the rusty dog

We're dog-sitting Molly for a few weeks whilst Debbie and Jason have gone back to Canada for a holiday. I noticed the fluff on Molly's neck was becoming discoloured and realised it was coming from her collar. She *loves* going in the sea - mostly to dig up stones from the sea bed - and the metal part of the collar was getting rusty with the sea water ... the photo's not too clear so I put on some arrows to show the rusty bits.

and transferring the rusty colour to her neck! Woops!

So this morning I went up to the pet shop and bought her a new collar with no metal bits on it. She LOVES it! I told her it was a glow-in-the-dark collar and she can't wait until night-time to check it out!

She was a bit bamboozled when I put her old collar on her monster toy!

Fun times whilst dog-sitting! :oD

more catching up

Another week gone - another catch-up post. First, I added a bigger pocket to my swimming bag to hold my watch and fitbit when I'm in the pool. I'd left the smaller pocket on that I'd added last week so there was plenty room for both devices this week.

I bought some new towels for the kitchen so I cut up some of the old towels to make cloths. It's funny how they were past their best as towels but are perfect for cloths!

Then it was back to star-making.

Then I played with my new embroidery machine again.

It was our wedding anniversary last Thursday - 37 years!! As I go to Singers on a Thursday evening and so couldn't go out for a meal that night, we decided to go out for morning snack instead. My cheesey scone was most delicious! Who needs fancy food to celebrate 37 years? Not us! :oD

I treated myself to a blouse out of Asda's this week. I tried it on and was delighted that it fit me so decided I would change the buttons. 12 buttons later, I was ironing the blouse to put it in the wardrobe when I noticed this hole in the sleeve just above the cuff. Aaaargh!

There was no way I could take the blouse back - apart from having to change all 12 buttons back to the original ones, I'd taken off the tags. As I said "Aaaaaargh!".

I pondered a few solutions - darning the hole, patching the hole, making the sleeves shorter, covering the hole with something. But what? Another button? How about an embroidery? Like this?

That was supposed to be a test piece but I decided it would actually be better - and probably easier - just to attach that wee piece over the hole. So that's what I did. I also ironed on a piece of cloth interfacing on the back. I'm actually quite chuffed with it. Nobody else who buys that blouse will have one like mine!

But, you can bet I'll be checking any further purchases very carefully!

more embroideries and stars

Still no dressmaking going on around these parts but I'm keeping myself busy with other things. A few appliqués and embroideries:

Since the trees above looked so good on the black starry fabric, I did something similar with these next two but, to me, the fabric is actually too busy and distracts from the embroideries.

I added a pocket to my swimming bag to hold my watch whilst I'm in the pool. I used it this morning and the pocket is actually a bit small so I'll just add another bigger one on to the other side of the bag this week.

I've been keeping on with my patchwork stars. I decided I prefer the white stars with the coloured outsides so I've made all these that way around.

I've got another seven cut out and sewn up in various stages:

There are still more fabrics sitting waiting to be cut so plenty for me to get on with.