Moon and Stars

I finished something!

I actually had all the stitching complete on this a couple of weeks ago, but have only just got round to framing it  :-) Please excuse the craptastic pictures, it turns out that taking a photo of stitching behind glass on a sunny day is quite tricky (for me at least!)

This is a design by Little House Needleworks and I stitched it on 32ct 'Radiance Blue' linen with the called for overdyed threads.  I'm very happy with how this has turned out and it's even been hung on the wall outside the bedrooms. Go me!
And, I have actually started AND finished another little cross stitch project, but it needs finishing and will have to be a secret for a little bit longer  :-)

In other news I may have ordered some Liberty from the lovely Ali  :-)  Isn't it so prettily packaged!

I show you what I ordered next time, and also what I spent my birthday money on this year  :-)

Sadie x

June too soon?

It's warm and sunny enough here to be June and it has been for the past week or so. I've spent nearly all my time out in the garden. Weeding, sowing, digging and planting. It all needs doing but it comes at a cost and that cost is my sewing and computer time. To be honest though once the hard work is done, I'll be able to sit back and relax and sewing time will be back again  :-)

Three finishes for May from me, all from the start of the month.

My 'Hexies Midnight Runner' ...

 ...Tits...

 ...and SMS sewing kit

My favourite is the runner and prize for most amusing goes to the tits hoop  :-)
Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day over at Lynne's  :-)

Now, where's that factor 50? I'm off out in the garden again  :-)

Sadie xx

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Hello, hello, to visitors old and new  :-)   I'm entering into the Blogger's Quilt Festival for the first time. Eeep!

I'm entering my quilt 'Hexies Midnight Runner' into the 'Wall Hanging Quilt' category.

Hexies Midnight Runner

As the name suggests, this piece was originally intended to be a runner (for the windowsill in our living room) but when it was finished I decided it was far too nice to sit on the windowsill. Now it has it's own little wall earmarked where it will hang very happily I think.

This quilt started out with some English Paper Piecing, using a charm pack of terrain and paper hexagons measuring 2" a side. After trying a few different layout options I decided on arranging them by colour, I really love the colour graduation, it's very me  :-)  They were then sewn together by hand to form the central panel of the quilt.

 After machine appliqueing the hexagons to a piece of white Kona cotton, I machine quilted it with straight lines every 3/4".

The binding was attached to the front by machine and sewn by hand on the back to finish it off.

 This little quilt isn't too big at 15" x 39", but it's the biggest quilt I have made to date. I know, I'm working my way up slowly  ;-D  Fabrics used were Terrain by Kate Spain for Moda and Kona cotton in white. All sewing, hand and machine, was done with Aurifil 50wt 2021.

Hexies Midnight Runner

Thanks for stopping by to see my wee entry, and I hope you'll come back again for another visit in the future  :-)

I'm going to get comfy and check out some of the other entries, so much amazing inspiration!

Sadie xx

Tits

I started a new little project at the weekend, something to fit in with this months Le Challenge theme of 'wings'   :-)  Peeps who follow me on twitter have seen a few sneaky peeks of this already.

I started out with a cute little pattern of a Blue Tit, from issue 235 of CrossStitcher magazine, some 16ct off-white aida and the called for DMC threads.

 Then I added an wee friend for the first, cos he was a bit lonely. The pic below really shows what a difference backstitch can make to a piece. I must confess that it's my least favourite part, but it's really worth it, don't you think?

Add in some skew-wiff, sketchy, freehand lettering and we have a finish  :-)  Love it!

note - it needs a smaller hoop I think, but I don't have one so this will do for now  ;-D

It can certainly be said that my husband and I don't really share many common interests (opposites attract and all that), but two things we do share are our fondness of the birds that visit our garden and our juvenile sense of humour!  I made this for him, and I already know he'll love it  :-D

Linking up with Lucy and Nat for Le Challenge. 

Sadie xx

Atishoo

Was that spring? That one day of sun!

The cold, damp, wet weather has returned and it's brought a few pals along too. Mainly in the form of germs! Cameron, myself and Travis the cat all have the cold  :-(   Cameron and I are on the Lemsips and Travis is off to the vets this afternoon.

Reading all the lovely comments that were left about the cushion he made has been helping Cameron feel better too. Thanks so much guys, he really loved reading what you had to say  :-)

 I've been working away on Moon & Stars over the past week and I'm getting close to the finish now. Here is a wrinkly where it's at pic. I had a bit of a hiccup when the new green thread I ordered was quite a bit darker than the one I had started with (the joys of overdyed threads!) but thankfully I had a suitable alternative in my stash, so drama over  :-)

 I'm going to stick my neck out and say that this could be all finished AND framed by this time next week.
(that's it cursed to never get finished surely!)

I've also finished all the cross stitching on Caitlin's 'Crazy Cat Lady' needlebook. This was meant to be for her birthday, which was two weeks ago. Oops!

The thing is, it's quite big for a needlebook, so I'm thinking of making it more of a sewing case, with pockets and stuff, so I'll need a bit more time to work out exactly what I'm going to do before I can call this one finished.
Both of these project are on my 2nd quarter FAL list so it looks like it's going to be a good quarter  :-)
(that's another curse right there isn't it!)

There are a couple of days left to vote for your favourite in the Briar Rose Quilt Design Contest over on Threadbias. My design is called Bear in the Briar, and if you like what you see, perhaps you could cast a vote my way. Thanks!

I'm off now to get cozy on the sofa with my stitching and give some cuddles to poorly Travis cat too.

Sadie xx

Stars in their eyes

Or should that be sun in their eyes?

After seeing the cushion that his sister made, Cameron decided that he would like to make one too!

We started by looking at some of my quilting and patchwork books for inspiration, but he wasn't really that interested in those, so we went straight into choosing fabrics, which he did like  :-)

He picked out the star fabric first and then three different solids to go with it. I gave him some squared paper and drew a cushion outline and let him fill it in, choosing where the fabrics would go. I used this as my guide for cutting ( I did all the cutting, I know my boy and like him having all ten of his fingers!) but I did let him do the ironing, which he declared as 'Well fun!'. Guess who's going to be doing more ironing in the future  :-) Bonus!

After a few practice runs, he was ready to sew and did extremely well. Cameron is all about fast, so I think it was hard for him to resist the temptation to floor the pedal! We only had to unpick one seam, and it went together quite quickly which suited his attention span. Although regular shots of the iron seemed to keep his attention pretty much held  :-)

Then it was outside for the big finish photo shoot  ;-D

As you can see he's a super happy guy, and I think rightly so. He really did a tip top job on designing and sewing his first cushion. He takes it to bed with him every night to use as a pillow and he took it into school to show his teachers and classmates too. He's a proud boy  :-) and so very cute too!  (not that I'm at all biased!)

We had a good laugh on our photo shoot, with some out-takes. This one was a great shot of the cushion, but where's Wally/

 I got him to move the cushion down, but now the sun was in his eyes. Which made him laugh, of course?!?!

 I do love this picture  :-)  it's so Cameron!

I hope he would like to make something else in the future, he's so fun to work with  :-)

Sadie xx

P.S. I week or so ago, I entered a quilt design into a contest over on Threadbias, and it's now time to vote. If you have the time and you like what I came up with could you please cast a vote my way? I'd be very grateful  :-)  My quilt is called Bear in the Briar. Thanks peeps xx

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway

*Giveaway is now closed - thanks to all who entered*

The winner is ........ Gun from Sweden  :-)  Congratulations Gun, an email is on it's way to you and I'll get your sewing case in the post ASAP  xx

It's here! Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day is finally here  :-)  You know, the day where you spend eleventy billion hours at your computer entering giveaways in the hopes of winning some stitchy goodies!

For my giveaway I started out without a clear idea of what I was going to make, I just knew that I was going to make something! Helpful much  :-)

I picked out some fabrics and cut 2 1/2" squares and made some HST's. Then I used the HST's to make some cute little pinwheels.

                            

And after a little border they were the perfect size for a travel sewing case. (Pattern from Zakka Style by Rashida Coleman-Hale)

 Just enough space for all your sewing essentials  :-)  and maybe a small bar of chocolate too  ;-D

 For a chance to win this sewing case and co-ordinating pin cushion, please leave me one comment only. Any duplicates will be deleted and won't count. Please make sure I am able to contact you if you win, so if you're a no-reply blogger make sure you put your email address in your comment. I'll draw the winner using Random.org on Saturday 11th at noon GMT. If I'm not able to contact you or I don't receive a reply I'll draw again.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope that you will come by again when the giveaway fever has passed  :-)
Good luck!

Sadie xx

It's May!

How the hell is it May already!!!

Two finishes for me this month  :-) 

My tiny butterfly fob, which has indeed grown on me ...

 ...and my Hexies Midnight Runner  :-)

Just time for a quick link up for Fresh Sewing Day.

   

The sun is out here and I don't want to waste the day inside so I'll get off here and go and plant stuff  :-)  Because before we know it, June will be here!

Sadie xx

Flutter by butter-flop

You know how sometimes, you have an idea in your head and you're all excited about it, and then you do it and it just doesn't work out. At all.

That's what happened with this little scissor fob.

I picked out the beads and decided to do a pretty plaited cord using colours from the design, but I got the balance of colours wrong - and it looks like it belongs to something else. It didn't look to bad when I was constructing it yesterday evening in the lamp light in the livingroom.

 Thanks to the way it is constructed with a single length of thread going all the way round, it would be an absolute pain to try to unpick and given it's small size it might actually not survive being unpicked. Which is a shame because I love the butterfly!

So this is how it's going to stay and don't worry it will be used and loved and will remind me to think carefully about what colours to use and to check things in good daylight BEFORE sewing  :-)

And this is finish number two on my second quarter FAL list. Two finishes in two days - who can see the burnout coming by the end of April! LOL!

Sadie xx

Hexie's Midnight Runner

It's finally finished  :-)

I headed out to the garden in between showers to get some pictures this afternoon. I struggled to get any really good shots, but I think you get the idea  :-)  You should be able to click on the pics to biggify them if you want a closer look.

The hexagons were hand pieced, made using just about a whole charm pack of Terrain (love it) then machine appliqued onto the backing. It's straight line quilted, roughly 1/2" apart and bound with Aster in Bloom from Terrain.

I absolutely LOVE it!  And I'm now thinking that it is far too nice to live out it's days on my living room windowsill, which is where I had planned to put it, and so I'm thinking about adding some hanging loops and making it into a wall hanging. We'll see  :-)  This is my first finish for the second quarter FAL  :-) Happy days!

While I was out in the garden with the camera, I thought I'd share our latest little homefront drama.

Can you see, just to the left in the picture above, next to the compost bin.

Oh dear! Part of the wall fell down  :-(  and because it forms the corner of the building we have to get it fixed sharpish, before it gets worse. On the bright side (?) the wall is half ours and half next-doors so we won't have to stump up for it all.

I've also been working on Caitlin's cat needlebook when she is safely tucked up in bed or away at school. I'm well over halfway done and hopefully will get the cross stitch finished tomorrow and then sewn together on Saturday.

I'd like to add her initials to the back, but we'll have to see how the time goes.

Speaking of Caitlin, thank you all so much for the lovely comments you left for her about the cushion she made. She sat and read them all last night and was so pleased that 'proper sewing people liked it'  :-)  Bless!
Not to be outdone in any way, shape or form, Cameron has declared that he would like to make a cushion too, so we'll be doing that in the near future  :-)  Watch this space!

Sadie xx