July round up

After trying all week, here is a last minute attempt to squeeze another blogpost into July! Funny how sometimes I can blog every day and then other times I can barely get here!

Never to mind. In spite of trouble getting to my sewing, I have a couple of bits of progress to share - yaay!

On the machine sewing front, I wanted to make a pouch to gift some sewing bits in for my DIL. She'd borrowed my second best (but family heirloom-type) sewing scissors back in lockdown, and when I started missing them, I decided she needed a pair of her own and a few bits and pieces to go with them.

I was working with a nice scrap of linen I found in my cupboard and true to my style, it was a very scrappy affair; making sure the elephants were the right way up on both sides took the pouch from a simple sew-in-a-zip-and-line-it affair to something more complicated. I think I made this a lot more hard work than I needed to - even though I was going to line it, I decided to do the bottom strip burrito style as in the popular pillowcase method. It meant I could add some pellon and put an extra layers, since the linen was heavier than the cotton I was using.

I did do some crosshatching on the base but you can't see it here!

Anyway, I got there, the scissors fitted in it (I almost forgot to measure!!) and I was able to gift it 😀

Continuing on with the sewing theme, I finally finished the last applique block for Foxley Village! I nearly had to do a deep clean of my sewing room (aka The Palace) as I'd misplaced my precious Perfect Circles (Karen Kay Buckley) which I now find essential for circle-making. However I only had to go one layer deep in my cleaning before I found them!

So one completed block —

Here is the first half of the quilt, photo shared some time ago —

...and here are the last applique blocks. Progress!

Baby Odie decided he needed an Arigirumi Gir-Affe and YD passed on his request. I found a cute pattern but spent ages hunting down some yarn - 4 ply in anything but pastel baby colours was hard to find but I was finally able to make a start.

And a finish.

I haven't done Arigirumi before but it was kinda fun. (As in kinda). Although I see my crocheting isn't dense enough (you can see the stuffing!) I'm still happy with the result. And apparently Odie loves it too!!!

I splashed out on some fancy yarn and made myself a warm hat during July as well. I try to buy only New Zealand yarn - this was made in New Zealand and was 80% NZ Polwarth and 20% Camel. I'm pretty certain the camel was not made in NZ (!) but it knitted up really nicely and is lovely and cosy to wear!

The pattern was Everglade by Woolly Wormhead and was a delight to knit.

OK, the end of the month deadline is approaching so I'll sign off now, I hope you're all doing well and keeping safe and happy,

'til next time,

happy stitches,