knitting, embroideries, sewing and moving things around

Want to see what I've been doing since I last blogged? First of all the baby cardies I was making finally got sewn up and the buttons attached. This is them (sort of) being blocked. More just a dampening with some water and pinned to a towel to take out the worst of the bumps.

I bought the blue mix yarn before we knew the baby was a girl but, as I told Debbie, it's okay for a girl to wear blue. My two certainly did!

Debbie gave me this orange-mix yarn to make something with so I made another smaller and plainer cardie -

This is a wee pair of bootees that I started last night to go with the orange-mix cardie. Same pattern as I blogged about here.

I've started a ripple crochet blankie for the baby too. Fun times!

I sewed a new bag for Joanna. It's the same pattern that I first blogged about here. Here's the bag -

A close-up of the flower -

And the inside of the bag -

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to be able to use all my machines at once - or at least not have to move the machines around each time I wanted to use one of them. Here's what my sewing machine table used to look like - my sewing machine is at the front (with its blue lid up) with the overlocker on the right and the embroidery machine behind (with its black lid up). Way too crammed to be effective!

It took a few days to get it all shifted - with a lot of help from Douglas - but we did it. Here are my machines all sitting side by side.

I can now set the embroidery machine going and can sew something on the sewing machine or overlocker whilst it's chugging away. I love this arrangement!

Finally, what did I do with the reindeer, you asked? I cut them to shape:

Backed them with snowmen fabric -

Sewed binding around them -

- and made them into bunting!

It's really hard to get a decent photo of the bunting as it's so wide but I hope you get the idea! I am so pleased with the way it turned out!

I have a few other things on the go which I hope to be able to share soon. Watch this space, as they say!

all sorts of sewing going on

The 5 patchwork stockings I was working on all got finished and loaded into the tartan bee shop.

Then I had to make 3 new bow tie brooches for the new ladies who joined the choir I sing in. I'm pretty sure they won't be taking part in our concert with us - 5 weeks to learn all 14 songs we'll be singing is a bit much really - but I thought it would be better to be prepared so I just went ahead and made the brooches for them.

I bought and planted 12 hyacinth bulbs - 4 bowls each with 3 bulbs in them. They'll be fabulous when they come out - and probably a bit overpowering scent-wise!

The biggest thing I've been doing lately is embroidering reindeer. I got the set here.

I was really pleased that there were the correct number of reindeer! "You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen ..." etc. I'm thinking of embroidering their names under each one so I'll have to choose which one is Rudolf so I can put a red sequin or a red button on his nose!

Oh and you might have noticed that, at one point, a plaster appeared on one of my fingers. I didn't sew through my finger but it did come into contact with the jaggy end of the machine needle! Ouchy!

bootees and stockings

Last time I was here, I mentioned I'd been doing some knitting. Here are a couple of the things I've been making. Bootees!

I made these exact same bootees for Debbie and Joanna when they were babies. I'm so glad I kept this pattern. I only wish I'd kept all the others too. Have you seen the price of knitting patterns these days? Yikes!

Having said that, Pinterest is a great place to find free patterns and that's where I found this one. Aren't these just adorable?

If you feel the need to knit these, here's the pin. Just click on the photograph to be taken to the pattern.

Source: via Anne on Pinterest

I have a couple of baby cardigans on the go but they're not quite finished yet so I'll keep the reveal of those for later. I ran out of yarn for one of them (even though I bought what the pattern said I needed!!) so I just went ahead and started another one whilst waiting for the shop to get me more. I love the speed of knitting baby things - you just cast on and, before you know it, you're casting off. Fabulous! :o)

A few weeks ago, I sold some Christmas stockings from my Etsy shop - yay! - so I had to replace them with some new ones. First a couple of patchwork ones -

- and some of the self-fabric/cuffed versions -

After making those, I still had 5 sets of backs and linings cut out and ready to be used so I decided that I'd make some more patchwork stockings. Yesterday I got 3 of the patchwork fronts made -

- with 2 more ready to be sewn together -

Today I got the other 2 patchwork fronts made -

- and now all 5 are ready for quilting. Hopefully I'll make a start to that tomorrow.

Question: Is it too early to be listening to Christmas music whilst sewing Christmas stockings? It is? Woops! :oD