showing off

So, that's Christmas is over for another year and now I can show off the things I wasn't able to show on here in the run up to the big day.

I made a bag for Joanna with an appliquéed Russian dolly (made on my embroidery machine) on the front.

2 Pairs of pyjama shorts for Joanna.

Also for Joanna, a onesie.

I thought it was enormous but Joanna tried it on on Christmas day and is delighted with it. Phew!

Next I made her usual diary cover. The front -

The back -

I had such a hard time with this one - this is the second attempt at getting it to fit - that I've told her that next year's diary cover will be made of brown paper with lots of stickers stuck on it!! :oD

I just checked on my revealing all post from last year and see that I had a hard time with the diary cover last year too. Maybe I really should do the brown paper thing next year!!

I made a pair of dungarees for Emily. They fit her. Yay!! This photo was taken before I'd put the hems up.

After all that Christmas present sewing, I had some time to relax before Christmas so I used up some leftovers to make myself a new pair of ovengloves.

Then Joanna and I dug out the Scrabble-type letters which I'd bought from eBay this time last year and used them to make some word art.

We went over to see Debbie, Jason, Emily & Molly on the 27th and had a lovely day with them all. This is my absolute favourite photo of that day - Emily and her Auntie Joanna. Isn't that lovely?

And finally, Debbie sent us this photo this morning. They'd had quite a lot of snow and so she took Emily out into the garden to let her see it. She was most intrigued!

That's me now until next year. I just have my "books read in 2017" post to do but I'll leave that until the last day in case I manage to get any more read between now and then. In the meantime, the graphic says it all!

only showing a few

There are a lot of things being made around these parts that can't be shown on here yet ... but there are some that can. So here we go.

I made a couple of tree decorations on my embroidery machine.

I embroidered some seasonally appropriate words on to this wee piece of fabric.

I attached it to some sparkly felt and added a ribbon hanger. Very cool!

Debbie asked me to make another stegosaurus for a friend's baby. This time I used ribbons for his spiney bits instead of felt.

I dug out some Christmas fabrics and made some bibs for Emily. I wasn't intending to make 8 but, once I got started, I couldn't stop! LOL

Emily - and Debbie, Jason and Molly - was over at our house on Saturday. At lunchtime, she wore one of her Grammie-made "first Christmas" bibs.

Her favourite game at the moment is crawling to the nearest piece of furniture and standing.

She's 9 months old! I suspect it won't be long before she's walking! Yikes!

And finally, this is one of the photos Debbie took of Emily as her Christmas photos. A - dor- able!

I don't know if I'll be back on here again before the big day so, if not, let me wish you all a Merry Christmas. I hope Santa's good to you!

a Christmas stocking for Emily

I wanted to make Miss Emily a Christmas stocking so I laid out some 2½" squares of Christmas fabrics in the layout needed. First one side . . .

. . . and then the other side. 90 2½" squares of Christmas fabrics in total!

Then I sewed them together and pinned them on to some bump for quilting.

Here they are all quilted and ready to be cut to shape and sewn together.

Of course, I had to embroider her name on the cuff . . .

. . . on both sides.

I added the tag that I'd made up on my embroidery machine earlier in the year.

Here it is hanging at the hooks at the back door with the knitted Santa inside ready to go to Emily. The other Santa is one my mum knitted for Joanna when she was Emily's age. Debbie also has one knitted by my mum. I don't know why the one I've knitted is a good bit smaller than the ones the girls have - I'm sure mum used the same pattern. Maybe Emily's will grow with age too! :oD

Next I made a couple of bibs for her to wear.

I hope to get a few more bibs made with suitably Christmassy emroideries or appliqués on the fronts. Fun times!

Debbie called me on the Facetime the other day because she'd given Emily a couple of pieces of fabric to play with. She loved it! Just like her Grammie! :oD

a quilt, a bag, a top and Emily

I finished the quilting of Debbie's quilt last week. I decided I didn't want to quilt over any of the apples which meant I could only quilt over the 4-patches. Anything to shorten the quilting process is fine by me!

Here's a photo showing the olive green fleece I used on the back. A perfect match!

I sewed myself another big shopping bag. I've found that I much prefer this size to the smaller size. I can squeeze a lot of shopping into them! I just have to try and remember not to overload them with heavy things so that I can't lift them!!

I made another version of one of my favourite patterns - New Look 6344.

I might wear this for our Singers concert next week. It all depends on how it looks under my red jacket. If it doesn't sit properly, I might either wear my red cardigan on top of it or just wear my usual white blouse under the jacket.

And finally, a photo of Miss Emily. She was so happy to be playing with some Duplo blocks which belonged to her mummy and Auntie Joanna when they were wee!

I'm off now to start designing an ark. It started raining last night and it hasn't stopped all day today. It's not forecast to stop until mid-morning tomorrow. The joys! I keep telling myself to be grateful it's not snow. I am. I definitely am!

nearly a month's worth!

I finally managed to sort all the blog posts on here - as blogged about here - to reload all 9 years' worth of photos in. Phew - that was a long and arduous task, let me tell you. Anyway, it's done now so back to "normal" - whatever the heck that might be!

Because it's been a good wee while since I posted anything I've made - I just checked and it was the 17th of October that I last showed anything. That's nearly a month ago!! Anyway, there's a lot to show so I'm going to just post photos with as few words as possible. Not like me, I know! LOL

So, let's start with some pinnies:

Next some oven gloves

Some bags:

Then I did some cross-stitch pictures on my embroidery machine.

Next I embroidered some teatowels.

I made a denim skirt for Debbie.

I sewed a quilt top for Debbie. It's already pinned to a fleece and I just need to quilt it and bind it. Hopefully this week.

I finished knitting this Santa weeks ago but I finally sewed him up and stuffed him today.

And lastly a couple of stegosauruses (stegosauri??) which I made today on my embroidery machine. In this photo, they still need their gaps sewn shut - that's all done now.

Phew. That's a whole lot of sewing I've been doing!