Lots of Project Completed!

Although I blog regularly on WoodlandsWorld2 I forget I have this blog. I sew on a regular basis so I have loads to show.

I love embroidery so just before Christmas I made some mug rugs.

some coasters

and a placemat.

I have decorated my sewing room, which proved to be a far bigger job than I initially predicted. I should know by now that living in an 1850 cottage does present you with unexpected challenges. Anyway now its all done I made a Roman blind.

I have also made a wall hanging for my sewing room, and yes I do have a dachshund lol!

I made 2 advent calendars for my girls

During all of this I have continued making the quilt that my daughter and her husband should have got for their wedding back in March last year. As we were doing their wedding on a budget, we had a lot of 'things' to make, so the quilt has now become a 1st Wedding Anniversary gift.

It now has a border and is currently at the quilters.

I like to keep busy, I have a number of other quilts on the go, so have picked one up, in between some more little bits of sewing. More about those in my next post!

Pin Cushion, Dress and Harry Potter

I maynot have been blogging but I have been doing some sewing. The summer for me is mainly spent in my garden, I am a BIG gardener and not your average garden for the UK either, if you would like to take a look it is here.

I have made a Dachshund pin cushion

but I can't bear to put pins in it!

After our daughters wedding I decided I wanted to get back into dressmaking again, so asked the lovely lady who made my dress for the wedding if she would be prepared to teach me, she said yes, as long as I worked around her brides.

So we have been having a lovely time, she is such a lovely lady so made a toile, the first pattern I used I did not like once it was made up, so very releaved I made a toile.
The 2nd pattern has two versions a slimline dress with sleeves and a more vintage style without sleeves. Yes you guessed it, I wanted to make the vintage style version and add sleeves. Here is my toile of this:-

I think you can see why I wanted sleeves.

I am not wearing my 'holdy in pants' so excuse the lumps and bumps.

So I began the cutting out

and before you say, the fabric is none directional.
I have actually now nearly finished, it is lined and has a concealed zip as well and is looking good, I will post photos of the finished dress shortly.

One of my daughters friends from University has just recently had a baby, S (friend) is Harry Potter mad, and when I say mad I mean mad, she had a Harry Potter 30th birthday party and everyone had to dress up as something or someone from HP.

Anyway  did a bit of research and found a Harry Potter baby cube so made her one

HP's fringe lifts up and you can see his scar.

Quidditch rings.

The Snitch

She was over the moon and said to my daughter it was the best baby present they had, had, and they had had a lot. I am thrilled.

No Sewing At the Moment!!

Poor neglected blog, life has been full on sadly my eldest daughter split with her partner and has reluctantly had to move back home. Plus we are also preparing for my youngest daughters wedding.
The sewing room has been totally taken over with wedding 'stuff'.
Dresses, flowers, buttonholes, table decorations,etc. and also furniture and boxes from my other daughters house.

So as you may understand, not a lot of sewing has gone on! Sorry.

Lots Going On!

I have not blogged for a while as we have had some rather sad news. Our beautiful, funny, bouncy Standard Wirehaired Dachshund has been diagnosed with a slipped disc in his neck.  Which means any sudden jarring could mean a catastrophic event.

and yes he is that cute!

Anyway, back to sewing, I have done loads, more of my 'Bee' Blocks.....

 I still have a long way to go to improve my embroidery, but at the moment I am throughly enjoying myself!

I also love Jenny of Elefantz  and have joined her monthly stitchery club, so have done a couple of her small embroidery patterns.

I have also finished two presents, one for my youngest Great Neice

and this for my Great Nephew, the first boy in our family for over 80 years!

A Pirate quilt!

A Year Ago

A year ago I finished this lap quilt for my daughter. I designed it to fit round the centre panel I found.

She has Aspergers and is an avid reader, having read The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings whilst in junior school. When she went to senior school she was mentored by the Librarian who encouraged her to read different genres. Which she did with great gusto, one of her most favourite books then and still now is 'Memoirs of a Geisha'.

So when I found this panel you can understand why I grabbed it with both hands.

I hand stitched with gold thread all around the Geisha Girl, which was a challenge as, gold thread is awful!

I sewed in the ditch on the straight red strips and then hand sewed inside the grey panels to finish off.

This was the first 'hand sewing I had done for a while, I enjoyed it so much that I now do lots of embroidery.

BEE Fruitful

another block for the Bee uitiful quilt along done!

I love the way we are given a pattern and we all add our own individual tweaks!

Tidy?

When my girls lived at home, I always had a very tidy home, I was a bit fanatical about it to be honest. But since they have moved out and I have found sewing, I am terrible.

I have a set of drawers in the corner of my sewing room, the drawers themselves are relatively organised but on top is just bags of scraps and other things.

It was really annoying me, I use scraps a lot as I like sewing 1/4 inch hexi's . My plan is to sew a double quilt.

This is the start of it, I am machine sewing with invisible thread on the top..
Now to do this successfully you need a wide choice of colours. Do you not find that your choice of colours is limited? So at my Quilting group at 'Quilting for You' I asked my friends to save their scraps and they certainly have done, but so much so I had the mess above.
So hubby very kindly bought me 10 boxes.
Which I have filled.....

It gave me a fabulous opportunity to sort through all those bags, get rid of the silly little bits that where no use to anyone, so I have a box for 1) small scraps, 2) medium scraps, I found some quite 3) large pieces too, also in a box, 4) random bits of wadding, 5&6) two boxes for current projects, a 7) box for strips and another for 8) selvedges, yes I keep the selvedges and sew them too

cute isn't it! Box number 9 has fabric in saved from sample books. Box 10) has some stuffed dachshunds and tea towels in??? Don't ask!

So I have started the organisation of my room. I am going to take down the old cupboard front, make the top shelf more secure and once the cupboard front is gone will make the shelf more accessible.

Its still a mess, but at least its an organised mess. This used to be my daughters bedroom, hence the dragon on the wall. The tables in the middle I found on Gumtree they are the type you can stand at, so save my back.
The room is due a makeover, as I have to decorate and make sure everything can be put away from little prying fingers as my house is due to be taken over by my niece, her partner and their 4 children next year, when they come down for my daughters wedding.
You can follow it all here!