An Irish Road Trip {part five}: Galway Greetings!

Hello there!

I hope you have had a great week! Here on the North Coast we have been enjoying lovely spring sunshine & gorgeous early blossom

& vibrant spring colours

To-day as part of our road trip we are travelling the width of Ireland, from Belfast in the east to Galway in the west, to meet Ger and Eva from Pippablue. 

They sell wonderfully quirky fabric & bits & pieces like these clothes plasters

or this gorgeous trim

You're very welcome ladies!

First of all, we'd like to thank Karen for inviting us to participate in her Irish Road Trip. For those of you who don't know us, we are two friends, Ger and Eva, who have a little studio shop in Galway City, called Pippablue. We like to sew, knit and crochet, and as well as selling lovely fabrics, yarns and crafty supplies, we offer classes and workshops in our new studio premises.

Everybody knows that we do enjoy a cup of tea, here in Ireland, or as you'd say in Irish a "cupán tae", so in the spirit of this Irish tradition we made a tea cosy using some lovely Melody Miller fabric and some machine embroidery. We love Japanese fabrics here at Pippablue, and the teacup print from the Ruby Star Rising collection was just perfect for this project!

We chose a plain Klona Cotton in jade green for the body of the teacosy ( ad to be green, of course!).  This fabric is a fab quality, and really easy to sew with, and embroider on!  The lining for the cozy is a fun, red polkadot cotton poplin... (these are my go to fabrics for linings and binding, they go with everything and they are a easy on the wallet!) We then ironed some BondaWeb on the wrong side of the teacup fabric. This makes the fabric feel almost like paper and it becomes really easy to cut the tea cup and teapot shapes neatly and close to the edge! You can then peel the paper off your shapes and position them where you like on your plain fabric for the cozy. When you are happy with the placement press them with your iron, and they will stay put for you to embroider on.

Then you can use your sewing machine like a pencil and sew around your shapes, and even add in some shading around the edges. This works best if you use a darning or embroidery foot on your machine, and it is easier than it looks! Another trick is to stretch your fabric in an embroidery hoop before you start sewing, this will keep the fabric taut and make it easier to move while embroidering 

The stitching doesn't have to be perfect and if you go around each shape a few times, it creates a sketchy, hand drawn look.  If your feeling brave, why not try stitching in a few words... as Mrs. Doyle would say " Go on, Go on, Go on.." give it a try! If you are looking for a tutorial for a basic Tea cozy there are loads of really good ones on the internet, we used this one at Homemade Holiday Gifts to get our basic pattern!

That's all for now. We hope you enjoyed this mini-tutorial, and if you are ever in Galway, please stop by for a visit!

Thanks so much Eva & Ger! 

I hope you have all enjoyed your visit to Galway... do drop back in a day or two for our final installment of the Irish Road Trip & the great giveaway news!! 

In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend, & if you live in the UK, don't forget about the clocks!!

Take care

Karen