for 3.5 years and is still keeping up very well! Hugo loves it and even prefers it to the cool Gymnastics Queensland backpack he got this year as part of the Queensland team. I have stitched his Level patches onto the bag (Level 2 is on a singlet and he skipped Level 5):



Here are both bags. I hope Robert's bag will be used as much as Hugo's!

New calligrams!

It's been on my to-do list for a very long time: draw some new calligrams. And finally I did, and had them made into thermofax screens. They arrived this afternoon, just when I had to go and pick up the kids :-(. When their homework was done and they were playing on the Wii I couldn't resist making a few quick prints. I'm very happy with the seahorse and the platypus, that fascinating Australian animal!



The mouse was a request from a friend. I love his tail ;-).



What do you think of the crocodile?



I also had this drawing made into a thermofax screen:



I can see so many possibilities with this one!

All these designs are also available on Spoonflower, for printing on fabric, wallpaper or as a wall decal. There is also a Shark Calligram design, that I haven't had made into a thermofax screen (yet):



The World Map design is available in six colourways.



Last but not least: Happy Valentine's Day! It's almost over here in Oz, and we (hubby and me) don't 'do' V-day anyway... but here is something you might like to pass on to your Valentine:

Copy and paste the following on Google:

(sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

;-)

Designing fabric

Yesterday I designed this fabric (and some more) on Spoonflower. I thought you might be interested in the design process. The picture above shows the fat quarter view (21 x 18 inch); below is the swatch view (8x8 inch):



To create this fabric I used a set of stacked boxes that we got for one of my sons when he was a baby:



I made a series of photos of the boxes, seen from above:



... and cropped and edited them with Picasa (free photo-editing software):





Then I uploaded the photos to Spoonflower and used their Change Colors tool to do just that:



Spoonflower allows you to view the following layout options for your design: centered; basic repeat; half drop; half brick and mirror repeat (go here and have a look to see what I am talking about). My Stacked designs look great in mirror repeat - or so I think! - because it gives them that log cabin-ness, but basic repeat also looks good:



If you haven't tried Spoonflower yet, do give it a go - it's so much fun! After you have ordered a test swatch you can also put your fabric up for sale, and earn 10% of the sales (Spoonflower gets the rest, because they do everything except designing - printing the fabric, cutting it and sending it to the customer). My Dutch Houses and Calligrammar collections supply me with a nice bit of pocket money every month.

When ordering your design you can choose from 10 different fabrics - among them basic combed cotton, cotton voile, cotton silk, cotton knit and silk crepe de chine. I had a fat quarter of my Colour Pencils design printed on linen-cotton canvas:




.. and used it to make another Rainbow Pencil Roll:


Do let me know if you have designed any fabrics on Spoonflower!