Sing with me! I'm a little teapot...

...Short and stout!

Well this teapot sure is :)

Being the thoroughly modern, liberated woman that I am, I have embraced semi-wonkiness (the non-flexible part of my personality won't let me go all the way towards wonky just yet...it's a work-in-progress) and am letting myself have some more fun with piecing. I have taken a (tea) leaf out of Tonya's book...er blog...and decided to go for it in designing and piecing a wonky teapot.

I wanted to make a little something for a Christmas present for my father-in-law's companion, who is going though a particularly rough patch with her health at the moment. She needs an operation to remove some gall stones, but, not having health insurance, is forced to wait for the public health system to look after her. It could take up to 12 months for her to get the operation she needs, which is not much fun at the best of times, but when you're nudging 80, it's even more difficult. Thank goodness we can afford health insurance. I would hate to see Carl or Romily go through this. It's bad enough seeing the pain it's causing my father-in-law.

Anyhoo, I thought a little teapot mat for her dining table might be a good idea.

So, following Tonya's idea that you can piece anything - you just have to look at it the right way, I drew up a little teapot design straight out of my head, used some of Rom's crayons to colour it in, and voila! (The scribbly crayon is Rom's contribution)


Of course, I'm so new to working angles, that I didn't follow Tonya's fab instructions completely - I took a slightly different approach and used horizontal planes, which meant I could use angles learnt through through joining binding strips. Once I get a bit more comfortable with sewing angles, I'll loosen up a bit more...I hope!

Once I was happy with the design I set about piecing it. As you can see, it turned out a little large/wide, and the handle on the 'lid' is a tad small...BUT, I like it a lot! It's not perfect, but I think it works quite well, and, although the colour scheme is a little muted, it will suit Robina and her house very nicely.

21" wide x 13" high

I'll back it with some hand-dyed royal purple fabric and will bind it with some cream fabric I've got in my stash. (I actually have a tiny one these days!)

I'll embroider some steam curls above the spout and will probably hand quilt it, as I'm currently short of an evening project :)

That's another Christmas project started! I must get onto the Christmas Stars table runners again and see if I can make some more progress!

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We had a very busy weekend, catching up with lots of people we haven't seen for ages. Romily didn't have a sleep today due to a combination of overexcitement and overexcitement! She was absolutely stonkered by tonight, so went off to sleep 45 minutes early without so much as a peep.

And our busy period shows no signs of stopping, with me travelling overnight to Adelaide Tuesday/Wednesday then Christmas drinks with work people on Friday afternoon and then more Christmas drinks on Saturday night. I'll need a holiday before Christmas at this rate!