loading up the tartan bee

Today I've spent most of the day loading things into the tartan bee. A lot of them aren't new - they came back to me when Debbie's shop in Perth closed down last month - so I won't show those ones but here are the things I've made recently which also got loaded in. It seems to take ages to load things in and I always promise myself I'll do it in dribs and drabs so it never takes me a whole day again but I never remember until I'm sitting for another day loading things in! *sigh*

These two didn't make it into the tartan bee for various reasons. They've been added to my (quite vast) collection of bags in the boot of my car!

This isn't meant as an advert for my shop (although I'd be delighted if you did feel the urge to buy something! ;o) ) but it's a way for me to pin to my "2015 makes" board on Pinterest where I'm trying to pin everything I've made in the year. Fun stuff! :o)

scrappy blocks and a surprise meeting

I recently started what I suspect will be a long-term project. It's a scrappy block, paper-pieced and every square will have a white stripe down the diagonal as the starting point.

The paper (on the back and not seen in these photos) is 8" square and the white stripes are 1¼" wide and 13" long.

I used a short machine stitch (1.6) so that, when it's time to pull the paper off, it will hopefully come off quite easily.

The first blocks I made using a single colour but I don't think I'll keep that up. I like the idea of more multi-coloured blocks.

This is how the blocks will join up showing how the white stripe meets making white squares. So far, so good.

Another thing I "made" last week were cinnamon rolls. The reason I put "made" in inverted commas is because I bought a tube of Jusrol cinnamon rolls from Asda's last week and all I did was open said tube, cut them up and baked them. Boy they were good!

Douglas isn't fond of icing so I left it in the bowl and just dribbled it on my own. Yummmmmmmeeeeee!

Finally, a funny thing happened to me today and I have to tell you about it. I was in my local fabric shop buying some dress net to make net Christmas trees like these:

Source: via Anne on Pinterest

As I was getting it cut, I noticed a lady on the other side of the counter looking at me. On my way out of the fabric department, that same lady came up to me and said "Excuse me. Do you have a blog?" I said "Yes, I do" and she said "I read it! I thought I recognised you and realised that's how I knew you!" I was astounded! This lady lives in a town about 20 minutes away from me. She doesn't have a blog but she reads mine and we met in the fabric shop in my town! Amazing! So, lady from the fabric shop, if you're reading this .... hello! It was lovely to meet you! Thank you for the compliments! :o)

zebras in her pockets!

I bet Joanna's the only person in the country who can say she has zebras in her pockets! What am I on about? Well, I'll tell you.

I don't know if you remember that I bought a downie cover last summer with zebras on it? I decided I wouldn't wear it with the white background so I dyed it blue - here's the post explaining that.

Then, after much thought, I realised I probably wasn't brave enough to wear zebras myself but I thought Joanna might. I was going to make her another McCall's 6696 dress but decided I wasn't prepared to deal with the problems of zebras slap-bang on top of nippular areas on such a big print! That post is here.

Anyway, after making my version of the Felicity dress last month, I thought it would be the perfect pattern to use with the zebras - no darts on the bodice part so no zebras would be cut up their middles (or bottoms!) by darts! I am soooooooo pleased with the way it all turned out.

The bodice is meant to be gathered but, like my own version, I pleated it instead.

Here are the zebras in her pockets.

And in the other pocket.

Best thing - Joanna loves it!

This was again made from a duvet cover and, as it was King sized, I managed to get the dress out of one side of the cover so there's the whole of the other side waiting to be used. I wonder if I dare make myself a zebra dress too? Joanna and I would need to consult with each other so we didn't both wear them on the same day but that wouldn't be hard. I wonder if I dare?

stripey and spotty scouts

Yesterday I made myself another Scout Woven Tee. I had made this pattern last year but couldn't find a blog post about it. I thought that was really strange because I normally blog about everything I make so why not this top?

Well, I went searching in my iPhoto and found the photos I took of last year's top. If I tell you that this is the best of that bunch by a long, long, long, long way, it's probably quite clear how it didn't get blogged about! Honestly, when I saw this photo, I just had to laugh. Nothing changes with me taking photos of me, eh? LOL

Anyway, I made another top using that pattern. And here it is.

The neckline is supposed to have a bias binding facing on the inside but, since I was using stripes, I thought it would be cool to have the bias stripes showing on the outside so that's what I did.

And then, since I had somehow managed to cut the first attempt at the bias for the neckline too short - and on a double layer of fabric as well - I had enough bias to add a wee bit to the sleeve hems too. Lovely!

Now, when I made this new top, I lowered the armhole by about 1cm as the only thing that bugs me about the spotty top from last year was that the armhole/side seam joins were just a smidge too high. Well, whilst diving into my fabric piles the other day, I noticed I still had some of the spotty fabric I'd used in last year's top so I decided today to replace the sleeves on the old top lowering the armhole/side seam join by 1 cm in the process. So here's last year's top with this year's sleeves.

A much better photo than last year's attempt! LOL

I ❤︎ Outlander

A few months ago, I noticed in my feed on Pinterest (where it shows what you and people you follow have been pinning), there were a lot of pins about a programme called "Outlander". These pins were being pinned by Joanna and it was clear that she really enjoyed this show. I must admit, I was intrigued - I mean, who can resist a handsome Scotsman in a kilt? Not me! LOL

Then, one day when we were dog-sitting Tilly, Douglas asked our next-door neighbour if he knew what was happening down at the harbour and why it was all being fenced off and people weren't allowed to go down there any more. Our neighbour told him it was because they were filming "Outlander". My immediate thought was "Joanna is going to be soooooooo excited about this". Understatement of the year! To read Joanna's thoughts and what she did about them you can read her blog posts here and here. So exciting!

Anyway, Douglas and I then decided we'd better watch this "Outlander" thing and see what it was all about. In the UK, it's available on Amazon Prime and, as we already do the Amazon Prime thing, we started watching. In case you don't know, the first series (which is all that's available at the moment) is an adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's book, originally called "Cross Stitch". I had read it when it first came out about 20 years ago but hadn't read any of the follow up books.

One of the best things about the series is that it's filmed in Scotland so Douglas and I sat there watching it saying "been there", "that's Falkand", "that's Culross" and so on and so on. It's a bit gory in places - more than a bit, to be honest - and there are sex scenes which might make you break out in a sweat ;o) but all in all, I really enjoyed it. That's 16 hours of telly I'd watch again!

Anyway, to the point of this post! Joanna made a lot of new friends from all over the world by tweeting about the filming at the harbour and one of them has come over from the US to visit Scotland and to see some of the places where "Outlander" was filmed. Joanna is meeting her tomorrow and she asked me if I'd make a bag for her to give her new friend. So I did.

First of all, I printed out some text using the font they'd used in "Outlander" - Charlemagne Std Bold which I already had on my computer. Then I pinned the piece of paper on to some calico and started sewing around the letters.

Then I added a tartan heart. The photo above shows the first position of the heart - I decided I didn't like it like that so I unpicked it and centred it as shown in this photo.

After peeling off the paper and sewing around the letters again (and finishing off all those threads!!), I turned it into a shopping bag.

The inside of the bag is the same tartan as the heart - Royal Stewart tartan.

It was a lot of work to sew all those letters - twice because I made the same bag for Joanna as a prototype - but well worth it in the end.

If you get a chance to watch "Outlander" even if it's only to look at Jamie Fraser/Sam Heughan Scotland, you should totally do it! :o)

red jacket photos with help from Tilly

Last week, I made myself another jacket using this pattern - view B again.

I asked Joanna to do her photography thing again so I could get some decent shots.

I LOVE this jacket!

The fit is relaxed and the colour is FAB!

Then Tilly decided she wanted in on the act. First she tells me that all she wants is a cuddle. Awwwww!

Then she snuggles in a bit closer. Awww again!

Then she decides my face is needing a clean! Ewwww!

No licking!

Okay? No licking!

Is it okay if I bite your hand then?

No? Okay, it has to be your face then! (If you look carefully, you can actually see her tongue! Ewwwww! :oD