notebook covers and other stuff

The market on Sunday was, to put it bluntly, a disappointment. Debbie and Jason sold one chopping board from their stock and one bag from mine. Undaunted, they've got a stall at a week-long fair from Friday - again in Edinburgh - so hopefully more people will go and buy stuff there! Fingers crossed!

I managed to get 3 notebook covers made for Joanna to take to her work to see which one the HR department want to give to their colleague.

Front of the patchworked version:

And the back:

This one is such a beautiful classy fabric I thought it would spoil it if I added her initials to it so I didn't.

And this one is actually my favourite. Isn't that butterfly fabulous?

I'm secretly hoping that they either won't be able to choose and will buy them all or, once they've chosen the one to give as a gift, they'll like them so much, they'll buy the other two too. A girl can dream, eh?

I had to make some new tartan bee labels today.

96 all cut and ready to be used.

After sewing the notebook covers, I really wanted to do some dressmaking but I bossed myself into finishing off 3 oven gloves instead.

I might allow myself to do some dressmaking tomorrow. Maybe. Crumbs, I'm bossy! :oD

market sewing

I was busy sewing again today. First of all I made a couple of pinnies (aprons).

Next I made some more bags. First of all, this scooter fabric. I hope others love it as much as I do!

And I made 2 of this one. I actually thought the pattern was all cats until I was giving the bags a final press and realised that some of them are dogs! I liked the fabric when I thought it was all cats but it's even cooler now that I see the dogs too! :oD

I also made another bag in the campervan print like the one on the right here as I sold the other one. Yay!

These bags and pinnies will go into my Etsy shop some time after Sunday - assuming they've not sold. Debbie & Jason have a table at a market in Edinburgh on Sunday and they're going to take some of my tartan bee stuff along too. They've done this market twice before and sold quite a few of my things as well as their own. How exciting!

I've also been asked to make a notebook cover for a leaving gift for someone at Jo's work so that's going to be my "task" over the weekend. It won't be a task, though. How could I not enjoy making something "in teal/turquoise with sparklies, butterflies, her initials and a dedication (if possible) and pretty much free reign after that"? I'll be doing some diving into my scrap boxes - I can't wait to get started! :o)

bags of bags

The bag sewing is going very well. Yesterday I sewed 4 bags like this:

Today I decided that, instead of sewing all the bags of one fabric at a time, I'd do one of each design that I could sew with cream thread. That way, if I don't get the others done, at least there'll be more choice of designs available.

I got these 2 done to the finishing off the threads stage -

And these 3 are just waiting to be double stitched around the tops and then the threads finished off. That will be done tomorrow as I have to be careful and listen to my back. When it tells me it's time to stop sewing for the day, I have to do that or regret it for days after.

Whilst I was uploading the above photos from my camera, this one was also there.

It's a prototype of a pvc bag which I sewed on Sunday. I wanted to experiment with the best ways to sew pvc on my machine. So far, using a teflon foot and always sewing with the pvc on the top (closest to the foot) is working best for me. I also used mini bulldog clips to hold the pvc in place as I sewed it. It took me over an hour to make this bag so, if I do ever make them for selling, I'll need to speed up a bit, methinks! :o)

3 new blouses

I managed to get some blouses finished at the weekend. I'd cut out 4 a few weeks ago and decided to make the three which I could sew with white thread all at one time. It seemed to take me ages to get them done so I was delighted when I finished them.

These are all McCall's pattern 5359, my go-to pattern if I just want a loose fitting blouse which is easy to make.

The 4th blouse will have to wait a wee while to be made as I'm busy making bags. I cut out 25 this afternoon so I'm going to be really busy with those for a while! More on that when I get them done - hopefully this week. :o)

hot, sunny and dry

I'm not getting much done around here because, unusual for us in the UK but especially for us in Scotland, we're actually having sunny summery weather. Hot summery weather. Hot, dry summery weather.

I go up to the sewing room to sew and about an hour later, I have to stop because I'm just too hot and sticky - yuck! I have a list as long as my arm of things I want to get done but I'm getting nowhere fast - or even slowly - with said list.

I'm not complaining about the heat - honest! We're just not used to it and we're certainly not used to not having rain for days and days and days!!

One good thing - our pea plants are filling out nicely.

I was in our local thrift shop today and picked up this great bargain.

I got all of those buttons for the princely sum of 50p! Crumbs, if I wanted to buy buttons like that in a shop, one of those bigger buttons would cost me way more than 50p all by itself. I have no idea what I'll use them for but that doesn't matter too much. I mean, 50p! Wow!

It doesn't look like we're getting any rain any time soon.

Is this really Scotland??

since I was here last

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post about our wee Rosie - both here and by e-mail. I really appreciate all your kind words. It's still hard to believe it's happened. :o(

Okay, deep breath.

I have a few things to show you. First, a skirt I made - Butterick 4461.

And the ongoing sewing of the oven gloves I'm getting there ... slowly!

Today, we took a trip out to Hobbycraft in Falkirk. I bought some fabric - no real surprise there, I suppose! :o)

Plenty there to keep my busy! :o)

♥ Rosie ♥

It's a very sad day here today. Rosie's heart hadn't been good and she'd been on medication since January. Unfortunately, today her heart failed. We took her to the vet but she died there.

♥ Rosie ♥ : 13 Jan 2003 - 10 July 2013

She knew she was loved and we know she loved us back. The house just isn't the same without her. I miss her so much. :o(

For this post, I won't be replying to any comments. I hope you'll understand.

sunshine, haar and tennis knuckle!

On Saturday, it was really warm here so I took my basket of oven gloves outside.

I had a lovely time out there pinning the labels on.

Today - Monday - we had our usual east coast haar* going on so no sitting outside for me. I just got on with the oven gloves in the sewing room instead. I have a sort of production line going on so I'm doing the same stages for all of them at one time. It does make it feel like I'm not getting on very quickly with them but I keep reminding myself that, when I get to the last stage with them, they'll all be done at once. Yay!!

After watching our Andy win Wimbledon yesterday - c'mon the Scots!! :oD - I wondered if we still had our swing ball and, sure enough, after digging in Douglas's Aladdin's Cave - aka the garage - we found it! So Jo and I had a few games until this terrible thing happened to me.

I don't know if the bruise shows up very well here but it's quite impressive. Jo claims it was my fault for hitting the ball with my finger but, hey, who batted the ball so hard in my finger's direction? :oD

* "Haar" is fog which rolls in off the North Sea coast especially in eastern Scotland and the north east of England.

Editing to say - my finger looks bad but it doesn't hurt at all. I can press the bruise and there's no pain whatsoever. Thankfully!

as time goes on

You may remember, back in May, for my birthday, amongst other fabulous gifts, Joanna gave me a clock movement. I had thought I might make a patchwork clock for my sewing room. I got myself an 8" x 8" blank canvas from Dunelm Mill a good few weeks ago with the intention of making said patchwork clock.

Well, today, I dug out the canvas and wondered, if I was to make a patchwork face, how would I attach it to the canvas? Glue? Mmmmm - could get messy.

So, then I started thinking - a dangerous thing to do, I know! :oD - how about just covering the canvas with fabric and then fitting the clock on to that? Great idea!

I knew I wanted a fabric that I loved but didn't want to cut up for sewing. I took a quick look at some of the fabrics on my shelves and then the perfect one just jumped right out at me. Perfect, I tell you. Don't you agree? (For anyone interested, it's called "Keep Calm" and it's by Timeless Treasures.)

I cut the fabric out, stapled it on to the back of the canvas and then worked out where the centre was. Then I cut a wee hole in the fabric-covered canvas and fitted in the clock movement.

Oh my goodness, it's just so perfect for my sewing room clock. It'll get put in place tomorrow but, in the meantime, it's sitting on the piano being admired.

a lovely afternoon

I spent a lovely afternoon in my sewing room today doing some cutting out. Not oven gloves this time but a few blouses for myself. This is one I'm cutting out of a bed valance which I got on sale in Dunelm Mill a few weeks ago. It was a Double King size and it cost me something like £4.79! And it's pure cotton! A-ma-zing!

I went a bit daft and cut out 4 blouses altogether! And I also cut out another skirt - the turquoise with the cream daisies. Here they are in the crate waiting for me to start sewing them ... tomorrow, I hope.

It's a good thing I was having a lovely time in the sewing room because it was absolutely bucketing rain outside. All. Day. Long. My mum tells me we're meant to get warm weather at the weekend. I'm not going to hold my breath!

a dress for Joanna

I finally managed to make one of the summer dresses for Joanna. I say "finally" because I was supposed to make these dresses for last summer but summer 2012 was a bit of a wash-out here in Scotland so the dresses weren't needed. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!! :oD)

This was the pattern for this dress.

Joanna chose the straight bodice with the short skirt. After figuring out which pieces I needed, it wasn't too hard to get it done. Well, except for the zip. Honestly, you'd think I had never sewn a zip on before! I managed to get it done on the third attempt! (How embarrassing!)

Anyway, here's the dress.

I'm really pleased with it - including the zip!! - and, thankfully, Joanna likes it so we're all good!