Inspired to rediscover patchwork by the Craft Lounge at #britmumslive

One of the things that I loved about BritMums Live this year was the Craft Lounge, hosted by Lady Sew and Sew and Make it Coats. I didn't get there until the second day, and I really wish that I'd spent more time inside. It was a great place to chill out, chat, and concentrate on something creative.

I've always loved the look of patchwork, and I remember my Mum teaching me with paper hexagons when I was little, although I didn't stick at it for long. My Mum made me a gorgeous patchwork quilt, and we also have a few other little baby quilts that she made around the house, Mia uses them when she's playing with her dolls. I did attempt some patchwork a couple of years ago which unfortunately turned into a bit of a patchwork fail, but when I saw a sewing table in the Craft Lounge with help to make a couple of simple paper pieced hexagons I thought that I would give it another try.

It was much quicker than I remembered to sew a couple of hexagons together, and I really enjoyed the process - tacking the fabric around the paper hexagons and then sewing the pieces together.

So I was really pleased to get home and find a fat quarter from Lady Sew and Sew in my goody bag. It's a lovely green flowery fabric and I knew that attempting some patchwork would be a great use for it. I found some other bits of fabric in my stash that I thought matched well and chose to stick with just three different fabrics. I wanted to start small, and so I decided to make a little case for my phone.

I was quite surprised by how easy I found it! Once I'd got the hang of the pattern I was flying, busily cutting up paper hexagons, fabric hexagons, tacking around and sewing them together.

This is where I'm at so far, and I think that I'm over halfway there:

I must admit that I'm not entirely sure where it will go from here. I have made a paper template and I'm intending to make a long strip that I can fold over to make the case, insert some wadding for protection, and then back it with some lining fabric and perhaps some velcro to close. I'm pretty much making it up as I go along, so we'll see how it turns out!