Noses and Tassles

I have finally started a new project - well two, actually. Two young ladies were born late last year and a quilt for each of them has been on my to-do list for at least since then.  I have been itching to get these started - I decided that if I waited until I'd tidied up other loose ends before starting, they will still be in the pipeline when the wee girls start school!

The pattern is Bear and Bear Paws by Sew Fresh Quilts, and here is the first block —

Extra cute, I believe.

There are 6 bears per quilt, all in different fabrics. All the noses are the same though, and to streamline the process, I've been making more noses leader-ender fashion while doing other sewing.
The noses are the fiddliest part of the block so once I've made them, the bear faces will go together quite quickly.

Recently I finished another block for Wings and Pretty Things —

Even though it was a straight forward block one of the poor wee ladybirds had a bit of an identity crisis and needed unpicking! 

Oh dear!

I mentioned in my previous post that Mum was staying. She stayed for 10 nights and we managed to keep her free from bugs while she was here. Luckily not all of the visits with the kids were balcony visits —

She got a bit of her (incredibly fiddly) cross stitch done (sadly I forgot to get a progress photo) —

And I kept her company with a wee bit of knitting —

I thought I'd finished with making Barbie clothes but these little beanies found themselves made— 

It was Mum who suggested the coloured tassles and I was happy to run with the idea!

Just as well it's Feijoa season - the smallest fruits were perfect for modelling the beanies.

Just to show off our Feijoa crop, for those who are 'in the know'; below we have a small Feijoa with a beanie on, normal sized fruit cut in half and monster fruits off one particularly well producing tree this season —

The Time In a Bottle Bloghop, which I am joining in with, is coming up this week. My project is done as far as it will get done and I am looking forward to sharing that on my day; I just need to sort out the time zones so that it gets posted on the right day! Carol from Just Let Me Quilt is hosting it.

'til then,

happy stitches,

Winning......

I've had a few minor successes lately.

Recently I completed the last few blocks needed for my Star Pop quilt. The last photo I shared showed it looking a little like a jigsaw puzzle —

It didn't take much to complete it, of course, and here it is —

Backing and batting decisions need to be made, and then it will be on the quilting pile —

I was determined over the weekend to get the Barbie doll sewing done and dusted. While the family were away camping for the weekend, I was able to borrow two of the dolls for fitting purposes.

One pair of pyjamas were shared in my last post. Here are three more (the kiddies have 2 dolls each) —

(Our resident, olden days, Barbie with the big hair assisted with the modelling.)

(Fabrics used - scraps from PJs made for our son when he was about 9. Dress I made for myself a good 20 years ago. Buttons salvaged from old clothing over the years.)

I ran out of steam at the sleeping bag stage and only made two. ED assures me that two dolls can fit in each bag so no problem!

(Fabrics used - a dress Miss Lily has grown out of, a shirt I made for our son when he was about 10.)

An outfit each. These shorts look pretty baggy but are made for muscly Ken, who was away camping—

(Fabrics used - leftovers from something ED made herself as a teenager, orange fleece from the sleeves the MOML cut off a farm shirt a couple of weeks ago.)

High on the wishlist were some towels (!!) so four hemmed pieces of towelling later —

(Fabrics used - scraps from a beach outfit Mum made my sister YEARS ago, and bib making scraps.
EDIT Mum's just told me that my grandmother made herself a beach cape from that pink towelling fabric, the scraps were used for a beach outfit for my sister and now Barbie has a towel from it...that's 5 generations of family handling that fabric!!! )

And one last outfit. These jeans are very skinny, so will only fit skinny Ken!

(Fabrics used - legs cut off a niece's jeans about 10 years ago, and sleeves cut of the MOML rugby shirt eons ago.)

(I tend to save all sorts for mending farm clothes, etc.)

I took this to show that all closures use velcro - what a wonderful invention that was!

(The velcro is unpicked from special twin-baby cot sheets.)

As you can tell, I had a fun time using up bits and pieces that have been stored away for donkeys years. I think this is where the savings happen when you're a home sewer - being able to re-use, re-cycle, use up and a well stocked resource centre leads to so much fun - like making scrap quilts, as well as these dolls clothes. To buy fabrics for making such a variety of dolls clothes would be ridiculously unaffordable!

ED got out her machine the other day and made these cool flags for the kids' new fort (and she used her scraps for dolls clothes) —

When I called in they were flapping marvellously in the wind —

 OK, running really late now,  so I must away,

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Stitching away

Friday Night Sew-In saw me settled in my comfy chair with a bit of hand sewing.

I've started another block for my Wings and Pretty Things quilt; there's not much to show yet but it is a good little start!

I finished the flower but needed to do a little prep work before I could continue, so I pulled out my current stitchery project, Memory Lane, to work on instead —

Since I last shared this project, I've finished a couple more blocks so I am nearly done with month 3 - still very behind though!

This weekend I'm trying to get the requested Barbie clothes done so I can put all the 'doll-making' bits away. 

Pyjamas are on the cutting board at the moment and here is a pair I completed yesterday —

(NO, I didn't do tiny little buttonholes, there's Velcro tape sewn on the underside and the buttons are for decoration only!)

Well I'd best get back to those fiddly seams, thank you Wendy for hosting FNSI!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

First week of February

I have made a little progress with my handwork projects this week.

On Friday Night With Friends (thanks Cheryll!!) I put the finishing touches on another block for my Wings and Pretty Things quilt.

I love this block (well, I love them all!) but I did have misgivings about the green I had used for the leaves - was it too bright? However I didn't really want to unpick it and now that I've completed the block I am happy with the green. The red is also quite dark but I will pop it into some other blocks and it will even out. 

I'd like to start joining these blocks but there are borders between the centre block and the smaller blocks which I haven't yet made a decision on. Perhaps in some spare time I will lay them out and get thinking!

After finishing that block, I decided on a wee change from needleturn and I pulled out my Memory Lane project. This has been sitting neglected for a few months or more. (This is a BOM being run by The Country Yard incorporating some favourite stitchery designs they have used over the years.)

I did a little more on Saturday evening and got this far —

We're using a combination of Aurifil and Cottage Garden Threads for these stitcheries, and they will be put together with Tilda fabrics.

On Saturday, after cooking up a spectacular amount of tomatoes for pasta sauce for the freezer, I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole......

Two x 3 year olds have produced mind boggling lists of the clothes their Barbie dolls need so I started doing a bit of an online search for patterns. I don't mind paying for patterns but with the number of clothes requested I need to be careful or I'll end up spending a fortune. I'd really like one or two or three patterns that I can just adapt (eg trousers that will become shorts, trousers, pyjama pants etc). All four dolls (2x Barbie and 2x Ken) are slightly different shapes which further complicates the matter!

So I started looking at the free ones that are available. Printer/paper size differences and no measurement tool on the patterns guide made for a drawn out session!

Finally I bit the bullet and made a pair of shorts - these, I think, will fit only the muscular Ken - they seem pretty huge. Today I will hopefully get a chance to do a fitting and see where to go from there!

This photo  proves that I did actually make two identical dresses as stated in my last post!

(And you can see how one Barbie is definitely bustier than the other!)

This coming week our youngest grandie turns TWO. Where have the years gone?! A simple family BBQ lunch is planned for today so I had better get a move on.

Thank you again to Cheryll for hosting Friday Night With Friends. You can visit her blog *here*.

'til next time,

happy stitches, 

January Round-up

My next blogpost was supposed to be about our wee summer holiday, but here we are at the end of January so I am writing my end of month post instead.

I had a fun week. We were given a Christmas gift which read - 

"Grandparenting - the ultimate extreme sport"

And last week sure proved it!

Monday —

(While Mum and Dad had a day out -alone- for their wedding anniversary)

Tuesday —

(Believe it or not, not quite well enough for daycare.)

Wednesday —

I took these two on their first proper Ganma adventure, to the stream shown in my last post. 'twas a little scary at times but holding hands helped.

(Still not able to go to daycare.)

Thursday —

Mum and Dad both working.

Thank Goodness Friday was a work day at my favourite quilt shop!

Guess what I did Saturday and Sunday?

sew-sew-sew-sew

One more Barbie dress has appeared. Yes it is identical to the first. The young girl might let me use different fabrics next time!

And in my mission to finish some of my December things in January, I made two more oven mitts. I'd bought/sorted the fabrics and didn't want to put them away for a some-day sew —

These will go into the giftbox....

I'm getting better at sewing binding on totally by machine; couldn't do it without pins though. I like to stitch in the ditch at the front and hope that the binding on the back gets sewed down - I only had to hand sew the odd bit that I'd missed.

My sheet of notes barely survived the process when I had them under the fabric on the cutting board! I'm thinking that next time I make a set I might take photos and write a tutorial if anyone is interested? I obviously need a better way of looking after the instructions.

In between looking after children during the week I managed to complete the (15) blocks I had offered to make for The Country Yard for one of our new projects.

Each block needed a few half square triangles and I decided to use the Make-8-at-a-time method that I'd seen but not ever tried. Loved it!

One last achievement for January. I cleared my sewing bench. Look how it gleams! It still (mostly) looks like that😀

Hanging pride of place in our hallway is a Round Robin quilt made years ago by a group of friends. It depicts our farm, family and life. All the kids love it. They love finding their Mum (or Dad), looking for all the animals and so on. Lily and George spent some time with it last week. 

It's the quilt that keeps on giving —

George is pointing to Aunty on her horse and Lily is wondering if the wee button used as a door handle will actually open the door!

On that happy note, I'll say goodnight.

'til next time,

happy stitches,