Last weekend I started a little project I've been meaning to try for quite a while...a mini patchwork quilt made by recycling old items of clothing. I've got as far as the top.

In real life the pink does not overpower as much as it does in the photo

 The hardest part was trying to find fabric that would match.  It took me two evenings to cut out the pieces and arrange them, but the actual sewing I did in just an evening . The look has turned out quite old-fashioned but that delights me as I like the vintage look. I haven't bought the batting/wadding yet. I think I want to bind the edges in white....so it may look vintage but will look fresh at the same time.

I cut up a dress, a top and a skirt, you can see these at the top of this picture. The skirt ( fabric at the top  right in pic  ) was originally a child's dress which I had combined with the top of a pair of jeans, remember that idea was all the rage a few years back?...well I think I only wore it once lol...anyway that fabric is on it's 3rd life now so is quite used to being recycled lol.

It's a miserable day here, rainy and windy so I think I will spend the afternoon cutting up more rectangles from my fabric stash in preparation for making more of these. It's the kind of thing you can do bit by bit...I'll put the rectangles in a box and then one evening if I have enough and the mood takes me I can get stuck into the sewing.

Not long until the festive season now...my how time flies, I don't know where this year has gone. I should really get my butt in gear and start making some gifts. Not sure what I'm going to do this year, although one person has requested something with owls so that gives me a starting point :)

fabric book cover...

I really want to make some fabric book covers...I mucked up the link before and went straight to the pdf...edited now...here is the link to sewing.com :) click here 

Great site with some lovely things. I like the diaper stacker too, I bought one of these years ago and used it in my kitchen as a hanging shelf for tea towels, might make one for that same use again :)

For Rip Van Winkle: Bird

Just in case you have been snoozing and haven't seen this yet...is there ANYONE out there in blog world that hasn't had a go at these yet?...well just in case look at link above...You may or may not see my feeble attempt above depending on whether or not I was brave enough to share a pic with you...I once read that a secret to a good blog is to show you are human...well there is proof in my pictures, far from best attempt at embroidery...all I can say is that if you are going to embroider it, do it with a trick marker because if you are like me you will change your idea as you go along as the aesthetics ( crikey spell check said I got that word right first time around, sometimes I impress myself LOL ) of it become more apparent as you stitch...and if you are a complete twit and did not use trick marker, felt tip pen marks do not compliment the embroidery no matter how much you try and persuade yourself otherwise! LOL

I'm going to try and do a mobile as soon as I find some yummy fabric that will do them justice.

Enjoy.

Doxie ...far from perfection!

UFO on the home run

Can you guess what it is?

How do you like my expertly hand sewn buttonhole stitching?

I have a feeling this pic may give it away...that is if you read French lol.

I reckon it'll be completed by the end of June. In reality there is not much to do now it is just a case of actually doing it when I get the time. Lets hope the next pics I take of it are the finished item!

Dox

UFO attack

Tonight I went back to a UFO that has been teasing me since last Summer when I originally started it. I had an image in my mind and being a perfectionist I didn't want to just plough on if it wasn't going to be exactly what I imagined. I've been thinking Zakka meets French Country. I have been putting it off ,but today I was suddenly hit by a wave of inspiration and I have the bit that was bugging me finished. I just have to actually join all the layers together now and it will be done. I'll post the pics soon hopefully.

Doxie feeling extremely chuffed with herself. :o)

Top number 2

Last night at about 11pm I had a creative urge ( read as some thrifted fabric and sewing store purchases teasing me from the corner of the room )...so I started on another top. It started out as one of Rae's tops but ended up as a bit of a hybrid as I wanted try something new too. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to try when I started out, but it ended up as my first attempt at shirring. It looked a bit plain on the first fitting so I decided to ditch the straps and try some shirred angel wings instead. I was very pleased with the result, nice and girly. ;o)

The tutorial for the angel wings can be found here

It has been a productive day, not only did I manage to finish this top but I also got 11 trays of seedlings pricked out...it would have been more but I was beginning to feel as if I would burn in the sun if I stayed out any longer. Mr Doxie was productive as always...he has been tweaking our wardrobe arrangements...or should I say strengthening them since the pole collapsed under the weight the other day LOL. Thank you Mr Doxie you've done a grand job, it looks lovely.

I have a million and one projects in my mind for this week, but the ones I am really keen on getting done are the re-designing of some bought tops.

Old vintage sewing pics on the web

If they were thrilled with this machine, I'd love to show these ladies the new Bernina 830 LOL BTW if you haven't seen it yet, the launch party presentation is well worth a look if you can find it on the web...if I remember I will put up a link sometime...it is somewhat cheesy, quite long, BUT really pulls you in, I certainly wanted one after watching it but seeing as it is £5,700 at the time of writing, I won't be getting one this side of Christmas! ( or the other side lol ).

Awww ain't they sweet!

Is this one of "The Borrowers" practicing recycling? Apparantly that is a rabbit...I thought it was a Red Setter Dog.

Ahem, apparantly not all little girls are sugar and spice!

There are some lovely "vintage" sewing pics out there on the web. I can't give you permission to use these as they are not mine.They were found at the following site...

©2000 Denise Van Patten - http://collectdolls.about.com

Realising that you have to let fabric give up it's former guise

I have a very large fabric recyling box...erm, translate as about 1/4 of the craft room. I have been playing around tonight trying to find the right fabric for a project but have got nowhere...then it struck me...the reason is that I have been looking at things thinking is this worth cutting up for said project. It's daft really as the recycled stuff is just for personal use ( gifts have the luxury of having fabric bought especially for them) so it is of no consequence really...this makes me think that I ought to have a session of cutting up old clothes etc, taking off arms and jjust making lots of large squares of fabric, then I will see it for what it now is FABRIC and not it's former self. How silly it is that the simplist of things can cause such a barrier to getting on and actually DOING stuff. Ho hum.

Rae's top

Okay I finally got around to taking a pic of Rae's top that I made...keep in mind this started out as a muslin, so there is probably quite a few stray threads etc ...but I liked the fabric so much I have made it part of my wardrobe...Next time I WILL take more care. The way I put it on the hanger makes it look a bit lop-sided but luckily that is not how it is when you wear it.

Doxie

Forgotten things in the loft

I was having a tidy in the loft the other day (translate as trying to make more room for my crafting stash and must have more fabric addiction) and I came across a couple of items I had forgotten about. The first is an old UFO ( groan!). It started life as a patchwork bag...I was never really interested in it as a bag though as the challenge was just to see if I could decipher how to make a bag in this design... once I had achieved my goal I lost interest and was on to the next thing...I am rather proud of my pink bullion roses but goodness knows what possesed me to put those hideous blue ones at the bottom for, they are just not working. I can clearly see that my patchworking skills have improved since I did this too, which is encouraging.

Mmm I think I may have uploaded this as too poor a quality to appreciate the bullions...note to self to take a close up of yellow panel at higher quality.

cheery isn't it?

The Sylvester cat was from a home-ed project...the brief was to find a picture of a famous person, copy it and then use it to make a Andy Warhol style painting. I can't remember exactly which site we got the picture from, but I do remember it was a kiddie's site with "tutorials" on how to draw well known cartoon characters. :o) Okay so ours was not a famous person but it was close enough eh?

I did come across another pic that I painted of a couple of my pets, I will keep that under wraps for now as I may make it into an embroidery design at a later date and I don't want to spoil the surprise LOL. Gee dunno when I'll have the time though.

Doxie, who achieved little in the loft that day because she was so distracted by all the interesting ( to her ) finds!

Some girliness for you

This is before it was sewn up so excuse the threads and pin!

How could any girlie not want to stitch up this gorgeous corset pattern from Rectangel? I made a little sachet with mine and filled it with lavender. HOWEVER I was so filled with euphoria and excitement at the result, that when I cut around the edge to shape it and trim the excess felt away, I ...for some reason... failed to see the very obvious ribbon I had carefully stitched on to hang it by and just cut it clean off ! I did remedy it, but what a twit LOL. I think these would be such a hit for pressies.

Be sure to check out the pics in Rectangel's vintage embroidery pattern stream they are lovely.

She's gotta be a very talented person by the look of the pics on flickr.

Doxie

sewn organiser baskets

I thought these are a nice idea...they'd look good for a home office if you co-ordinated them with the soft furnishings in the room.

Or how about these for smaller bits and bobs.

More for the to-do list :o)

Erm...I think this means I'm obsessed

...What does it mean when you wake up in the morning and your ear worm is the closing song on the Bernina presentation...It started as I got out of bed, carried on through the bubbles in my bath, drowned out the sound of electric tooth brush and it is still there now ... I just can't get it out of my head.

Could it be that the clever people at Bernina planted some sort of brainwashing technique into their podcast?...leading anyone who has seen it to break out in song with " This is your time Bernina!" at random times...what a good way of advertising that would be...I'm sure people would notice you if you did that on the tube, in the grocers or waiting in line at the bank. Let just hope that if this is the case, all the new and unwitting advertisers are wearing their best home sewn outfits or it would backfire horrendously LOL

Or perhaps I am just now officially obsessed with this sewing lark.

Either way I am happy in my madness, I wonder what I will produce today...

Doxie who is obviously a bit doolally

A minute's silence...

Could we just take a few moments to honour my dear crafting friend who left us forever yesterday. He was a great help in many projects and no other came close. We spent many an hour in each other's company and without him my projects would not have taken on such a finished and crisp/fresh look. He could seem a bit heavy at times but I think ultimately that was where his strength was... I liked it best when he really let off steam, it was then that we did our best work together...He will be missed, and yesterday I just could not do any crafting knowing that he was not there to aid me.

Goodbye my Rowenta iron...I am sure your replacement will do it's best, but you will take some beating.

XXX

I made a bag

Ooooh I love it. I made it as part of my personal gifting drive, see this post on my blog Gift Me Happy. I found a pattern to work from on Weekend Designer. If you haven't had a look there be sure to it is so inspiring...if you see it, want it but can't afford it, Weekend Designer really puts across the fact that you CAN make it. This is just the concept I have been trying to put across to one keen little girl B I am teaching to sew, but more in the way of toys, hair bands etc. at the moment..somehow I don't usually think to "copy" clothes for myself, but why not? That said I haven't tried any of the clothes on there yet, but I sure would like to.

It's funny really, thinking of the little girl I mentioned...I think the message has got through as her Mum told me that when they were on holiday recently, she ( B ), took lots of pictures of things she liked but couldn't afford to buy so she could show me and when she got back I could show her how to make them...I haven't seen the pics yet, I am both excited to see what she has in mind but feel slight trepidation...which of course I will do my best not to show...after all you can do anything you set your mind to, right? Oh boy oh boy I hope her mentor does not fail her. :o/

Doxie :o)

YAY I did one of Rae's tops!

Okay so I did it a bit late for the Spring Top Sewalong but I did do it!

Some jungle fabric had been taunting me from the stash pile for about a year. It was one of DS's old kiddie duvet covers. It may not be the everyday look for a woman of my age but what the heck I like it! ...and I couldn't waste it on something like a laundry bag that wouldn't get to travel and see the outside world! LOL

I think it will be perfect for a day out at the zoo. I mucked up a bit on the inside of the straps...only because I had a total lapse of concentration during 2 key points... which I shall blame on dear Sharp End taking my concentration away and it being about midnight ...but thankfully it doesn't show or really matter. I just know to take extra care next time and pack in before I get tired...and yes there will be lots of next times because it is such a super adaptable pattern. Thankyou to lovely Rae for providing the pattern, she writes the instructions so well...which you can find here on our much loved SewMamaSew.

and for anyone who has not stumbled across Rae's blog yet, her clever workwomanship can be found here

Doxie who is wearing her new jungle top now!

modifying skirts

I thought I was done with the sewing lark for a while but when I was going through my wardrobe to get rid of even more clothes I found 3 skirts which I won't be wearing as they are, but I just love the colours and prints...So.. hey ho, it seems I am doomed to sew.

One is a skirt I made a year or so ago that started life as a pair of jeans but it was really an experiment and is a little too Boho for my liking so I will probably shorten it and make it into a fiesta style skirt.

The other two are skirts I bought for my holiday but wouldn't wear here so they have served their purpose and need attacking and made into something more suitable for our up and coming Autumn. They are identical in colour but different weight fabrics so I am not sure how exactly I will morph them into one but I enjoy a challenge.

Will take photos of the before and after. :o)

Doxie

For X-stitchers and back stitchers: alphabet generator

This site here has a great tool for stitching words and phrases in X-stitch. Play around with it a bit first and you will soon get the hang of it. Have a look under tools and the alphabet generator.

Doxie still avoiding real work but designing some charity stuff instead so doesn't feel so guilty about it at the mo! I am busy, honest!

free pattern finds

A handy knitted bag from I live on a Farm link here



Really cute bear to make here



A knitted goldfish pattern...YES you read that correctly LOL find it here. It is the lady's first go at writing her own pattern... well done to her, it is brill.



Some very different vintage patterns here

Doxie

Distracted

I have a million and one things to do and a deadline to meet but I am so distracted by all things embroidery at the moment. I have so many projects whizzing around in my head. The above picture is part of an embroidery I added to a gift for a neighbour last week. I am working on the assumption that if you get these distractions out of your system by giving in to them you can then get back on track and give your work 100% attention...does it really work like that?

What is your biggest distraction and what should ( ahem ) you be doing instead at the moment?

Doxie giving in to girly whims.