Secret Pocket Lady

I had lots of fun last week making this "Secret Pocket Lady" skirt! 

My job share Karen borrowed one of these skirts, also called "The Walking Lucky Dip," a few years ago. We took turns wearing it at our school's annual Summer BBQ.

Karen had to return the skirt and I never quite got around to making one, as promised.

That is until this year!  

The skirt  was made using fabric up-cycled from some classroom drapes and a few new quarter metres of  "brights" for pockets with some flowers bonded on top. The finishing touch - lime green ribbon! There was also a bright patchwork bandanna to add to the overall "look."

How it works: 

The skirt has 20 pockets, each containing a prize. For the price of 20p, the child chooses any pocket and receives a surprise!

Karen and I had lots of fun taking turns wearing the skirt, raising a bit of money for our school and seeing the children's faces when they realised that the lady wearing a funny outfit that day was a teacher! 

Red and White Yo-Yo Quilt

A couple of years ago I saw a picture of a quilt similar to this at  Gooseberry Patch and fell in love with it! I simply felt I had to have one and then, typical me, put it to the back of my mind.

The Clover yo-yo maker craze was becoming big news here in England and so I gave it a try - it was so much quicker and easier than the "old fashioned" way which I found tedious.

I love red and white fabric - I "just"  happen to have a huge stash of it that gets replenished at every opportunity.  And so began my days of yo-yo making.

I decided my quilt would need 400 of theses round beauties  and divided my quilt into quarters - 100 yo-yo's in each.
It took quit some time and 800 pins to get the balance of colour and pattern right - but I have to say it was such a pleasure to see it spread out on the table!

Then came the hours of happily watching Poirot and appliqueing the yo-yo's by hand onto the white fabric.

For the backing, I knew I wanted red and white ticking. I was fortunate enough to find the "real thing" at my local fabric shop - and, as luck would have it, it was soft rather than stiff!

Next, I tie quilted alternate yo-yo's into place with red pearl cotton, the ties showing on the back.

My biggest worry in making the quilt was marking the white fabric ready for quilting!

I used a Hera Marker, another fab product from Clover. "Easy to handle tracing spatula allows you to place pressure when marking on fabric. Perfect for quilting and sewing". Truer words have never been written!

Again, using pearl cotton, I quilted the border in simple straight lines and got the "look" that I wanted!

Rather than traditional binding, I used my favourite method of folding in the edges to finish the quilt .

My labour of love took 400 yo-yo's and two years to complete! I enjoyed EVERY minute of it - it was so much fun that I even made several cushions!