2012

Review time!  Well I majorly failed in achieving what I set out to do at the beginning of the year!  I was going to make a dress every month of the year to increase my sewing skills and to increase my wardrobe! Well that didn’t work! For the first few months it went well I made 4 dresses and a cheating dress for Miss C all of which I’ve worn regularly over the year.

But then deadline was getting to me, I was making Simplicity 2588 in a lovely navy gingham and it just turned into a disaster when I got the the collar stage.  I’d even made a muslin of this dress which looked good and I had high hopes.  I spent ages making sure that the gingham squares would line up but I think I put the collar piece on the wrong way round and by the time I realised I’d trimmed the pieces and broken my heart!  Its all in a bag, maybe I’ll revisit next year…

So I decided to stop pressuring myself and take a break.  From then on the rest of the year was great, I sewed what and when I wanted, I even got into hand sewing and hand quilted a quilt.I found it relaxing and enjoyable to sit there in the evening sewing away.  This was why I at the end of the year I finally had some success with crocheting. 

My best successes this year were designing and drafting a costume for Miss M and making my Stripy Renfrew top although the kids LOVE the quilt!

I enjoyed the process of making a sloper/block for Miss M and the freedom to design whatever we wanted.  It made me go back to my long dreamed of ideal of having a basic block for me and adapting it.  I’m not going to set myself the challenge of doing this as from past experience I’ve found it doesn’t work, plus since last year I’ve now got 2 jobs and doing a Teaching Assistant course which tons of homework each week!  Hopefully I will be getting more work next year so I’m not going to put any more pressure on myself, but I would like to draft out a basic bodice and go from there instead of buying the same type of dress all the time and making similar adjustments all the time.  I’d also like to make more Renfrews as they are just great and perfect for work in school so I’m on the look out for lovely knits.  I’d like to try more crochet but not sure what yet, it was great to have a target and theme of Christmas for the bits I made but not sure what to do in 2013.  BTW this blog is now 3 years old!

Adventures in Cross stitching

As well as sewing I like to do cross stitch, especially as it’s something I can do while watching TV in the evening.  Miss C really likes Tatty Teddies which is always called Little Bear in our house.

source

A while ago I found a free cross stitch pattern for a Tatty Teddy image and Miss C nagged me to make it for her.  When I say a while ago it turns out it was over 2 years ago!!!!!  I finally finished it a few weeks ago and today I framed it.

 

She’s very chuffed with it and finally getting it finished meant I needed a new project.  I remembered a project I’d seen ages ago and saved the details of.  To make a cross stitch family! So I got some graph paper and coloured pencils out and the girls got to have their say in deciding what colours things should be and how their hair should be!  And this is what we came up with…

(Family name has been photo shopped out!)

You can’t see very well but hubby has LFC on his shirt as that's his team!  Miss C isn’t quite so short in relation to the rest of us but otherwise it works well and it was completed in less than a week rather than 2 years!

I think that's because the teddy has lots of graduated colours which do my head in like the Baby Sampler I did in the past. So cartoon things are much easier! 

Next I want to make something for my sewing room, some sort of sample with a quote.  Something like…..

• Sewing mends the soul
• Any day spent sewing is a good day.
• Keep calm and sew on.
• Measure twice, cut once.
• May your bobbin always be full
• Stitch your stress away (not sure about this one as sometimes my stitching is very stressful!!!!)
• Sewing fills my days, not to mention the living room, bedroom, and closets.
• Sewing: A creative mess is better than tidy idleness.
• Sew much fabric, sew little time!
• As ye sew, so shall ye rip.
• I'm itching to be stitching!
• Memories are stitched with love.
• Keep Calm ~ and get the seam ripper.
• My soul is fed with needle and thread.
• I’m sew very happy
• I cannot count my day complete ‘till needle, thread and fabric meet.
• Stitch your stress away.
• Sewing mends the soul.
• Sewing is the New Black
• Veni, Vidi, Velcro

Italics are my favourites at the moment, what do you think?  Which are your favourites? Do you have any others?

Frantic Christmas Crafting

Well the big day is nearly upon us, if I haven’t bought it we will do without, if I haven’t made it, well its too late now!  We’re all looking forward to a lovely family Christmas here with 7 of us this year, originally it was going to a quiet 5 and then a change of plans by my brother (was going to be Australia for Xmas and then decided he missed us too much and came back early!) and then Matts sister meant that we are up to 7, not as bad as the 10 we had last year!  So as its a ‘quieter’ Christmas I’ve been making….. again.  After making my Tree Quilt I decided that I NEEDED to make a felt gingerbread house I first saw 2 years ago! Never let it be said I’m one for procrastination!  In my defence its taken me ages to find thick (4mm) felt in the end I got it from Blooming Felt LAST December but it was a bit too late to do it then what with the 10 guests and all.  Anyway the girls made a cardboard gingerbread house the other day and it reminded me that I have everything I need so I got to work. 

Ta Dah!

Its cute isn’t it?  The gingerbread is maybe a little overcooked but it was the only brown available last year but I think it looks great.  The kids love it and Miss C helped to decide where to position everything.  I might go back and sew windows frames onto the side windows just to finish it off. 

The other thing I’ve been periodically working on is the Cross Stitch kit I bought back in February.

and here's the finished article framed.

Looks pretty good to me. 

With all these Christmas crafty things I’ve made and all the decorations I’ve been buying our house is looking a bit like Santa's Grotto.  I think we’re going to have to get  yet another box to store the stuff in the attic and Matt will be banning me from buying anything else soon!  So there ‘might’ not be any Christmas Craft stuff next year although I’m not promising anything.  I’ve made the couple of things that have been preying on my imagination  the last couple of years and nothing has caught my eye this year except maybe crochet snowflakes so hopefully there won’t be too much to do next year as invariably its late in the day when I get these urges and add into that both my girls have their birthdays in December and have full blown creative parties you can see why I’m kinda glad I’ve cleared my Christmas To-Do list.  I’ll post something about their parties in the New Year as I just don’t have time right now. 

OK presents wrapped check, turkey ordered check, Next Sale completed check (gotta love VIP online sales!), family en-route check, bring it on!

 

Have a great and safe Christmas and I’ll see you on the flipside!

Lots of Anchor loveliness!

I got fed up of not having the right embroidery threads so I decided to recitfy this, I won an auction on ebay to buy 264 Anchor threads!

I also got an organizer to, well, organise the thread!

and a bobbin winder to, well, wind bobbins!

I'm not sure how many bobbins you need to fill one of these boxes and not sure what gaps I have in the Anchor range but I'll soon find out!

Does anyone else their threads like this? How many threads does the large box hold? I think I'll end up spending many evenings winding bobbins before I get to the end and start stitchin.......

Cross Stitch Baby Sampler Finished and Framed!

I finally finished my Baby Sampler for my friends baby, the Christening is next weekend so the timing is good. I framed it in a nice gold frame and used spray adhesive to stick it to the backing. I needed DH's eye to help position it as he's much better at judging the position of things than I am (its that male spatial awareness/female lack of spatial awareness thingy!) . I think it looks quite good, better than I thought it would as I was doing it. As I mentioned in the WIP posts it was quite taxing with stitches scattered all around to make the shaded areas but I'm actually pleased with it. Just hope my friend likes it!

(I've blurred out the date of birth for privacy reasons)

What do you think?

Cross Stitch Baby Sampler - Detail Added

I've pulled my finger out and spent a bit more time on my Cross Stitch recently. I finished the colourwork and started adding the detail using backstitch. I don't like doing backstitch (does anyone?!), I find that I can't see the bigger picture and think it looks rubbish as you are focusing on one small area, so it wasn't until I took this photo that I thought it looked ok! Still a bit more to do on the detail and then put the name and birth details on but feeling a lot better about it now than I was! Still got 3 weeks before the babies christening so I should be ok, famous last words!

Cross Stitch Baby Sampler Progress

I've managed to spend a few hours on the Baby Sampler the last few days and made a bit of progress......

still lots of detail to add but at least I'm making progress!

Cross Stitch Baby Sampler - WIP

I'm making a baby sampler for a friend who's baby was born in August.  She doesn't know I'm making it!  Its supposed to look like this......

but currently looks like this.......

 

so I have a far way to go!  I've found this one quite tricky as its gradual colour changes rather than definate changes like the cartoony images I've sewn previously.  This means that there was little stitches here there and everywhere.  I guess theres a learning curve to each project, otherwise whats the point!  I'm hoping to get this finished for mid Februrary as a gift for the Christening, wish me luck!