Reviving a apron

Do you have a favourite apron?  I do - I have had it for 40+ years! I use it in the kitchen and for art work. It started out white and has been over dyed several times over the years. Now it has started to get tatty - the ties are frayed and it has at least two holes! So today I covered the holes with pretty patches and re made the ties ! Given it more years use !

Three Kings Update

So I have made a little progress on the first of my Three Kings Project, but before I show you that - once I mentioned to a friend that I am collecting Three Kings cards she found hers from this Christmas together with a couple of other cards I think I would like to translate......

So the first translation - I have redrawn the card, Zentangled it

 and have started a Free Machine version... not sure how I will add the gold highlights I added to my drawing.

Starting Yet Another Project

Whilst today is a good stomach day (fingers crossed it lasts) I have actually decided on yet another new project!!  This year I received some more rather lovely Christmas cards of The Three Wise Men  - I now have quite a collection - so -  I think they need to be translated - don't you ?!! -

OK so January is a bit of an odd time of year to start work on a Christmas Theme but at least I am 'doing' something!!

King Size Duvet Cover done

At long last the King size Duvet cover is done - it looks a little crumpled at the moment - I just wanted to try it out for size and obviously would look better in day light -  but I am pleased with it - each rectangle has been top stitched and I am glad I made it as a cover rather than as a quilt - I would not have got this massive thing under my sewing machine - I don't have a quilting machine !!

Catch up, Mad Hatter, Alice, Creative Morning and Scrapstore Haul

So it's about time for a proper catch up - what has been going on here?  Well I have been busy. This post is a bit photo heavy and is not necessarily in the correct order :-)
This morning a friend was meant to visit but as she was unable to come I spent a happy couple of hours making bread (not in the machine as that is broken, but by hand).  Here are the results from the right: two small rye loaves with caraway seed, cheese and chive soda bread.  Front left is the best loaf - multi grain and behind it is also multi grain but with olives and it sank a little!  However, they all taste lovely.

Last Saturday I gave a talk about the Mid Summer Night's Dream Fairy costumes to the Spinners, Weavers and Dyers Guild, Wiltshire branch - the fairies enjoyed their outing....

Then on Monday I went off to Kingcombe, to spend three great days with my textile friends. My daughter calls it 'Going to your made up Harry Potter place' - becuause of the name of the village we go through... Toller Pocorum - it is real, and although I have never read or seen any Harry Potter I do think it is a magical place :-)

 

Whilst there I visited the chickens (who are very friendly) and watched this magnificent pheasant, so close to the door.

I did a lot of creative work and have nearly finished the Mad Hatter's jacket - and continued work on Alice's skirt......

Today after lunch I fancied a trip out to the local Scrap store to see if they had anything new in.  This is my very wonderful haul..... - the lady only asked for a donation of just £8 !!! I have used my phone to give you an indication of the size of the fabric sample books.  They are Anna French fabrics - which are either obsolete or the shop selling them has closed and given the books to the scrap store. 

The designs are just lovely - here are are few examples....

I also picked up a whole heap of small samples from the scrap bins and a couple of small sample books

 and found the cutest tassel samples - so had to have a handful of those  -

 there were threads too

and a lovely, small book of wallpaper samples which are really pretty...

This is how the bag covered my dining room table - loads to sort out.

I feel some patchwork Kindle or IPad covers are itching to be created.  Having said that though - the large Anna French pieces would make lovely quilted wall hangings - lots of stitching and some wadding etc - Must get on with some ideas, - No - I must get back to the Mad Hatter and Alice first :-)

Jolted back - with thanks

Thanks to the kind words of my blogging friends and my daughter I think I am on the mend - miraculous really. I think I needed to vent my misery and now I have begun to feel better. I looked more closely at Art Girl scraps and divided them into two sets - the straight pieces which I will keep for later and these odd shaped scraps.  Without thinking too much I have put together a mug rug - it measures 20 cm x 16 cm and is crazy patched together with one of the longer pieces as the binding.  The remaining tiny scraps will go into another project too. So two more projects yet to come from this lovely bag of scraps from Art Girl. - Thanks  

This little project only took an hour from the start but it has kicked started me back to scissor production for the Mad Hatter.  These are made on water soluble in reverse - so here you see the back - the front surface is silver metallic thread.  I only have another 18 pairs or so to go so there will be 30+, to go with the 76 cotton reels - then I need to make more needles as I only have 30 of those so far :-).

Another break from the Mad Hatter and some upcyclng

I wear a lot of vest type T shirts under other clothes but hate how they are all rather too short these days so I thought as a break from stitching cotton reels for the Mad Hatter I decided to see what I could do.  I took a couple of favourite T shirts and combined them!!  I also did a blue version.  I can't really be bothered to do more but at least a couple of T shirts have a bit longer to live.

Sewing for a break - More Kindle pouches

Between working on the Mad Hatter today I decided to use up some more scraps I found in the workroom to make 4 more Kindle pouches ready for the Christmas Sale.  I may try to put them on Etsy too - nothing much seems to sell through Etsy though -- anybody have any success through Etsy??

  

Kindle Pouches

Here are the first two Kindle pouches made today.  The first one is made from some fabric given to me by Karen Musgrave (click HERE to see the original fabric) I covered it with a pink twinkle nylon, stitched it on the machine and then burnt away some of the pink with a heat gun.  

The second pouch is made from home dyed cotton - in blue and purple with small seams that are frayed.  To this I have stitched tiny cut out flowers each one applied by hand with a bead.