some farmer's wife blocks

I messed about in my Photoshop yesterday evening and managed to get the templates for the Farmer's Wife blocks on to 16 pages of paper instead of the 133 if I'd printed them straight from the CD. I printed them all out and used some of them today to cut out some more blocks. I then started sewing them together.

And just to show that it all didn't go quite to plan, here was how the first attempt at the bowtie block turned out.

I obviously wasn't paying attention as I'd already had to rip out 4 seams when I attached all the purple corners on the wrong way around! Woops! :oD

a new long term project

Last year I bought the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book:

I didn't do anything with it other than read it - no cutting out or planning or sewing of any of the 111 quilt squares took place.

Today that changed. I cut out the bits for 4 squares and bagged them up with their names in the bags so I'd know which square they were for.

There are a few more that I'd like to make but I need to print out the templates that came on the CD which accompanied the book. The only thing is, all those templates are on separate pdf files. How silly is that? I mean, it'd be okay if there were only 10 templates but there are 133 of them in total so, if I just printed them out as they are, that'd be 133 pieces of paper going through the printer and only using, like template 1 does, a 2½" square of that paper. Not going to happen.

I'm going to make good use of my Photoshop abilities and get the templates on to as few pages as I can and then I'll print them out. If I can get 6 to a page, that'll be (if my arithmetical skills are still up to speed) 22 pages instead of 133. 22 pages still sounds a lot but not compared to 133!!

I'm not going to make this a speedy project. It's a long term project. Actually, all that means is I'll be making a square now and again when I feel like it and I'm not going to make any rash promises about when it'll be finished! My kind of project! :oD

sewing room and weird hyacinths

It took me 2 whole afternoons of folding and refolding fabrics but it's done now and I can't get over how fab my new shelves look in my sewing room. I just *love* them. I'm almost worried about using any of the fabric in case I make a mess of the piles! :oD

I've even created more room by folding everything so neatly so there is room for more! :oD

And, just for something a wee bit different, here are some hyacinths which I bought last week. They are the most peculiar looking hyacinths I've ever seen!

make-up bag and cardholder

I made another make-up bag/pouch yesterday. Aren't the hearts cute? The fact that it's heart day today is just a coincidence! :o)

I also made myself a cardholder based on this tutorial that I had pinned:

Source: via Anne on Pinterest

Here's my version of it:

And the outside which I closed with a smiley button and a hairbobble! :oD

I was out at the supermarket this morning and used the card holder and none of the cards fell out as I grabbed the one I wanted. That was my main problem with the one I had - the plastic wallets holding the cards had stretched with use and the cards all get a bit loose inside them. No more! :o)

I'm now off up to the sewing room to continue tidying my fabric on my new shelves. I wonder what I'll find today that I'd forgotten I had! :oD

sunrise ~ sunset 13 February

Today's figures are:

dawn to dusk = 10 hours and 46 minutes (28 minutes more than last week)

sunrise to sunset = 9 hours and 28 minutes (31 minutes more than last week)

sewing room makeover

Douglas and I headed to Ikea yesterday where, amongst other things, we bought some Billy bookcases for my sewing room. Let me take you through the process so you can see how it all looks.

Here's how the sewing room looked before:

First of all I moved the chest of drawers over to the window.

Which left this gap over by the door.

Whilst Douglas got to work building up the bookcases in our bedroom ...

... I got to work taking the crates and other stuff out of the sewing room:

And moving the fabric off the shelves and on to the table.

Soon we had all 5 bookcases built up ...

... and then shelved ...

And then I set about loading the shelves.

I just dumped the fabric on each of the shelves so I need to spend some time tidying it but O. M. G. I *love* it!

The best bit was what Douglas said - "It actually makes it look like you don't have masses of material" - which I'm taking to mean I need some more! :oD

the sleeves, a skirt, a wee bag and a cake

Well, I've finished the blouse and, thankfully, managed to get the sleeves to fit me. It took some amount of jiggery-pokery but at least it worked. First of all, here's the original sleeve showing that it really didn't fit me.

And, here's the finished blouse on the dummy. You'll just have to take my word for it that the sleeves fit me. (I really need to pad her out a bit in the boobular area. She's nowhere as rounded as I am! :oD)

I made myself a skirt today and I couldn't be more pleased with it. I took the instructions from the "Sew What Skirts" book and drew up my own pattern.

I actually had to take it in a bit which I was ridiculously chuffed about! It's not a great photo but the skirt is made of denim.

Yesterday I made another pyramid bag.

And the inside:

And finally, I didn't make this. Joanna did. (The tray it's sitting on is 17" long so you can get an idea of the size.)

She made it for Douglas's birthday (yesterday). Isn't it cool? It blew me away when I saw it. Great job, Jo. And happy birthday (again) for yesterday, Douglas. :o)

sunrise ~ sunset 6 February

Today's figures are:

dawn to dusk = 10 hours and 18 minutes (26 minutes more than last week)

sunrise to sunset = 8 hours and 57 minutes (29 minutes more than last week)

drat, drat and double drat

Well, as I posted the other day, the body of the blouse fitted really well but ... Yep, you've guessed it. When I put the sleeves in, they were too tight and it just made the whole blouse unwearable.

The pattern gave a size chart for biceps and the "average" arm would finish at 17". I measured my biceps - over the top of my cardigan so, therefore, I was actually adding size to my arms - and they measured 15". So, you'd think that at least 2" would be fine as movement space. Wouldn't you? Apparently not.

So, I unpicked the sleeves, added bits in the the front and back of them to make them wider, lowered the armhole on the body section and re-attached them. They do fit better but I thought I'd like them to be a wee bitty wider still so I spent this afternoon messing with the sleeve pattern, consulting various books and articles as to how to add more ease in. I copied the pattern, slashed it open, re-aligned bits, re-positioned other bits and really thought I'd cracked it.

But. You knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you? And I bet you know what I'm going to say next, don't you? Yep. It didn't work. When I went to pin the new sleeve into the blouse, it was now too big and it won't fit the gap. It matches above the notches but there's far too much fabric below the notches. *sigh*

I walked away from it this afternoon but I'm determined I'm not going to let this beat me. I really want to get back into sewing my own clothes so I need to be able to make sleeves that fit me. I WILL get this right. I will. I will. I will!!!

Okay, enough of that. Here's something that always makes me laugh. I suspect that after the battles I'm having with sleeves, I might well be the one in four!!

glutton for punishment?

Well, yet again, I'm attempting to make myself a blouse that fits. I'm really hopeful with this one because I've read reviews on patternreview.com and they're all pretty favourable. Here's the pattern I'm using:

So far, I've got the body sewn together and it does fit me ... so far. Long term readers might remember the black blouse I made last year which fitted me beautifully in the body but, as soon as I added the sleeves, it didn't fit me any more.

But I'm trying to think positively about this one for various reasons. Firstly, the pattern is for larger ladies - that would be me. It also comes with instructions of how to adapt the sleeves for ladies with "big biceps" - that would be me. It also has fronts for ladies with bigger boobular areas - that would be me.

So, hopefully, I'll be showing off a blouse in the next few days that actually fits me. And, if it does, I'm thinking it'll be the start of a spree of blouse making. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. Let's just wait and see if the sleeve adding doesn't spoil everything!