My working space - take a peek!

I thought you might like a few pics of my sewing space - and it's nice to see how it looks without a pile of fabric and various haby mess on every single surface. I've started another quilt top too (although ongoing experiments with my immune system, thanks to the scientists observing our house and throwing lovely viruses at us all the time, have rendered me useless temporarily with a bad cold). Anyway, here's the situ just now:

Down a couple of steps into the sewing room, this is the first end of the room you see. It's in the eaves at the top of the house, and I keep forgetting this and banging my head. Only been in here 5 years, you'd think I'd know by now :) The table is going to a good home tomorrow, and my plan is to get a hammock in this corner, oh yes!

This is the main working bit - can't you tell by the puddles of sweat? :) The tables are foldable ones I found on ebay, and the shelves were here when we moved in. Perfect for my books, magazines, knick-knacks. Cutting mat and sewing in an l-shape, works really well, esp with the window there. Love the view over the fields too. Physio ball is IDEAL for sewing - very comfy to sit on, much nicer than a chair.

That is the bit of the roof I always bang my head on! Can you tell why? hehe. Have only just hung up my wee wall hanging, pinboard and thread holder. Havent painted the walls yet as havent found the time or energy - lots of other stuff needing doing in the house first. Threads and sewing machine accessories in the drawers there.

This is my little fabric colleection.... Paltry compared to some, but expanding slowly but inevitably. The wee blue boxes in the corner have my coloured scraps, the larger ones have other scraps and the baskets have various fabrics and sewing bits in them. Love spending time fondling the fabrics! I use the floor as my design wall :)

This wee corner beside the steps is for my craft show goodies. Need to build up that area :) Also ideal as a stage for my daughter to play dolls on. They usually end up with bandages on - heaven knows what they get up to in her head!

I always like to see other folk's sewing space so thought you might like to see this one. While it's clean and tidy. Which it probably won't be again for a loooooooooong time!

Latest project tomorrow...

A welcome return to productivity

Thanks to Crazy Mom I have a couple of yay finishes to show you :)

The first I have already mentioned here and am chuffed to bits about it. Really couldn't have been much easier (unfortunately I never took pics of the process - my all-singing, all-dancing phone is still new and I have yet to realise I have joined the modern generation that can take pics whenever they choose)

but I can show you the finished object and describe it to you! TADA!!!

This lovely looking item was covered in a stained ratty floral horror up till yesterday. I took the old cover off, pinned it to the new fabric and cut around it, and took the old gathering string off it to use on my new cover.
I then cheerfully rolled up the old cover and binned the bugger :D
Then I double folded the edges of the new fabric, keeping the gathering string inside the fold so I could sew it into the new hem and use it to gather the new fabric.
Worked like a charm :D
Here's a close up - cant remember who the manufactures is, but isnt it sweet?

So now I have a lovely new cover - and I found an excuse to use it.

Because I have ANOTHER finish!

This wee charmer is another cushion for my cousin, knitted in Rowan Kid Classis, Rowan Tapestry and backed with the same cord fabric I used for the first one:

Finished size about 18 inches square. Second use of buttonholes, I think these are slightly better than the first ones, although again not quite in a line. Better every time though :D
The stitch pattern is from one of my stitch books, 4 rows with two slip stitch rows, and another 4 rows with the slip stitch slightly offset, giving a wave effect. I used three colours, so every 12 rows another slight change. Here's Johnny! a close-up - 

The Tapestry is variegated, so adds another dimension to the pattern. I'm v pleased with it, and also with sewing it to the backing.
I used a 1/2 " seam and a walking foot and chugged my way through. Worked out pretty well. Am liking this experimenting!

You'll get a peek at my sewing room soon :D

PS It will never again be as tidy as it is in the photos....

Irony

I've been busy in these days of radio silence. Clearing out the midden that was my sewing room, and finding some pleasant and some unpleasant surprises there, but glad to have done it. I will take some pictures of my deluxe attic pad when the light is better, and show off the new ironing board cover I made too.

I hate ironing. Surely one of the more tedious of all household chores. Standing there over a board sweating buckets and trying to find hangers to put the freshly flattened shirts on only to find them squashed into the wardrobe minutes later. All you have to show for it is a sore wrist and backache (or maybe I'm doing it wrong).

Quilting, on the other hand, requires much ironing, and I will happily spend a day running between sewing machine and iron, noting with great satisfaction the smoothed fabric and perfectly tucked away seams.

Wierd.

And while I was ironing my stash from the washing machine pile (it's only been sitting in a heap for 3 months, hardly any time at all, really) I found the perfect fabric to replace my grotty old unloved and unlovable ironing board cover. So I replaced it. Heh.

I love it; I love looking at it; it fits in perfectly with my tidy gorgeous sewing room, and it will not make ironing a shirt one iota more pleasant at all.

I am looking forward to pressing a few seams though...

Said the Traveller...

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because I have been having, of all things, a social life!
We've been to Spain for a few days, sans child (woohoo!) and had a book club/cocktail party meeting, and I've been to London for a weekend at a friend's birthday celebration.... busy, busy, busy...

Phew.

In between times I have managed some sock knitting, but because they are just bog standard ribbing, they don't look very exciting to show. Work is slowly progressing though. Quite relaxing on the train to read my kindle and knit - because the kindle sits nicely on the table and all I have to do to turn a page is wiggle my pinky :D

And no sewing. But I have found some amazing patterns, and have a couple of cushions to finish and some good ideas for them, and some gorgeous bag patterns thanks to Bending Pins.

Onwards and upwards then!

(after I clean and tidy the house, empty the washing bag, shop for groceries, dig in compost and plant some veg, chop some wood, etc etc)

:D xx

Gin!

If you love gin, or any good spirit, and live in the Glasgow area, you MUST get along to The Good Spirits Company.

Bought some of this. YUM.

Have had a gin tasting night there with a pal, and we have had a fantastic night!
Amazed I can type, really :D
Lovely, lovely, gin ..... mmmmmmmm.....

Finish-it Friday and a First for me

Very alliterative :)

I made a cushion today! Well, finished one really. I'd made most of the top up before with some tweeds that my folks had sent me, and needed to finish it off. My cousin is looking for autumn-coloured cushions to go with her living room, and I thought this one would fit the bill perfectly.

And I got to do something new on my sewing machine today - Buttonholes!
I know, I know, I should have practiced them before, but somehow never got around to it. Today was the day :) I had a couple of practice runs and launched myself onto the main back. And it worked! Yay me!

Have some photos:

 The finished size is 20" square. The front is pieced with 1/2 " seams because the wool tweed frays like mad, and it is quite bulky. The green is less in your face in real life :)

 I made the back from two pieces of corduroy fabric I found on ebay. Love it! Love the seams too, look at that baby. Nothing showing, nothing squint! Excellent to cut too, you just go along the lines :)

Because the wool was a bit frayish and a looser weave than I'm used to, I hand-quilted the seam again, sewing parallel to the machine-sewed lines, just to catch it at the back and make a feature. I also cut the corners where the seams meet, to reduce bulk on the inside. To finish the front, I ironed on interfacing to the back and cut it to the shape of the top. All three layers (front, interfacing and corduroy back) were sewn together on my wee Brother (which sounds funny when you read it out loud!) XL5700.

Luckily I found three matching buttons in my stash. You can see that the middle buttonhole is slightly lower, but for a first attempt I am pretty chuffed. Have a close up :)

 I used hemming web in the fold to give it a bit more stability and because I'd never tried it before. It held pretty well, but it might have been ok anyway. It's a sturdy fabric and nice to use. How clever are sewing machines to make a buttonhole in one go!

I filled it with two IKEA pillow forms, cos one looked a bit weedy.
And voila! If I can tell you anything else, please ask!
Linking to Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom x

I'm a REALLY lucky lucky girl!

Have received a beautiful, gorgeous and stunningly well-finished pants bag from Jen at Glinda Quilts. Check out this link for pics, I have had no chance today to get the camera out, and even if I did, pics could not do it justice.

UPDATED TO ADD: Some lovely photos. The inside of the bag is as beautifully finished as the outside. Am looking it over and being massively impressed at the neatness and perfect finishing. The detail! Love. MUCH too nice to put pants in. Thinking my (small) cashmere yarn collection or a Faberge egg or someone's first born child ....

The blue ombre fabric is soooo gorgeous!

Adore the facets on the jewel! So clever!

Look at the attention to detail - 2 folds here, for ribbon going both ways, and it STILL looks neat and perfect. Look at those teeny finishing stitches!

Inside out. The inside is as neatly finished as the outside. Am stunned. Love the wee pocket.

The finishing is exquisite, the sewing and quilting amazing, and I am beyond delighted.
Thank you Jen! So much!
Am very,very lucky :D

Hallo, hallo, anyone there?

Or should that be directed at me? I've taken the wee one up to see my folks for a week, so there was much playing with cousins and pals, and much not cooking and Scrabble playing for me YAY!

Lovely to be home though, despite the long drive back. Very lovely to see my hubby and cat, in that order :)

Sewing wise, have done flip all since my last post; knitting wise, have made a sock and started the second one. Slow, slow, but the little I have done has been very therapeutic.

Alas, back to reality tomorrow. The house needs to be cleaned, the bags to be unpacked, beds to be stripped, messages to be bought, child to be dropped at and collected from school (insert small 'yay' here if desired) etc etc etc.

Still, Spring! Tulips! Evening light! Lambs hopping about! Sunshine with warmth in it!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww!

Small things continued...

Have finished a few more cards for my craft show tomorrow -

Hope they get a good reception :)  Made some more today but camera playing up, typical. Very satisfying though!
Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts for a Friday Finish!

Craft Fair goodness!

I'll be selling some of my stuff, including the wee cards, at this craft fair in Ayr Town Hall tomorrow - Sat 6th April, between 12 and 3. Look for Fankle Quilting & Knitting!

I'll have my cards, some cushions, quilts, placemats, crochet brooches, a few other textile pieces and much colour and rainbow loveliness :D

Hope to see you there!

Appearances can be deceptive

For example, it looks like a gorgeous spring day - sun beaming down from the blue sky, birds singing - until you step outside and the chill wind goes right through you and freezes your kidneys.

For example, it looks like I am sitting at the laptop, surfing the web, playing Words With Friends and listening to Radio4 Extra - whereas I am actually pondering the commission I have to do and email off in the next couple of days.

Honest.

Small but perfectly formed

Linking up with Crazy Mom's Friday finishes:

Been busy at my sewing machine, but not for quilting - take a look at a few of these babies!

this one's my very favourite :D

 And also some crochet flowers:

I have a craft show coming up and decided I needed something small and cute, inexpensive to make and buy. I realise not everyone has the wherewithall to afford a quilt at the moment, no matter how small, but a pretty card is an affordable treat. I like them a lot - what do you think?

Extra strings to my bow

Working away - again - at my sewing machine, only slightly hampered by the remnants of my virulent cold attack Yay! Am trying something new this time for my craft stall, making cards with fabric.
I'm cutting out background shapes and sewing mostly hearts on top. So far they look very cute :D and am
hugely chuffed with how they're turning out. Proper photos tomorrow after I find the camera. And the camera battery...

This is my baby - Brother XL 5700. Pretty basic but a hard worker :)

Have fussy cut some wee motifs too - owls, children, with so far excellent effect. I've been raiding my scrap bins (which are full to overflowing) for these wee titbits, although not making much of a dent yet. I think the next step is going to the stash and choosing some lovely wee bits to fussy cut.
Looking forward to that tomorrow. As well as paying for the Blighter's next round of swimming lessons, gettting acupuncture, picking her up from school early and tidying the house after a family visit and before the first Book Group meeting at our house tomorrow night. Phew!

Here's to feeling better!

Stuttering to a halt...

Ha. So much for my lofty ambitions. Ill again, Flu-type cold again. Am so utterly fed up of this state of affairs that I have booked a session of acupuncture to see if it will help my desperately failing immune system. Hubby has had a course and swears by it, and I can see the improvements every time he goes.

Hopefully this will be me on Thursday!

So, my turn now. Another way for a quilter to be involved with pins :) Will be attending a preliminary consultation on Thurs morning and hopefully it will be gravy from there!

Wish me luck....

Making like a bee...

Busy, busy!

More later :D


PS 100th Post! Woohoo! Should have a giveaway.....

Blankets seem appropriate...

...given that the country has been blanketed with snow for much of the last day or two. Our blanket in Ayrshire has come, gone, come again and is currently hardening under a beautiful clear night sky. At least the stars look breathtaking, so you don't really notice that you're freezing your tits off :)

Anyway. I've made a few blankets over the years, itseems to be something I keep on as low-key background knitting, and I don't mind that they take a while. I can just pick them up, do a few rows, blocks, whatever, and put them down again until it suits me better another time. Some have taken months, and some over a year to do, but I love mindless knitting every so often.

So have some pictures :) There are still a few I've not got photos of so will get round to that soon. I love the crochet one, but they all have a (warm) place in my heart!

This beauty was done on size 3.25mm needles - yes you read right - with Rowan Felted Tweed. I started with the green square block in the centre and carried on out from there. Took well over a year, and just over 23 balls of yarn. Finished size 54" x 72" roughly.

Detail of the ridges - remember every ridge of garter stitch is TWO rows knitted. I must be mad...
Edging was 2 rows of the dark turquoise all the way round:

The crochet one:

This one's about 40" x 65", adore the colours in this.

And my current blanket-in-progress:

Obviously I have had a log cabin love frenzy, but they are very satisfying. This one is Noro Kureyon, shade 161 which reminds me of a Scottish moorland. Love the mix of hues, the brights and the muted, the unexpected interplay of seemingly unrelated shades; unrelated until you look out onto a moor and go 'Oh yeah! I see it now!' This one will finish up at around 4 feet x 6 feet I think.

More soon :D

Blue Funk

I feel a bit sluggish of late. This is most likely a mixture of things - flu-type virus reappearance, looking after my hubby who is suffering another attack on his immune system, and my daughter who is being 5 and a half as well as she knows how. Thoughts of passed family members are weighing heavily too, especially poignant with Mother's Day tomorrow - well, today now. So have been a bit melancholy and low-spirited.

Surprisingly, there has been productivity despite this malaise. I finished knitting a pair of men's socks for a friend; made a cafetiere warmer for another friend (well, for her cafetiere technically) and finished the last square of a blanket I have been knitting for ever. It only needs sewing together and knitting a border round the edges. I am currently wrapped in a blanket I finished last year - a monster effort which took over a year to make, and no wonder: I used 3.25mm needles (that's old size 10, for the UK folk) to knit a single bed-sized blanket out of Rowan Felted Tweed. It was a labour of love, log-cabin stylee, and I really truly enjoyed it. I still havent taken a picture of this beauty, but now that I think of it, it deserves to be shown off for it's example of my fragile mental state testament to perseverance.

I'll get on it. And pics of all the other finishes.

It is nice to know that even in the midst of the lassitude there is comfort to be had in creation.

And I'm going for a cycle tomorrow.

Experimenting

Time for some quality experimenting, now that I have my latest commissions done and dusted.

Have been browsing some fantastic home design and storage tutorials online, such as Lunch bags, Buckets and Cushion Zip installation with a view to my next project. What really interested me was this: Round bottom storage buckets!

Picture from Film in the Fridge, an excellent blog if you havent found it already :)

Genius.

So inspired by this clever idea, have been experimenting with my own fabric stash. I had no interfacing at the time, nor much in the way of decor-weight or heavier weight fabric, so tried it with quilt batting instead.

First attempt - oookaaaaaay. Lot to be improved upon, but still functional.
Second attempt - better. More in proportion, working out a few niggles.
Third attempt - much happier with the results!

Check this out, in order of making from left to right (Tall one = first one, green one = attempt number three):

I didnt use anyone's pattern, just a rough idea in my head. This is how they were done, roughly:

• Cut out a circle for the base from one layer batting and one layer fabric, quilted together. 

• Quilt more batting and fabric together, and cut a length of this to use as the sides, (used my rusty maths skills) and measuring the circumference of the circle by using Pi x D. Sewed the sides together, sticking in one of my labels about half way up.   

NB Make sure you sew the base to the right end of the side fabric or you will have your label upside down. This is the voice of experience...

• Sew the base to the sides (right side together) using LOTS of pins and a slow speed with approx half inch seam.

• Turnedight side out and put aside for a minute.

• Cut second base and second sides from lining fabric, making them half inch smaller diameter and according side length. Sewed side, sewed base to side as above.

• Put lining into outer with all right sides showing. Pin sides together at mouth of bucket.

• Cut length of lining fabric for rim overlap - I wanted to have a good 2 inch overlap so used a 6 inch deep piece. Same length as side for lining. Sew short ends together. Fold in half lengthways, iron fold if desired.

• Pin raw edges to pinned raw edges of bucket, with fold on the inside of the bucket.

• Sew all three pieces together at top (inner, outer, rim). Fold rim overlap over the outside edge of the bucket, as in picture. 

My favourite one so far:

I was using some scrap fabric to experiment with so colour choices will be better in next batch. I also bought some interfacing so will try that variation out too. The quilted version is nice in an organic way but bulkier round the seams, so I imagine the interfaced ones will be firmer and finer.

     The overlap is not perfect either but I like the effect. The beauty of this version is that the seam at the top allows a sewn-in hanging loop while still having the overlap; the fantastic ones from Film in the Fridge dont have that option without a separate add on loop.

      The mathematics has not been perfect either - there was a fair amount of fudging it going on, and a few creases. Still, it mostly worked out, and sewing can be very forgiving :)

The lining looks the best in this one too, much less crumpled and it reaches all the way to the bottom nicely!
 
Et Voila! Sorry if my instructions don't make sense,  I have not taken any pictures of the process yet. And I still want to make some with the hanging loop so I can have a wee row hanging over my sewing table with all my bits and bobs in them. I'll just have to keep chugging away till I perfect them! Or till I get bored and try something else.... :D