The latest precut collection to arrive from Moda fabric is Awesome by Sandy Gervais.

This fabric collection is available in jelly rolls, charm packs and layer cakes and would be great for an Autumn project.

Moda’s Park Avenue collection of jelly rolls, layer cakes and charm packs is now in stock.

Moda Jelly Roll Park Avenue by 3 Sisters

This picture helps to show you what the fabrics in the collection look like:

Moda's Park Avenue fabric

You can purchase these Park Avenue pre-cuts from our shop now.

Lesley, one of our customers, emailed me this morning with a photo of Hooty and Tweet which she made for a friend who is mad about owls.

Hooty and Tweet

Lesley wrote:

“I’m just a novice at the moment and still getting to grips with my sewing machine, so they don’t look quite like the examples on the packet, and they’re a bit squint in places, but my friend loves them and I’m quite pleased with them too.”

I think they’re great!  You can make your own owls with the Melly and Me pattern available in our shop

If you’re like me, then you might not feel like knitting or crocheting in this warm weather.  So how about a sewing project?  We recently added some new Melly and Me patterns to our collection…

More patterns from Melly and Me

From the top left, these are Florence, Dee Dee, Hilda, Clancy and Clarabel, Penguin Parade and Claudine.  The instructions are clear and easy to follow.  You could make one in just a day if you’ve got all the materials to hand.

In addition to the Amy Butler design roll, we’ve also got some new Kaffe Fassett design rolls too.

Kaffe Fassett Jelly Roll

This design roll (jelly roll) contains a selection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics cut in to 2.5″ strips.  They contrast very well with some of the other Kaffe Fassett fabrics we have in stock.

A package arrived from Australia today containing new supplies of Melly and Me patterns including some new patterns – both toys and bags.

You can browse all the new Melly and Me patterns on our shop website.

For tips on making some of the toys, Melly and Me’s blog is worth a visit.  They also add pictures of their toys in different fabrics which help to inspire.

Our next idea for Christmas sewing projects is this little Santa Sack.

Little Santa Sack

For this bag we used the Classic Stripe and Classic Scroll Christmas fabrics.

It has an oval shaped base, which has been stiffened, so that the big will sit nicely. The sides of the bag were made by sandwiching a piece of thin wadding with the two pieces of fabric.  This was then quilted in a simple grid pattern.  It was attached to the base piece and sewn up the back to form the bag.

The top can be folded over to show the contrasting inner fabric.  The wadding was smaller than the actual fabric, so it actually stops 5 or 6 cm short of the top of the bag.  This means that the part you fold over isn’t padded and therefore folds over better.  We put a coordinating tie around it and fixed with a loop at the back, under the fold, so that it didn’t fall off.

If you try making your own “santa sakc” like this, do let us know.  We’d love to see your own version!

One of our favourite patterns from the Melly and Me range is Bonzer and Beaut.  So we thought we’d make one of them.  Here’s….. Bonzer!

Bonzer by Melly and Me

He’s so cuddly, but you could equally fill him with beans or rice and use him as a doorstop or bookend.

If you want to make your own then you can get the pattern here for just £6.85.

As I mentioned recently, we’ve just started stocking Melly & Me sewing patterns in the shop now and my Mum immediately grabbed one of the toy patterns, Rudy, and made this little fellow with some Christmas fabric in her stash.

Rudy by Melly and Me

Rudy is just one of the toy patterns that Melly & Me have designed and I’m sure that we’ll be making some more very soon!

Melly & Me are two sisters from Australia who have joined forces to produce a collection of wonderful sewing patterns for bags, quilts and soft toys.  We’re delighted to now stock a large selection of patterns from their range.  We love the toys in particular and are already making Rudy the reindeer with some Christmas fabric from our stash!

Melly & Me sewing patterns