Merino chevron

Sometime before the winter started I went looking for some wool to keep me warm. I found this gorgeous chevron merino and I fell in love with it. Obviously it had to be mine. Then I just put it aside while I mustered up the courage to cut it... 

After a particularly cold week I decided my wardrobe needed a basic top to layer over shirts or undershirts. I used New Look 6150 - I just had to make the sleeves longer. Size 16 seemed to be perfect until I tried almost finished top on... It was huge! I had to unpick the armhole stitches and the neckline binding which was quite annoying since the thread matched the fabric perfectly! Once fixed this is one of my favourite tops to wear on a cold day. The only thing that bothers me is the hem - it stretched out while sewing and it's a bit wavey. I keep telling myself to shorten the top slightly and fix the hem but knowing me it will never happen.

The photos were taken at the Wellington Zoo - I thought you might be bored of my backyard! 

Perspective tricks... I'm barely 160 cm

My first quilt!!!

I made a quilt! And it's not just a quilt but also a wedding gift for my close friend Ola. I've known her for several years now, we met at work and quickly became friends. She and her boyfriend got married in June but unfortunately I couldn't make it to their wedding. Therefore I wanted to make something special for them. A quilt seemed like a good idea.

In search of inspiration I got Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine (Vol 24 No 4). I really liked simple and modern design called Meadow Tracks by Emma Jean Jensen (and I'd recommend you checking her Instagram account out!) Once I decided that was the one I wanted to make I went shopping :)

Then it was whole lot of cutting, sewing, ironing and trimming... It actually went very smoothly! I'm not going to lie - it's not all even and not all the seams line up but I think I did reasonably well. I used nice and soft flannel for the backing and I used wool batting - it should be nice and warm!

I quilted it alongside the seams. It is really really hard to pull and push all that fabric! It also took a while to bind the quilt - half of it was done by the sewing machine but I sewn half of it by hand. I don't really like hand sewing but I wanted the quilt to have a nice finish.

When I was done I wanted to take lovely photos...  That never happened! It rained constantly for days and I was running out of time as it had to be sent. I took photos inside so the light is terrible and I didn't even have enough room to take a photo of the whole quilt!

Ola received her package and she was really happy with its content. Here is the photo that she sent me and I hope that the quilt will keep them nice and warm in winter!