blogging from my camera

I checked my camera to see what I'd been up to recently that I hadn't blogged about and was surprised at how much was on there.

First of all is the blue jacket I made a good few weeks ago. It's another Butterick 5616. I love it!

Next were some bindings which I made from Christmas fabrics. I always laugh at myself when I do the measurements in metric for the length but in inches for the width!

I didn't do the stitchery on this - Joanna did. Isn't it fabulous? I used some of that newly made binding to finish the edges. It's now in Joanna's house and there was talk of it going on the wall now. Why wait until December?

Joanna LOVES Russian dollies and, when she saw a downie cover on the Asda website, she wanted one right away. Unfortunately, they only sold them in single bed sizes so I told her to buy 2 and I'd sew them together to make a double for her. This photo shows the join - there's another one at the other side as well.

When the cover is on the bed, you can't really see the joins as they are right where the downie tips over the edge.

I made some cloths out of a couple of towels which had seen better days.

We had a go at candlemaking. I used a couple of mum's old teacups for the candles. I have another couple of cups which I hope to fill with red candles sometime soon.

I made some granola bars.

And some chocolate fudge. Needless to say, there are plenty of granola bars left but no fudge. Wooops!

I dried some oranges in the oven. They took a-g-e-s to dry out (about 5 hours in total) and now they don't smell of oranges at all so what was the point, I ask myself? They do look nice, though, so they'll get hung around the house at Christmas time.

Lastly, this is a bowtie I made yesterday for our next Singers' concert. I sent this photo today to our musical director and she approves whole-heartedly so now I have another 7 to make. They don't take long to make so I hope to get them done in time for Thursday's rehearsal.

dress muslin and a Christmas stitchery

I finished the muslin of the next dress for Joanna yesterday. I didn't have enough of the peachy-orange sheet to make sleeves so I used navy instead. It's not going to get worn anywhere so navy sleeves won't be a problem - they just look a bit odd! LOL

This is the pattern I'm using - view D, shown in navy on the pattern envelope.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't realise it had a zip in it when I started cutting it out. It's a side zip, tucked under the left arm and opening from about an inch below the armpit to 14" below that. I'm really hoping that, because of the wideish (is that even a word?) neckline, Joanna might be able to get it on and off without using the zip and, if she can do that, then I won't be putting a zip in the "proper" dress.

This morning I used the sewing room window to copy a Christmas stitchery for Joanna to do. I had told her how to copy it but, even as I was telling her, I knew I wasn't making much sense so she asked me to do it for her.

Don't get fooled by the sunshine in that photo. Within minutes it was bucketing rain ... again.

Anyway, it didn't take me long to copy the design for her.

In case that doesn't show the design very well, here it is on paper. It'll be fabulous once it's done. :o)

finished - Christmas twister and reindeer

I didn't get any sewing done yesterday - drat my sore back! - but I made up for it today. First of all I got down to the quilting on the Christmas twister -

I took this photo and didn't realise until I looked at it in iPhoto that you can see the camera - and me - in the mirror behind the sewing table. Kinda cool! :oD

Here's a small part of the front showing the quilting:

And the back:

This is a terrible photo but, as it's now nearly bedtime, it'll have to do until I can take another one tomorrow.

After I'd finished that, I dug out the reindeer embroidery which I'd finished the stitching and backing and binding of during the Olympics - ie weeks ago! I added some teeny tiny bells around the reindeers' necks and coloured them in with wax crayons. That was so much fun, I'll definitely be doing that again!

And here are the reindeer in close up.

I love it! :o)

reindeer, a stool cover and a 'phant

Over the weekend, I unashamedly sat on the couch and watched the last of the Olympic Games. As I sat there I made great headway with the reindeer embroidery.

I stitched on some beads for their noses - brown for the Dasher & Dancer (and Prancer and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen).

And red, of course, for Rudolph.

I can't decide if I like the bead noses or not so I'm going to attach more eyes - also beads as seen in the Dasher/Dancer photo - and decide when they're all done if I like them or not.

This morning, I made a new cover for Douglas's footstool. That's another piece of the stash used up. Yay!

Although it doesn't look like it, the inside of the brown diamond is the same cream as the rest of the background. It must be a trick of the eyes that makes it look so much brighter.

Lastly for now, I made a start to my first 'phant. I didn't mean to set the pieces on the table to make them look like they were kissing. It just turned out that way! :oD

tree tops, reindeer and my new toy

I sewed the rows together of the Christmas hanging and pinned it to the wadding and backing ready for quilting tomorrow.

As I suspected, some of the tree tops were cut off in their prime:

I decided I wasn't going to worry about that as I have some stars which I'll sew on to the tops of all of the trees so nobody will know which ones are cut off and which ones aren't. I'll use gold stars:

And red stars:

And green stars:

So I think it'll look just fine. :o)

I also did some embroidery as I was sitting watching the Olympic triathlon this morning. I dug out the reindeer embroidery which I got last year and then didn't finish in time for Christmas. I'm determined I'll finish it this year.

I have to confess to spending a bit of time today playing on my new toy. An iPad of my very own. Yay!!!

I know I'll get the hang of it eventually but it's kind of scary on my first day.

wee trees and reindeer

Remember the tree panel I showed in this post? Well, I decided to see how it looked at half that size. I have to say, I love this even more than the big one. It's just over 6" square.

So, naturally, I had to make another one. This is my favourite of all the trees I've made - so far!

I'm now thinking of trying it even smaller. We'll see how that goes! :oD

A few weeks ago, I bought the Dash Away pattern as shown in this post on the Twin Stitchers blog.

I dug it out yesterday and decided it was time to start it. I know myself well enough to know that there's no way I could have Rudolph in the middle of the line up so I cut him out and stuck him on the end.

I mean, the other eight reindeer just trip off the tongue in the order "Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen. Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen". Rudolph is the "most famous reindeer of all" because he's the extra one. The special one. He's not in the middle of them, he's out on his own until Santa comes along and tells him to "guide my sleigh tonight". Anyway, that's my reason for cutting him out and putting him on the end. He will be compensated with a really shiny red nose when I get to him! :oD

Here's the embroidery drawn out on the calico, waiting to be started.

I have started it this afternoon but will save the showing of it until I've done a bit more.