Mmmmmm Liberty....

For Christmas I received a bundle of Liberty print samples/scraps. They are absolutely beautiful and so precious - but I have no idea if I'll use them. I just like looking at them. I keep them on a shelf above my sewing table and occasionally I take them down and flick through them.

Gorgeous.

I had a moment of inspiration though when I was thinking about the Valentine card I made - I had strengthened the fabric hearts with interfacing and so I cut 2 very tidgy heart shapes and did the same and voila, made them into a pair of earrings. Yeah, they could be neater/better but it was just an experiment and I like them enough to wear them and will try and improve the next pair.

Needless to say, Nutmeg was close by to offer practical help and encouragement. She was purring when this photograph was taken, but that's just between me and Meg....

Armed ( with knitting needles ) and extremely dangerous...

Now, I know a man who likes a nice tank-top. Honestly. Not any old tank-top though - it's always got to be pure wool and if it's lovely soft merino wool, then so much the better. Anyway, this autumn/winter there seems to have been a dearth of these items in the shops, so aforementioned man is complaining that his tank-tops are getting shabby etc etc. Also he's also grumbling that tank-tops for men are just so boring and plain. So, I start to take note and hatch a plan - what about a hand-knitted tank-top for Christmas? Yes, I know it's only February but I like to be organised! The plan seemed to be coming along nicely when I popped into St. Vincent's charity shop this week  http://www.stvincents-svp.org.uk/servshop.html  and remembered to check out knitting patterns. I found a fabulous one for 10p!

How about that then? It really appeals to my love of 1940s fashion. I can just see some hard-working, pipe-smoking hubby coming home wearing that and expecting his tea on the table. That wouldn't happen in my house because I'm too busy gardening, at the gym or sewing, but a man can dream, can't he?

The fairisle-type pattern doesn't look that complex, so I'm going to give it a go. Heck, if it doesn't work out, what's wrong with a boring plain tank-top anyway?.....

I hardly knit these days, for all kinds of reasons. But I must share with you the my last knitted project. My ex-neighbour Rik and his beautiful wife had their first baby last August, a gorgeous wee lass named Eleanor. I made these rabbit-shaped bootees. A triumph, no?

They were an absolute pig to make - pure virgin DK wool on fine needles and double-cushioned soles, eurgh. They took quite a while but I kept thinking about the precious little feet which they were to house and keep toasty.

So, watch this space for knitty-updates.

A practical gift for a needlewoman...

Now, life isn't all frou-frou and about bags and purses. I'm not sure I actually believe that, but let's pretend I do. Sometimes a woman needs something practical and downright useful. Personally I'd go for a muscly man for this, but they're not always available. As a compromise, I came up with this set for the very fabulous Kath. She has recently picked up her sewing again after many years off and is doing some splendid patchwork. One can never be sure what items a woman has in her sewing box, but I figured that a pin cushion and needle-case set is a pretty good thing to own, especially in such gorgeous fabric. Again, I made darn sure that there was a small piece of this left over for myself. Not sure what I'll use it for but who cares, it's mine?!

The needlecase is lined with the same blue felt which tops the pin cushion. Quite nice eh? Gorge colours. Did I mention that I love blue and green? Yep, I think I did.

Bagsy that!

Having had a foray into cute purse making, I figured that simple cotton bags may also be fun. And we all know about women and bags and there not being enough etc etc. Again, it's the wonderful and irresistible cotton prints that make these things just too easy to make.

For the green number I bought a medium-weight cream-coloured calico. The handles were part of an old tablecloth I'd picked up. The other petals were just bits of pillowcase, a blouse and a skirt. I think it's lined with an old pillowcase too. I ran it up on the machine but hand-stitched the petals using invisible thread. The buttons cost me 10p! 10p I ask you?! They were from the most amazing haberdashers - you go in for a packet of pins and end up spending 3 days in there. You get the picture.

This one was a gift for my wonderful friend Rosie. I fell totally in love with the fabric when I clapped eyes on it. It is lined in red and I stitched seed beads and sequins at various points onto the front. It was, I admit, very difficult to give away! But there's a small piece of the fabric left over in my stash and it's got my name on it!

So much fabric, so little time.

Today I went into town and bought some new fabrics...no specific projects in mind but since when does there have to be? Right?! There's a great stall in the market with such a good range of cottons, polycottons and all kinds of lovely tempting fabric types. I try and store images and prices up for my following visit, but generally it never works that way and I have to simply go for what beckons to me on the day. Here's what I picked up this morning. The green and white hearts is a cotton, the others are just polycottons. The latter is priced at a mere £2 per metre which makes it waaaaaaay too tempting to ignore. I am an absolute sucker for a good ditsy print.

Such fabric delights are all too easy to turn into items like these purses, which took hardly any time at all to run up....

I have to say that the flower is a bit of a triumph, I was very pleased with it.

The lure of hexagons.

Pretty much straight after finishing the wall-hanging of flowers, I embarked on another project using hexagons. It is such an attractive shape to work with. Think about the honeycomb or the scutes on a turtle's carapace - it seems like the perfect shape. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to end up with when I began this work - all I knew was that I had in my stash an abundance of brown-toned florals, quite a few of them vintage, so I figured I'd utilise these and see what emerged as I worked.


The hexagons are approx. 3.5cm across. I haven't counted how many I've used but they're all basted and paper-pieced.

Even the rear of the work looks lovely to me.....

Inspiration struck when the pieces all formed a giant hexagon - why not add points and turn the work into a large six-pointed star, or Star of David, itself a very powerful symbol. So, I finally finished the shape over the weekend ( with one eye on the World Cup indoor cycling! )....all the hexxies are sewn together and now all I need to do is re-trace my steps and sew up all the gaps which didn't get done on my original rounds. The colour range is lovely. My initial thoughts now are to mount the star onto a plain background and work a simple border or double border around it using a mixture of plain and patterned hexagons.

Detail of work...

Hexagons for Christmas....

Having posted photographs of the bed quilt, I thought I'd share the other project which I was working on concurrently. It was a smaller piece of work but no less intense - a wall-hanging, and for added pressure it was to be a special Christmas present. I began work in about June 2011 and completed it about a week before Christmas. 108 flowers, each made up of 7 small hexagons - yep, that's 756 hexagons. It was a real labour of love. A couple of pics to show how it began life.....The rows of flowers were carefully(ish) worked out to avoid major colour and pattern clashes.

And then Nutmeg came to supervise – I’d be nothing without my muse!

 

And here is the wall-hanging in situ. The photograph really doesn't do it justice. It measures approx. 47 x 30 inches. It's a fairly time-consuming shape to hand-stitch but I loved working with hexagons.

An inspiring gift

Also received this beautiful book from my friend Rosie. Not only is it a fantastic book, the cover is inspiring and just the type of image I want to try and recreate with fabric and embroidery.

Birthday, yipee!

Yesterday, the 15th, was my birthday. Spoilt as usual, and why not?! Amongst all my lovely gifts, this was one of my favourites. My friends Liam and Stephen made it. Green and pink hhmmm one of my favourite combinations. Ah, they know me too well....!

St. Valentine's Day blues

St. Valentine's Day eurgh! I don't have a romantic bone in my body, but never one to pass up an opportunity to make something, I made a card and I made Garibaldi biscuits. I will send the card to Gus and I shall eat the biscuits! I'd make someone a fine wife one day....yeah right.

Anyway, I am off to the Opera tonight, Madame Butterfly at Leeds Grand. I am sitting in a box for the first time ever yaaaay! I hope I don't cry - at the opera I mean, not because I'm sitting in a box. It will be beautiful, I just know it.

My first completed project

Now you know how it all began, here's a photograph of the first thing I made. The patchwork ( 3 inch squares ) is all hand-sewn. Then Stephen ( the craft-meister ) and I put together the wadding and backing sheet and he sewed up the border on his machine. I love the colours, they're my colours. I gravitate towards greens and blues in anything. Combine these with lilac and pinks and to me, well that's just loveliness personified. So, this is my lap-quilt and it's about 4ft square. It's what I chuck over me when I'm feeling the chill in the morning as I'm drinking my first coffee.

How this sewing thing came about......

Just to give a wee background to all of this - until about Autumn 2010 the only sewing I'd ever done was fixing buttons onto things when they came off. It must have been in August or September of that year, that during a conversation with my friend Stephen, we talked about a patchwork quilt being put up for auction somewhere and he mentioned that he was making himself a lap quilt for the winter months. I casually asked how one even puts together 2 squares and he offered to show me. I like that in a man! So, a week later, after coffee and cake ( obviously ), therein took place my ' sew 2 squares together ' lesson, complete with how to fold, pin and baste fabric around paper templates. Hand on heart, I wasn't particularly fussed about what I'd discovered. However, a few weeks later I decided to try it myself and I sewed a few squares together and hey presto, I really enjoyed it. I was surprised at how neatly I could sew, and more importantly, I discovered that the actual art of sitting and stitching was so therapeutic and such valuable meditative time. Relaxation isn't one of my strong points, I like to be on the go and I'm a very physical person, a do-er. Although I maintain that I relax by keeping busy and getting things done, I'm not entirely sure it's a particularly healthy or recuperative kind of relaxing! So, it's been a revelation that I can actually enjoy sitting still whilst stitching. The rest, as they say, is history......

White Stuff

Having been threatened with it for weeks now, the snow finally arrived on Saturday. I hate the snow but it does make for rather beautiful photographs.......here's a neighbour's cat, Eric, trudging home.

Gus and the Heart and Nine Patch.

Here's my best boyo, Gus, enjoying the cosiness of the new bed covering. I swear that he's tried out every part of the thing!

My Proudest Quilt Moment...

I finally finished the patchwork bed quilt a few days ago - hurrah! I began work on the patchwork in about midsummer 2011 and I loved working on it. The pattern, heart and nine-patch, is based on a beautiful Amish quilt I found whilst Googling for inspiration. I didn't have to spend much money on fabrics, lots of stuff I already had in my stash. Of course, the special parts are bits with more personal meaning - a blouse donated by my mum and a couple of fabric bits from friends. I bought the calico specifically for this project and then invested in a king-sized piece of wadding and a king-sized cotton flat sheet for the backing. Due to the sheer size of the project, it was an utter nightmare to put together the 3 layers, but I persevered and I'm absolutely thrilled with it. To give an idea of size, it's approx 6.75ft x 7.5 ft plus borders. An uber-quilt. I am especially proud of the fact that it is entirely hand-stitched. I had dreams of putting it through the sewing machine in its latter stages ie. to sew the border in place and make the finish look super-neat. However, it was simply too heavy and cumbersome. I could have perhaps done it if I'd asked for help - but I have to be desperate to ever ask for help with anything..... The border isn't stitched perfectly by any means but as they say, a blind man on a galloping horse won't notice!

Here's Nutmeg giving her seal of approval to the quilt construction....

I have every intention of actually doing some quilting on this piece of work - something basic like stitch-in-the-ditch probably, since I've never quilted anything before. For speed's sake in this case ( it's February, it's cold, we've had snow! ), I have simply tacked the 3 layers together at intervals with embroidery silks. I figured that this short-cut would enable me to get the quilt onto the bed and start earning its keep!