Still Stitching

The butterfly idea is growing, I have added some leaves and have oodles of teeny tiny leaf shaped cut outs to add. I have also learned a couple of new embroidery stitches. The leaf shows coral stitch, though I reinforced it with a bohkara stitch to keep it sturdy.





I have also been trying woven circles, my cloth is turning into a bit of a sampler, but that's ok.





An embroidery from the bottom of the bag has also been calling to me, a few more stitches and this will complete. I am not sure what I will do with it, perhaps a cushion or quilt block for Boo.



The house is littered with little snippets of thread which the vacuum stubbornly refuses to pick upp, still, at least it is sparkling and rainbow thread....

Time for Tea

Miss Boo got a new tea set for crimbo and a farm, amongst many things. I have gone drawstring bag crazy and have been sewing up wee bags for her toys.
The first is for the tea set, the second is for the farm, but as yet not quite complete.

Both have embroidered reversed appliques, stitched to flowery felt shapes which were then stitched to the main body of the drawstring bags. The embroideries are my own design, and were drawn freehand straight on to the fabric. I am a dab hand at these now, they are so quick to make and I find myself thinking about all the bits and bobs floating about the house that also need a wee bag. Now I just need to buy a ton of hooks to hang these little babies from!

I love the colour combos on these.... ah, sweet colour.

Scratching the creative itch, rather badly

I have set myself a quite overwhelming challenge to create each of my sproglets a christmas gift, now I do have just (just!) four children, and with almost 5 weeks to go to christmas, one gift a week doesn't seem so impossible - but I get so little time to create, and I am SO slow at pretty much everything, sewing, embroidery, drawing, I like to take my time and get it right. With just over 4 weeks to go, I would be lying if I said I was not a little overwhelmed.

Anyway, I have made a start, a rather slow start. I hit upon the idea of making a cushion for Ambear, using an embroidery which I started 3 years ago (I told you I am slow!) and really ought to finish and make use of. So, I have no fabric, well, not much, and mostly little scrappy pieces that I found at the bottom of the bag

, so in my infinite wisdom, I figured I would use said scrappy pieces to create a patchwork border for the embroidery, and ta-da I would have a cushion front. The embroidery is my own design and features Ambear and her precious Sleepy Bear.

However, the bag was sadly lacking in such tools as rotary cutters and cutting mats and even a decent pair of scissors, actually the only pair of scissors I currently have in my possesion are either teeny weeny embroidery scissors or blunt as a donkeys ass kitchen scissors, can you tell where I am heading with this?

Yes, my patchwork pieces were all pissed, I figured that was ok as I could sew them together straight and um, that didn't happen, and before I knew it, well, I had one seriously pissed piece of patchwork, that wouldn't even iron right, with crazy fat and irregular seams. So my first attempt at patchwork is a complete bungle, the donkey with the blunt ass could have done a better job, but oh well. Here it is anyways.





Notice the lack of eye popping colour, Ambear prefers muted tones, so I did my best to cater for her taste with my small selection of vintage scraps, this will be a completed cushion this week,very soon, before christmas. Sigh.

Boo has been playing with her train set a whole lot recently, and has been dragging it from pillar to post in a rather tired looking plastic grocery bag, so out came the sewing machine (which is fast becoming my firm friend, now that I know how to thread her up etc) and an old vintage pillow case, and this nifty little drawstring bag was made. It seemed a bit plain on it's own, so I embroidered a train design to applique on to the front.





I reeeeally should have put this away for christmas, although she also needs a bag for her building blocks, wooden farm and animals and oh the list goes on, back to the sewing machine goes I....
What have you been sewing lately?