Seahorse paper pieced pattern

I love it when I get the chance to test other bloggers paper pieced patterns! You get to try out patterns that you might not normally make and be introduced to some great new designers.

So when I saw a tester call on Sewing with Squeak I volunteered straight away. I've been a follower of Angela's blog for a while and I'm jealous of her talents! She is a quilter, cross stitcher and dressmaker, and I especially love her Dachshund quilt she made last year from the 'Dare to be Square' book. She chose some great fabrics and it makes me want to get my copy off the bookshelf!

Anyway, back to the pattern. It was well produced without too many tiny pieces and came together smoothly, so I would recommend it to any crafters out there! Of course I had to use my seam ripper a few times as usual. I can see this block making a fabulous quilt, with lots of different seahorses in bold colours.

My daughter helped me choose the fabrics, so I suppose I'd better make something for her, maybe a cushion?

I really should remember to iron my blocks before I take pictures! 

Head over to Angela's Craftsy shop to buy the seahorse pattern and make sure you check out some of the other testers creations on her blog, there's an amazing unicorn!

She's on the look out for more testers soon, in case you're interested.

Lizzie Kate cross stitch chart giveaway on Heather's Stitching Story!

Although I don't own any yet, I must admit to being a fan of Lizzie Kate cross stitch designs. I'm sure there's plenty more fans out there as well.

I've just entered a giveaway to win some of the charts on Heather's Stitching Story blog and I had to spread the news! 

I hope you go and enter yourself and have a look around her blog at the same time, she's completed some great projects.

Good luck!

A tale of two tigers

I know it's been a while and I have no idea where the time has gone! 

I've been busy crafting so I will have lots to show you, but I wanted to start with two hats. My daughter loves tigers, so I decided to make her a tiger hat for Christmas. Luckily I found a stripey top for 50p at a charity shop and used this free pattern and tutorial from Sergerpepper. 

This is what I ended up with:

It didn't go quite right and ended up being too big, but she LOVED it! Which was great during the winter, but we've had a few warm days now and she refuses to wear any other hat! As she's a pale redhead, she must wear a hat, so I had to come up with a plan.

What was the only thing that might make her choose to wear a sun hat? Well it had to be a tiger sun hat of course!

I found an old white cotton sheet, painted some stripes on it and used this free pattern for a basic bucket hat from Oliver and S.

With added ears and felt features, this is the result:

I only finished it tonight so the lucky girl hasn't seen it yet, but I hope she's going to love it as much the first hat! 

Which is your favourite?