Come Fly With Me {31/52}

A little bit of applique. A little bit of stitching. A little bit of quilting. The Come Fly With Me : Hot Air Balloon Cushion is complete.

I really do have a thing for pillows and cushions. I wonder how many I've made through the years.

This cushion (or pillow in some parts of the world) was made up with fabric from my scrap tub, so I'm going to include it in the Scrap Busting Challenge.






To make this cushion, you will need various fabric scraps for the background, balloon, clouds and basket.

Double sided bonding paper - Heat n Bond lite is my favourite.

Cotton for the stitched words - I used black Aurifil (Mako 12).

4” strips for the borders.

Pellon or light weight batting for the back. I used the fusible kind, which made it much easier to sew on-the-go.

Perle 8 cotton for the top quilting.

Backing – I pieced my backing and then sewed a zip onto mine, but it can be finished with an envelope style enclosure too.

Binding/border – 1 3/4” strips

Download the Hot Air Balloon design by Flamingo Toes HERE. While you’re there, check out some of the other projects on the website. Seriously cute stuff!






If you make a Come Fly With Me cushion, please share your pictures in the 52 Week Scrap Challenge Facebook Page. We’d all love to see your work.

Be sure to follow me on Bloglovin’ (click the button below) so that you don't miss any of the future projects in the 52 Week Scrap Fabric Challenge.

Learn more about 52 Week Scrap Challenge here.

Previous 52 Week Scrap Challenge Projects:

Scrappy Heart Pincushion {Week 1/52}  -  Flutter By Needle Case {Week 2/52}  -  Fabric Covered Jars {Week 3/52}  -Stitch a Dresden Pillow {Week 4/52}  -  Plastic Bag Dispenser {Week 5/52}  -  Life is Better With Friends : Mini Quilt {Week 6/52}  -  Electrical Cord Wrap {Week 7/52}  -  Sunny Mug Rug {Week 8/52}  -  Scrappy Quilted Trivet {Week 9/52}  -  Quilted Fabric Box {Week 10/52}  -  Bloom : Wall Hanging {Week 11/52}  -  Double Tulip Pincushion {Week 12/52}  -My Funny Valentine {Week 13/52}  -  Scrappy Needle Book {Week 14/52}  -  Rice Therapy Eye Pillow {Week 15/52}  -Jolly Table Mat {Week 16/52}  -  Super Scrappy Strip Cushion {Week 17/52}  -  Turnstile Table Topper {Week 18/52}  -  I Heart You : Coaster {Week 19/52}  -  I {Heart} Reading : Bookmark {Week 20/52}  -  Pot Holder Pocket {Week 21/52}  -Flower Garden Cushion {Week 22/52}  -  Scrappy Bunny Mini Quilt {Week 23/52}  -  Best Friend Cushion {Week 24/52}  -Pot Lid Holders {Week 25/52}  -  Scrappy QAYG Quilt {Week 26/52}  -  Another Day, Another Cushion {Week 27/52}–Scrappy QAYG Quilt Part 2 {28/52} – Odd Sock Bag {29/52}  -  Scrappy 8 Point Star {30/52}

Sew in Style : Make Your Own Doll Clothes {GIVEAWAY}

Remember when you were a little girl and one of the most fun parts of playing with your dolls was swapping their outfits and accessories? Well, what if you could teach your child to make their own dolls clothes… or be a little like me and learn to make dolls clothes, which you can then teach your child to make?

Erin Hentzel is the author of the gorgeous new book, Sew In Style: Make Your Own Doll Clothes, published by C&T Publishing. This book is designed with the young or novice sewist in mind and is filled with projects to create for an average 18” doll.



The 22 projects have a star rating system with the sewist encouraged to begin working on the one star projects, then the two star projects when they’re a little more advanced and then finally, creating the three star projects when they’re confident in their sewing skills.

The first chapter, or the Go-To Chapter, covers all of the sewing basics.
What to keep in a sewing basket.
Sewing needles, cutting tools, notions.
Types of fabrics.
Patterns and how to use them.
Sewing machines and hand sewing.



Then we get to the fun part – the projects! Clothes and accessories for your doll to attend any occasion, ranging from party to a sleepover to school days.

The projects are fun and I can just imagine my 6 year old playing with her dolls, dressing them up in these outfits and creating imaginary parties and scenarios.



Sew In Style is filled with easy to follow projects, all with step by step photographs. I love when instructional books have lots of photos. It makes learning the key skills, that much easier.

The sewist will love creating everything which this book has to offer and then enjoy playing with the dolls, mixing and matching outfits, bags and jewellery.

Check out the other blogs/dates in the Sew In Style blog tour:

July 14      C&T Blog : Book + Fabric Bundle of Horizon by Kate Spain

July 15      www.sewmamasew.com/ 

July 17      www.probablycrafting.com/

July 18      http://sweetjanesquilting.blogspot.com/

July 21      http://www.craftbuds.com/

July 22      http://www.sameliasmum.com/

July 24      http://www.polkadotchair.com/

July 25      http://www.fishsticksdesigns.com/blog/

Last stop   http://averylanesewing.com/the-blog/         

With thanks to C&T Publishing, one lucky Samelia’s Mum reader has the opportunity to win a (digital) copy of Sew In Style by Erin Hentzel.

Enter the Rafflecopter below or leave a comment telling me:

Did you have a favourite doll when growing up? What was her (or his) name?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions: Giveaway is open internationally. Giveaway will close on Friday 25 July 2014 at 12:00 AEST. The (digital) prize will be sent by the promoter. Samelia’s Mum will take no responsibility for any delay, loss or damage to prizes sent to winner. Winner/s will be announced on the Samelia's Mum Facebook page and/or contacted by email. The winner has 7 days to claim the prize. If it is not claimed within this time period, it will be forfeited.

Pretty Funny Tea Cosies {Review}

Have you flicked through a craft book lately and said “Ooooh” as you’ve turned each page? This is exactly what I was doing as I flicked through Pretty Funny Tea Cosies & other beautiful knitted things by Loani Prior.

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy. – Albert Einstein.

Now, you might think that Mr Einstein’s assertion has nothing at all to do with tea cosies, but you’d be wrong. It proves that it is perfectly natural, indeed imperative, to temper our large lives with the small and ridiculous things. Tea Cosies provide the yin to our yang. – Loani Prior





Loani is absolutely right! Our lives are filled with so much “important” stuff, we often overlook the small, fun, quirky, everyday things to keep a balance.
Pretty Funny Tea Cosies is packed with fun and quirky things to knit. Now, I am not a knitter by any means. I think I made a scarf. Once. Well, perhaps it was half a scarf which my mother had to finish for me. But you know what, I want one of everything in this book.

The book begins with the knitting basics. Knitting needles, casting on, joining the two halves of the cosies. We learn how to make 3 basic tea cosies: straight rib cosy, curvy rib cosy, picot edge cosy. These are the bases for the more elaborate designs later in the book.

Such as this one below called Fruitopia.



Fruitopia is like the Carmen Miranda of Tea Cosies. Isn’t this just divine! Can you image whipping this baby up and gifting it to a friend who is perhaps a little down? Certain smiles and plenty of joy.




Loani Prior is the Queen of Tea Cosies and her newest book is a rainbow of knitted delights.

Pretty Funny Tea Cosies is published by Murdoch Books and available to purchase from Booktopia, Amazon and to pre order through Book Depository. If you love to knit, this book is a must have in your knitting pattern library.

Friday Night Sew In... with Grimm & Gail

After getting the kids into bed on Friday night, I turned on the heater, set Netflix up on to the big television (rather than watching on my laptop), gathered my cup of tea, some chocolate coated honeycomb and my stitching supplies. Admittedly, I think I spent more time eating chocolate and watching Grimm than actual stitching, but here’s what I was up to.

This is a design from Gail Pan’s gorgeous book, Patchwork loves Embroidery. The design, in the book, is used on a pincushion, but I have other ideas. I'm using a lot more stem stitching than usual. I think it's my "current favourite".

The design is a lovely round shape, so could look lovely if appliquéd in the centre of something which uses a wedge template. It could be part of a gift for someone at Christmas time… just sayin’…

Did you get up to much sewing this weekend? I really should be saving this stitchery for the evening time and using the noisy sewing machine now while the kids are out playing, but my chair in the sun is beckoning for some stitching…

What do you enjoy watching, while stitching? Someone suggested Eureka and Warehouse13 which I might look up. 

Embroidered Words of Inspiration Swap 2014

One of the nicest things about returning home after a few weeks away, is the lovely parcels which await. Not the bills - they're no fun. It's all about the parcels.

I joined the 12” mini swap club at the beginning of the year and the mid year swap item was due at the end of June 2014. As I was going to be away, I posted mine away a little earlier but didn't receive my mini quilt until I returned home.

This is the mini quilt which I sent to my partner, Cathy. Admittedly, I was a little larger than the 12” but hopefully not too big that it won’t find a space in Cathy’s sewing room.

I was well and truly spoiled by my secret partner, Tania from Ollieandt.



I received this beautiful stitched mini quilt, plus some sweet treats and a lovely notepad.



Tania has created the most perfect stitches in her work. Just lovely. It needs a little press and then I’ll hang it on my mini quilt wall. I really must get a new photo of the mini quilt wall to share.

Thank you Tania for the lovely gift and Cheryll for organising our swaps.