Gone Sailing

In celebration of the imminent arrival of our new nephew I have been working on my first quilt. It was inspired by one I saw on the Land of Nod website. I had a great time practicing loads of different techniques – blanket stitch, chain stitch, back stitch, satin stitch seagulls and I got to crack out Little Brother to do some zigzagging. On top of that I was really able to go to town amongst my stash, finding all the most suitable bits of fabric to build up the picture. Conveniently, there are some good bright colours here which fit with April’s Stashbusting Sewalong Vibrant Colour Challenge.
Just in case that all sounded too positive, let me assure you that while creating the picture went swimmingly, the actually quilting part was decidedly more challenging, and as for binding the edges…

Let’s just say it took some time and I have no skin left on my fingertips. (I know, I know, thimbles.) I also finished it at 1:30 the night before it was needed, away from home and completely forgot to take a tag to sew into it, so I had to improvise the next morning…
However, despite all it’s flaws and character (or talking points) I am really happy with it.

The new small one has now arrived, and we are visiting, so the quilt has been handed over and I never have to do that again.

Unless I want to of course.

Better Late Than Never…

 …In oh, so many ways.

Firstly this is the belated completion of my March stash busting sew-along item which should have been completed by the end of March (although in my defence it was a “change of season” challenge, and the seasons haven’t changed yet).

Nearly finished and all spread out on the ground so I could straighten the bottom.

Secondly I bought this fabric at the Knitting and Stitching Exhibition last October with the direct intention of making a skirt, and aside from crazy Christmas sewing the rest of the time has been largely spent mentally preparing for this project. I think too much. Thirdly and most especially I have now been sewing for 2 years and this is the first garment I have made for me (and frankly the only other clothing I have made has been simple gathered skirts for toddlers).  Now though I have not only scaled up a pattern but put darts into it (on account of cutting it with slightly too much room for comfort). Big learning curve.

The finished article, plus a little photo bomber.

In addition I feel like I suddenly understand the real buzz of sewing my own clothes, and a renewed sense of confidence in how to dress given that since I finished working in an office seven years ago and had children I pretty much stopped wearing anything but jeans and t-shirts. Partly due to extra wobbly bits, and partly through practicality as it is easier to crawl around on the floor to play and clean up in trousers; but my youngest is nearly three so that requirement is on the wane. Here’s to the next garment…

Down for maintenance

The last few weeks have been less inspirational sewing and more maintenance sewing. By which I mean I have now patched almost every pair of trousers in my house.
I have of course had a couple of other projects on the go, but one is for my new nephew who isn’t here yet, and interestingly neither is his present!

I have also seen some progress on one of my stashbusting projects, but more on that in a couple of days’ time.

It has also been the Easter holidays so I have had all three children home. All. The. Time. Plus we have had visitors, so my creativity has been in the cooking and cleaning departments. And also in the co-ordinating of Robert and myself to actually hanging some pictures and mirrors that have been decorating the floor rather than the walls for slightly too long.

On a footnote, I would also like to say thank you to Sally of sallysewssometing.blogspot.co.uk for awarding me the One Lovely Blog Award and the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. Expect a post shortly where I follow through and pass this accolade on to other lovely and inspiring bloggers.

Goodbye Mr Smith

And hello Brothers…

I have a bit of a problem with sewing machines. I have great difficulty resisting a really lovely piece of machinery, which is how I ended up with 4 sewing machines, 3 cabinets and an overlocker.
However, with the best will in the world I have neither the space nor the need for all of them, so I assured Robert that at least one of them would be moving on in due course. Which it has now done.

The sewing machine affectionately known as “A wooden leg named Smith” (due to an accident with a flight of stairs many years ago) was a lovely 1960’s machine with a zigzag stitch, but was superseded by a very similar machine but with a few more features (and a cabinet to house it). So it has now gone to another home, where it is already being used much more frequently.

I still have a 3/4 sized, 1958 Singer in the loft, with its cabinet being housed in the garage, that I have yet to rehome/find room for, but my current line up looks like this:
Mmmm. :-)

They are, in order, my trusty old Singer 201K, a Brother 929D overlocker (sharing a cabinet/table) and my “new” Brother 350, which has a note in the manual saying “Purchased – 8th Sept 1966”, which came with its own Horn cabinet for the bargain price of £25!! (most Horn cabinets go on Ebay for £200+). I know this little Brother looks much like Smith, but it comes with a set of cams to control the stitch formation, which is a step further than the simple zigzag function of the other machine. Not that I’ve used it yet, but I have the perfect project coming up!

(You may have noticed the lack of actual sewing in this post, but I have been doing a hand sewing course this month, so results are slower than usual! More on that next month).

Lovebirds

Well, in an unusually consistent burst of productivity I have an fact managed to complete the curtains for my girls’ bedroom – in less than a week!!

This was a real labour of love as we started with a pair of black and white Ikea Eivor curtains that I bought for a specific project a while back which didn’t come to anything, so they have been lurking in my stash ever since. However, there were a couple of problems with them as they stood….

1. They were too sheer, so needed lining.
2. They were far too long.
3. They were tab tops and needed a curtain tape header.
4. While pretty and charming they were very monochrome.

The outcome of all this was that I kept the bottom hem (it seemed like a good idea at the time), cut the tops off, and undid the side seams. This made it pretty to easy to attach a full lining, and add the gathering tape.

However the real fun was in adding a splash of colour! Piper and I worked out a colour scheme for each of the birds, and I then a spent a day colouring them in with fabric paints. And apart from dropping a pink paint brush on the fabric it all went very well. (Pink paint crisis averted by widening a branch with some black paint).


The curtains have now been hung, and Piper and Robin are delighted with their new roommates.

Now I have nothing to stop me from embracing the 20 something metres of fabric destined for my lounge and dining room windows… would that count as stashbusting? ;-)

Love

This month’s sew along challenge was to make something for someone I love. Which meant that I no longer had any reason to avoid actually making the long promised phone case for Robert’s new (well, 4 months old) phone. Robert is gratifyingly one of those people whose phone lives in its case almost all the time, so the last one was well worn (read: a bit grubby and grimy) after 2 year’s use. However as he was foolish enough to upgrade in the pre-Christmas run up he has had to wait a while for the new case…



I would also like to share just how much I LOVE my new “Wonder Clips” – they have made this job so much easier (pins and denim are never an easy combination because of the thicknesses involved). And yes, I did use them for the more than just holding my makers label in place, I just failed to photograph any other moments.
Now to bestow some love on my daughters’ curtains, oh, and perhaps my daughters too. ;-)

Up and away *

We have reached a milestone of sorts. Matthew has been invited to birthday party by a school friend for the second year in a row. Which in friendship terms is a good thing, but in present giving terms is a bit more challenging. Up until now Matthew has given his friends drawstring back packs, but Kyle already has one, so I had to think again…


This Christmas I made pencil cases for each of my children, so Robert suggested I carry that forward. However I didn’t have any stash fabric which seemed right for this project – sturdy enough for a pencil case, or boyish enough for a 7 year old boy. However, with the use of another remnant of calico, a recycled zip, my trusty fabric paints and a wooden stamp I bought at last year’s Knitting and Stitching Show I made this…


The kites on their own seemed a little random to me, so I worked in the idea of a simplistic skyline over which the kites would fly. Slightly rustic, but definitely an idea I want to take further. To make it a more complete present I have  (obviously) filled the case with pencils, and printed out  a couple of pages of the Paper City Road Trip from Made by Joel to create a whole activity set. 

*(Title courtesy of Robin who was very taken with the colourful kites and spent the morning dancing around singing “up and away”.)