My new love - and it's nothing to do with sewing.

For the past year or so I've been desperate for a bike...and I've finally committed. So, this post is for the friends I have who have been interested enough or kind enough to ask about what type, what colour, what I'll be doing with him etc.
Our journey together has begun - and I love him. All I know is that he's fast and when I ride him I feel like Boadicea - all-powerful, all-conquering. And I'm sure that I have a big daft grin on my face the whole time. It's that good. Oh, and he's called Spartacus. Or Fabian if I'm being gentle with him.

We'll be doing many miles together - and this will take me away from home and my darling cats and my beloved sewing. Gulp. But I'll be out in the fresh air, seeing wonderful things ( I saw a stoat this morning! ), and that is a wonderful way of topping up the happiness quota......

Pin cushions for charity

Over the last couple of nights I have made these pincushions. I cannot take any credit for the original idea - I think they were part of a DMC kit I saw at a show a couple of years ago and the design stuck in my mind. The colour scheme is unusual and a fairly accurate rendition of what I remember the kit to look like. I drew the little cats onto paper first and used as a template.

I am going to make a batch of these - perhaps in various colours - and donate them to Leeds Feline Friends so that they can be sold at their Christmas Fair, an event I always attend.

The chicken and the egg

I finally got around to making a door-stop, a much-needed addition to my sewing room. It was very quick to hand stitch, the only difficulty being what colours to chose. I adore gingham and plumped for the orange version from my stash.
I made use of yet more pieces of left-over wadding to form the chicken shape.

The fabric was then tacked around the wadding and felt details stitched into place along with a beady eye.

Both pieces were stitched together and stuffed with buckwheat - I'm so glad I finally found a use for that!

And totally unrelated, I quickly made these egg-cosies as a small gift. Again, wadding was used to provide structure and insulation.

My kaleidoscope

The June project for the other blog in my life had as its theme Kaleidoscope. Having been enjoying my patchwork projects recently, I decided that I'd set myself the challenge of using this method to come up with something. Hexagons seemed an ideal shape - but I also wanted to divide them in some way to use as much colour as possible.
Dividing each shape into 12 seemed attractive but was quite challenging. The only criteria I set was that each hexagon should be made up of a dark and lighter shade and have a plain centre. I used 7 shapes of approx. 8.5in./21cm across. The overall floral shape was quite a becoming alternative to a traditional circular kaleidoscope view.

Hexagons tacked and ready to have centres stitched in...

...and centres waiting to be matched up with hexagons...

The overall piece is finished. A loose running stitch has been used around the outer edges to neaten them up for the photoshoot!

I particularly wanted the photographic shot of the work to be part of the project - ie. I wanted to try and catch the light so that the folded fabric at the rear of the work would create an effect as well as the colours. So, here goes...

And a close-up taken without the flash achieves this quite well. I love the stained glass effect.

I particularly enjoyed this project - enough to think about adding to it and creating something larger. I had toyed with the idea of enlarging it and creating a quilt....but having seen the effect of light coming through the fabric, I'm now speculating about a window hanging of some kind....

New ways with wadding...

During a recent hot spell I took quite a lot of photographs - mainly of flowers and insects. I've never given much thought to the camera's case until I had a conversation with someone last week about photography, which then led into printing of photos, buying cameras and then onto camera cases. This was inspiration enough!
I started to wonder how a case would look and perform in a padded cotton construction - and decided to find out.

I have heaps of wadding pieces left over from past quilt-makings and am now so pleased I kept these offcuts.

Despite having an abundance of cotton floral prints, I bought a piece of fabric specifically for the project. Here, wadding is cut to 3 layers for each side of the case, and then the fabric is sewn to size.

 I sewed the longer seams on the machine but hand-stitched the case into shape. I decided against a velcro fastening because it seemed quite industrial. The organza ribbon suits the prettiness of the fabric and makes the case more feminine, I think. As a prototype I'm pleased with the result - enough to think about making more cases in various fabrics .....

My heart sings....

Not a post about anything to do with sewing, but really wanted to share these photographs, all taken in my garden. I adore flowers and I love to watch the insects and listen to the birds - I feel so lucky and blessed that I can grow things and attract amazing and beautiful creatures. Over the last few years I have found horticulture to be so spiritually healing that now, well, I know that I couldn't bear to live without growing things....

Perennial poppy - the clump spreads every year and I can't yet bring myself to lessen its halt.

Shield bug laying gorgeous pink eggs on Stachys lanata, or lamb's ear.

I'm generally not a fan of any yellow flowers....but who can resist the sheen of a buttercup on a sunny day?...

Octagon quilt layout

It's a rainy morning so I've used part of it to do a job I've been avoiding - trying to complete the layout of octagons for my friend's quilt. I wanted it to contain no duplicates in a row - but whilst this worked horizontally, it didn't work vertically in all cases and became quite complicated because more than anything I was trying to avoid major clashes in colours and patterns.

So, here is what I have come up with and having walked around it and photographed it from all sides....I think it's ok. And really, if it's going to be loved and used as a cosy cover-up, does it really matter that there's a purple Oriental pattern next to a purple-wash cotton?....

The light isn't great today and the flash wasn't doing the colours justice, but hopefully sans flash this has captured the essence quite well.

The rows are now numbered and stacked in a box, and over the next few weeks I will sew together a row at a time.

 
The small interconnecting squares are being basted between other jobs.....

 .......so considering that this is to be a Christmas present, work is progressing nicely and on target - always a good feeling.