Sunday 28 January 2018

2018 wk 5 - class prep

I actually got to turn on my sewing machine today - woohoo!!  After I’d finished the meeting minutes and helped Lisa with her tax return I ignored the big boxes of uniforms to be embroidered and cut some fabric and sewed it back together!!!

Sooooo therapeutic!   I made a sample twisty thread catcher.  It’s not finished so I can show the ladies the various stages


I also did some painting!  I’m teaching a class later in the year where we’ll stick fabric and fabric related stuff onto card, paint the whole lot with black gesso (?) and then add a thin layer of bright colour (I’ve got purple, red and blue) then add a little bit of metallic wax (pewter, bronze and mother of pearl) to highlight the raised textures.

I expect it has a name in card making circles, but “painting” is all I can give you, apart from photos



Nice result but only just fabriccy (and the black gesso is like tar - sticks until you can eventually peel it off hands, jeans, cutting boards (!) etc) but the ladies want to try so we will

Friday 26 January 2018

2018 Wk 5 time to sew??

Its been a bit of  a struggle to find time to sew, although this weekend is looking promising.  To get myself back in the swing of things I *might* have popped in to Helen's to buy a little bit of fabric (possibly just over eight meters, but lets not dwell on that!!!!)



There has been some making - the never ending embroidery (for the preschool and the scouts)



a taggie for a new grandma at church (well obviously not for her, but you know what I mean)



.
and a lot of boring agendas and minutes

The sewing room is starting to feel like home (husband has been invited to share but so far hasn't shown any interest so I'm kind of filling 'his' area!!)



And the the Days For Girls ladies had a really productive morning - some of our early shields didn’t pass muster with the charity but aren’t being wasted - one of our ladies is off to The Gambia next week and will take a dozen kits with her


And apologies if I haven’t been to *your* blog for a while - I’ll be there soon - In one week’s time I go down to 4 days a week at work which will give me some time to return to the creative world!!

Sunday 7 January 2018

2018 - Wk 2 Chertsey - waste fabric

The Christmas tree has been put away, I've had four days back at work, I've done my tax return, the new bedroom is sorted (and very 'cozy' - aka small) and I finally have a working computer in the new sewing room so things are heading in the right direction!

We had the first Chertsey Museum session of the year on Friday.  The finished EPP Christmas stars were brought in and admired: Some other were still up with Christmas decorations, others had been put away - Stephanie made 4 and strung string between them to hang her Christmas cards from!  I think we'll call that a success!



This month we were making waste fabric.- basically strips of waste fabric woven over rug canvas.  It's difficult to see from the pics but there were some great colour combinations here - I especially liked the ones that used black and white and a bit of colour.

Once the weaving has been done, the fabric is stitched on a sewing machine

I've told them to use all the fancy stitches they have never use - and to use up all the odd bobbins and spools of thread that aren't really worth keeping but we do because we don't like waste 


I look forward to seeing them next month

My sewing room is now looking like this

a bit busier than when it was my bedroom

And I keep trying to remember it's husband's office too!!!!!  (the wardrobes will eventually go!)

And finally - Goddaughter was delighted with her Christmas pressie:

Monday 1 January 2018

2018 Wk 1 - on the move 

(I don’t know how this post will look - I’ve used Blogsy to write blog posts for a long time, but it hasn’t been updated so I’ve switched to Blogger - let’s see how it goes!)
All sorts of changes over the last few days.  This was my sewing room . . .


Now it’s my (our) bedroom


And this was my (our) bedroom


And now it’s starting to be my sewing room (and his office)


The only problem is that there seems to be an awful lot more stuff to come up here!


We’ve also ordered new sofas and they arrive this week so we have moved the old ones to the girls’ house. Our living room is looking bare


And theirs isn’t yet ready for them so they have become kitty climbing frames while the girls finish painting their walls


I’m fairly sure I don’t need to go to the gym at all this year - I have used all sorts of muscles I never knew I had and must have burnt all the Christmas calories in moving all the furniture to it’s new home!!!