Author: Sally

We love the simplicity of Redwork Embroidery, with its impactful clean lines, and the designer Natalie Bird from The Birdhouse Designs produces some of our favourite line work stitcheries, with adorable and whimsical characters and phrases. We’re also a little rebellious at Coast and Country . . .

. . . We really enjoy adapting patterns to make them more personal to our own styles. Michelle has been working on the design Deck the Halls and has created a stunning wall hanging! By playing with various stitch techniques and introducing colour to the Redwork Embroidery pattern (we know it’s shocking!), she has been able to create something that is simply beautiful and unique for the festive season!

With a little bit of Christmas magic, some help from the ‘Embroidery Stitching Handy Pocket Guide,’ a selection of DMC threads and our useful stitch guide below, you’ll be able to make a wall hanging just as gorgeous!

With six weeks of summer holidays ahead of us, and the British weather not always playing ball, we know how important it is to have a couple of rainy day activities up your sleeve. We love spending time crafting with our little ones and so we’ve put together a list of some great projects for different ages, which we hope will bring you hours of entertainment!

Projects for 4 Years +

• Stitch Love
• Sewn together

These are great project books for your Littles to get stuck into with a bit of assistance from you.

• The Grey cat
• Bright Owl
• Bunny in a Carrot Bed

We also love the felt kits, Corinne Lapierre which are simple enough for younger children to enjoy making and can start learning how to do basic stitching. Everything is included with these kits all you need is a pair of scissors to get going!

Projects for 8 Years +

‘In a Hoop’ projects are fantastic for older children as you are able to help set them up and allow them to explore and have fun crafting. Corinne has two beautiful hoop kits for the animal lover’s out there.

• Folk Bear Hoop
• Folk Fox Hoop
• Nan’s Garden

We also highly recommend Nan’s Garden, which is perfect for beginners to learn a series of embroidery techniques. These can be great to make as a beautiful wall hanging, or can be reproduce in different colour-ways as gifts for their friends.

Projects for Teenagers

We thought a bit of dress making would be just the thing for your teenagers. We have some really beautiful patterns from Merchant and Mills & Sew House, simple, modern and perfect for the beginner to learn out to make their own clothes!

• Dungarees
• Trousers
• Summer Dress’s

Let us know what you are getting up to with your young one’s and we’ll add it to our list to inspire others!

Some of the best things in life is seeing your little ones face when you give them a new toy … the other is spending the majority of the day sewing an awesome pair of dragon wings!

As an adult I do enjoy a bit of dress up with a fine set of fairy wings, but I am completely in love with the Dragon and Bat Wings pattern from Wife Made.  It is a gorgeous pattern with clear illustrations on how to make the wings, very adaptable to the size of child and great fun in imaginative play for both boy or girl. My only advice with this pattern would be to read it all before starting, as I made a few mistakes . . . thinking I knew best  . . . I’ll explain this further down the page

I really enjoy working with and adapting patterns, to individualise the final outcome. With this set of wings, I have used: the Moody Bloom Effloresce Fabric, and a yummy egg yellow batik for the body and tail of the wings, and the Blossom and Watermelon linen texture for the tail spikes.

I haven’t adapted this pattern too much but I couldn’t resist adding a little extra to the tail. With this I cut two sets of tail spikes in the Blossom and Watermelon Linen Texture fabrics, and using bondaweb to applique the lighter fabric to the darker to give a two tone effect. This worked really well as it pulled all the colours out of the main floral fabric and gave the wings a little extra fire!

My mistake and confession . . .   in the pattern it asks you to use several layers of interfacing as well as wadding to bulk out the wings. I would highly recommend following the instructions exactly, I decided it would make the wings too bulky to sew through and opted to just use wadding. I regret this as the wings ended up being quite floppy and folds over the shoulder, it is however adorable when she runs and the wings flap in the wind. I am hoping a bit of starch spray will stiffen the fabric to make them stand more proud . . . fingers crossed!

I really enjoyed making these wings, and if you want any advice please don’t hesitate to ask us questions!

Happy Stitching, Alice x

‘Mizmaze’ is a wonderful design which through careful placement of colour and block orientation creates a striking nesting diamond and square geometric effect.

Using traditional patchwork piecing, the techniques are simple to learn, making it suitable for all experience levels.

We love this pattern in its striking colours from Janet Clare’s Geometry range. We also thought if you wanted a little more subtlety in your life, using the Dover range would look gorgeous! Here is a little suggestion on the fabric we would use to substitute the darker version:

2m Dark Ocean & 1m Quadrant Euclid – Tonal Dot Grey

1/2m Quadrant Buckminster – Willow Fabric

3/4m Graph Pascal – Damask Mist 

1m Triangle Archimedes – Field floral linen white

1m Grid Archimedes – Dove White

60cm Binding – Willow Ticking Tape

We love this quilt from Gail Pan. It’s a great project to get stuck in to, with several blocks to work on, so you can stop and start this quilt without feeling overwhelmed by having to complete it all in one go!

Inspired by the colours of the classic Delftware pottery, which is usually decorated with metal oxides, in particular cobalt oxide that gives the traditional blue. We do have kits available for this quilt which embraces the beautiful blues but that doesn’t mean you can’t be brave and create your own Colourway.

‘Flowerdale’ in Greek means ‘Flower of the Gods.’ Gail Pan has truly embraced this with a garden full of stunning flowers on this quilt. Each flower is pieced and appliqued onto the blocks, and this beautiful appliqued quilt is a great way to really perfect your technique whilst creating something yummy! The important thing to remember with this quilt, is to be accurate in tracing and cutting out the applique shapes; and we would recommend using applique paper (due in stock any minute), a glue stick and appliquick rods to make your life easier, which can then be sewn down with a fine thread like our 80wt Aurfil Thread.

Finished Size approx. 42” x 56”

We think this is a stunning quilt and hope you feel inspired and enjoy making it! You can find the Pattern & Fabric Pack HERE

Cider is modern, eclectic, and vintage all at once. The colours evoke chilly fall days, warm sweaters, and joyful laughter. Prints like Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Cortland remind us of the variety of apples that grow around the world, each with its own story. We hope Cider will spark fond autumnal memories with friends and family as you tell your story. BasicGrey’s newest collection brings back the best memories, waiting for the first frost. The first frost meant the most delicious apples ever, there is something about the cold that makes the sugars and flavours just pop!

Cider is the sister collection to Persimmon, with bright, rich vibrant blues, popping peachy oranges and yummy pink corals. This collection comes with pre-cuts – which are coming soon – so don’t forget to pop your name on the waitlist if you’ve fallen head over heals like we have with this collection.

You can find the fabrics HERE

Layer Cakes, Jelly Rolls, Charm Packs, Mini Charms and Honey Buns . . .

We’ve found using Pre-cuts is a great way to get started with with a new quilting project. You have the whole collection in one bundle, cut to size, which saves you loads of time faffing before you get to the fun sewing bit!

There are so many patterns, books, tutorials available from the beginner to the advanced quilter so here are a couple of our favourites:

Dwell 2 – by Thimble Blossoms

A beautiful Layer Cake friendly pattern, perfect for the beginner who wants to learn how to piece blocks, bind and learn to quilt the quilt.
Ps. We also make a kit includes everything you need to make the quilt top!

Finished Size: 59” x 71”

Charm School – by Vanessa Goertzen

This is a great value for money book with 18 projects using 5” Charm Squares.

You’ll learn tips to take the guesswork out of piecing. Start with fresh, simple blocks and build your skills to sew versatile snowballs, stars, flying geese, and more. Quilters of all types will fall in love with these quick, clever, and clean designs!

Jelly Roll Quilts the Classic Collection – Pam Lintott

Another great bargain book, with a collection of 12 quilt patterns for classic quilts made using jelly rolls. Pam and Nicky bring their expertise to classic quilt designs, you’ll learn how to make all your favourite quilts and blocks quickly and easily with this brand new collection of jelly roll quilt patterns

Some things are too adorable to not be shared!

With most of the world in a lockdown or social restricted state we are having to rely heavily on our imaginations to entertain ourselves. We love the Wife Made wing patterns which encourage creative and imaginative play in your children and put big smiles on their squishy little faces!

Each pattern comes in different sizes and the Butterflies even have a dolly size, so your little ones can twin with their favourite toys.

These patterns are suitable for Intermediate to Advanced stitchers, but we have been promised that the step-by-step detailed tutorial with full-colour illustrations are clear and easy to follow.

So the final question we have is which would you choose?

Have a look here