berries, juice, a bag and a quilt

My camera has, yet again, come to my rescue reminding me of what I've been doing recently.

First of all, I got some strawberries for jam-making. I didn't make any jam - I just cleaned the berries, bagged them and put them in the freezer.

I used a couple of oranges to make some of Auntie Mary's orange juice - recipe is here.

Douglas and I finished a jigsaw.

I really enjoy doing jigsaws and we finally managed to find a table that we could leave the jigsaw out on all the time - much easier to finish the jigsaw if you can fit in a few pieces every time you pass the table.

This is the bag that made me think I could sell this type. Nothing more has been done on that front yet as I've been busy with a baby quilt this week - see later in this post for that.

I made (yet another) New Look 6344 top. This time the remnant only cost me £3 but it wasn't big enough to get sleeves out of it. I'm just as happy with the sleeveless version it's already been worn and is just as comfy as all the other versions I've made.

I sold another baby quilt - yay! The buyer asked me to send it directly to the new baby's parents with a note inside telling them who it was from. I used one of Debbie's drawings printed on a card for the note. Isn't that wee elephant adorable?

And finally, this is the baby quilt I've been working on this week to replace the one I sold. Strips of coloured fabrics and strips of white.

This is how it looked this morning with the strips all joined together …

Pinned and ready for quilting …

Quilted and ready for the binding … I *love* the bright green fleece on the back.

I hope to get the binding sewn on over the weekend and then get it photographed and loaded into the tartan bee.

It looks like I've been really busy but that's 2 weeks' worth of photos! In fact, if you peer at the strawberries in the first photo, you can see the sell-by date on them is the 16th of July. I would have bought them on the 12th of July - well over 2 weeks ago. Crumbs - time really does fly when you're having fun!

ten things

1. Today the weather … started with HUGE thunder storms with lots of lightning and VERY loud thunder. Then, in the afternoon, it dried up and Douglas got the grass cut!

2. I am wearing … at the moment, I'm in what I call my comfy trousers and a polo shirt. During the day I actually wore a dress and I loved it. I need to wear dresses more often - they're very comfy in the sticky heat!

3. I am listening to … Aled Jones' CD "One Voice".

It's Aled (the adult) singing with recordings of himself when he was a boy. I bought it last week and have been playing it repeatedly ever since.

4. In the kitchen … I've been making Mars Bar cakes. So easy and so good. The recipe is here. (Scroll down)

5. I am feeling … too warm. It's almost worse than feeling cold. At least, when you feel cold, you can add more clothes or blankies or quilts. When you're warm, you can only take off so many things before you embarrass yourself - and all those around you too! :oD

6. I am going … to the supermarket in the morning. Not my favourite place to go but I'm thinking of looking at the duvet covers to see if I can pick up any bargains.

7. In the sewing room … I'm planning to make some bags like the one I made myself -

- to sell in the tartan bee. I've got the denim and plenty of lining fabrics - just waiting for some cover buttons to come in the post and I should be ready to sew.

8. In the garden … our raspberries are ripening beautifully. We had some with ice cream tonight - oh so good!

9. I am reading … a book on my Kindle called "Pariah" by Catherine Gayle. It's the second book of a series of three. I enjoyed the first one ("Wallflower") so am hoping that this one is good too.

10. A quote to live by … Don't criticise others until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you're a mile away … and you have their shoes!!

a new skirt, appliqués and Tilly

I made myself a new denim skirt last week. I used the pattern that I made using the book "Sew What Skirts". Another really comfortable skirt!

At the weekend, I decided it was way past time to play with my new toy embroidery machine so that's exactly what I did. I cut white fabric into 8" squares and just randomly picked some appliqués from my collection of designs.

I must admit, I didn't give any thought to how a hippo with chicken pox might look! Now we know. :oD

I'll just let you look at the others without comment from me. My fingers are there only to show the size of the designs.

I've decided that, although I do like embroidering with my new machine, I really do enjoy doing appliqués. It's also a great way to use some of the wee bits of fabric I've kept "just in case" I might need them. Now I do!

Tilly came to keep me company in the sewing room this morning and she was sitting so prettily on the chair, I just had to take a photo of her. Butter wouldn't melt, eh?

more bags, more pinnies and another 6344

I did some more tartan bee sewing last week. Bags - 2 of all of these apart from the red sheep which I only had enough fabric to make 1.

And pinnies - 1 of all of these:

Then this week, I decided to do some dressmaking for a wee change. I got a remnant of flowery viscose for all of £4 and managed to eke out another New Look 6344 - view C this time - no collar.

To be honest, even as I bought the fabric, I wasn't too sure I liked it.

Then I washed it and ironed it and still wasn't too sure. Then I cut it out and started making it and thought - "meh".

But now that I see it made up and on dolly the dummy, I think I like it!

Not bad for £4!

pink jacket, cinnamon buns and more

This week I've had a bit of a sore throat along with a chesty cough (still got the cough - yuck!) so I haven't done as much as I wanted to do. However, I did get the pink jacket made.

It's another incarnation of Butterick 5616 - previous versions are here, here, here and here.

This next photo is more like the actual colour.

This morning we had some cinnamon buns for breakfast. I didn't make said buns - I bought them in the fridges aisle of the supermarket. Mmmm, I see they're called Cinnamon Swirls. Oh well, they're cinnamon buns to me! ;o)

We've had these before done in the oven - as you're meant to - but, this morning, we cooked them in the waffle maker. Success! They only took about 3 minutes in there as opposed to 11 to 14 minutes in the oven (which has to be preheated) so much, much quicker.

They were crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside but the best bit - there's plenty of room for the icing to sit in the holes! Delish!

Joanna and I took a trip along the coast to the patchwork shop and, needless to say, I got some scrap bag bargains ...

... and some fat quarter bargains and a sale piece of fabric. No plans for any of this except to add it all to the stash.

This afternoon, I cut out some more pinnies -

and some bags for the tartan bee.

I need to get some fabrics for linings for the bags but I'm thinking I'll just get a sheet or two from Asda's as they usually have some nice colours in there. Well, they're nice for bag linings, I'm not sure I'd want lime green sheets on my bed but I'm sure some people do!

Now a couple of random photos. Our first strawberries of the season - much better than any in the shops!

And this is what happens to a plate that says "microwave safe" on the bottom of it when you put it in the microwave.

Thankfully, my baked potato survived!