Feel Good Friday

School finished for the year on Friday, at lunch time, and I left (with a lovely haul of goodies) and went to Chertsey Museum. The Fun With Fabric ladies showed off their fab button necklaces 

And each made a Fat Quarter bag

Lovely afternoon 

Super Soft Seasonal Scarves

Tomorrow is the last day at school, and I suddenly realised I hadn't made anything for the 4 colleagues I spend most of my time with.

So I cut strips of fabric 8 inches x width of fabric from Christmassy fabric and some velvet, and some pashminas that could be sacrificed.

I used a strip and a half (so a length appx 8 x 60 inches) of a plain fabric and a Christmassy fabric, and stitched them along the long sides, right sides together, all but the end 3 inches of each edge
   

Then I turned the scarf right way round, and stitched the two ends of one fabric together

 

I then folded back two ends of the second fabric to where where they should meet, and pressed them


 

I stitch the ends of the second fabric together, and machine stitched the opening along one long side, finally closing  the final opening with hand sewing, and I now have four Christmassy, super soft, infinity scarves

Christmas Crafts

I've finally got the decorations out of the loft and have dressed the tree. I also retrieved some other traditional items - my Christmas Crafts!

My sister-in-law gave me this cross stitch sometime in the nineties: given that I only cross stitch for part of December each year I'm not doing too badly

More recently, (just two years ago) Jackie sent me a tree to decorate and stuff. I decorated it with my niece in Australia, and she now has the completed tree, but I loved the idea, so I started making me one too

It's four tree shapes, first stitched RST at the two sides into pairs, then turned right way round and stitched down the middle. Stitch on decorations (mostly at the edges) then stuff and stitch the bottom closed
The third craft is a bit of a puzzle: I know I was inspired by Plum's Christmas wall hanging, but I'm not sure what I planned to do with them

There are plenty of snowflakes left over so I think some will go onto the fabric tree

More Christmas crafts to follow!

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A Fluffy Finish

Hot on the heels of It's a Hoot, I can show you my Christmas quilt - finished and in danger of being adopted by the cats or stolen by the daughters!

I used a really soft chenille blanket for the back (yes it may be minkie, but at my school that was the name given to a girl's front bottom, so I really cant use the same word here!) and it is the world's cosiest patchwork

Finally A Finish

It seems like a long time since I finished something,, so I'm pleased to show you It's
A Hoot finally finished

(and you can just see some of the oiled kitchen work surface, also finished, unlike the walls!)

Was it on the Christmas list?
Did it need to be finished?
Are there other things which DO need to be finished in the next ten days?

I'll leave you to guess the answers!

Customer Catchup

Sometimes I feel like making something new, sometimes I feel like working on a UFO, but other  times (albeit very rarely) I actually feel like doing something that I *ought* to do

So finally the last of seven cushions for a friend/customer has been completed

 And the ripped coat sleeve for a colleague . . .

. . . has been repaired

Now back to pretty stuff :-)

Mystery Make revealed

Back in September the lovely Jen from Quilter in the Closet made herself a sewing machine mat that I drooled over.  A few emails back and forth later, Jen and I had proposed a little swap.  Sometime she would make me a machine mat, and I would make her an I pad cover.

We both knew this would be a long term swap: one that we could make when we wanted to rather than feeling we had to.  My package to her finally got posted in mid November, and I have heard from her that it arrived safe and sound.

I made her an iPad bag rather than a clutch type cover: I find with handles it's less likely to slip out of my fingers.  She suggested aqua, so I got some aqua solid, and added some machine embroidery on the front

And appliqued some English paper pieced hexies onto the back - all in calm, grownup aqua and grey

But I know that she has three young daughters, and there will be times when they want to use it, so I made the bag reversible, with some lovely bright girly I-spy fabrics on the inside

I did also get three aqua flannels, and I embroidered the girls' names on one each, but I don't seem to have a photo of them

Patchwork Package

You may remember a week or so ago I was a guest at a virtual Baby Shower.  We all make gifts for the party as well as for Sarah and the bump (currently known as Bean)

I contributed two sets of scissor tags, which were won by Leanne, and they finally went winging their way to Canada today.

And today I received the gift I won.  I actually missed the announcement as to *what* I had won so it was very exciting when  Reene from Nellie's Niceties (love the alliteration, Reene) contacted me for my address and told me she was sending me some off-cuts of fabrics.

Packaged in a lovely cotton bag

were all these pieces of fabric!  Reene called them scraps, and, as she says, other people's scraps are more interesting than our own, but look what a packed goodie bag of yummy fabrics I got!

Some lovely chucks that will go with the rainbow charms for when I'm ready to start that idea that is lurking in my brain

And some selvedge edges (I already had 34 stitched 5" squares of selvedge edges , so am now closer to my goal)

Reene, thank you so much :-)

Happy Hooting

A few years ago I was given an Its A Hoot charm pack, back in June I cut the charms in half, and stitched them in strips with pink charm squares. 

And they have sat, hung from a coat hanger from the ironing board, ever since.

Until I got an urge!

So I satisfied the urge, and now have this ready-to-bind quilt top

 

And there are two strips left over, so I think I will make a cushion to go with the quilt.  I'll be adding this to my to-do list, so I can cross it off!!!

Embroidery Extra

 "Can you just ..."

My heart usually sinks, but this time yes I could, and I enjoyed doing it, and I priced the job well - happy me, happy parent, and hopefully happy Oliver and Isabella now that they have their names on their Christmas sacks

Chocolate cache

Having made a number of draw string bags for mini first aid kits, I carried on making them

And filled them with a hoard of gold coins (oh ok, chocolate in gold foil) for friends' Christmas pressies. With no raw edges these are lovely bags whatever size you make them

Christmas Cosy

I've added the binding to the front

And now I just need to finish hand stitching it to the back

And then I can snuggle under it without feeling I should be stitching it !

Thwack resistant Thursday

I told you that a colleague and I, and my mum, started to make a sword fighting jacket - at this stage we clearly had a long way to go

But less than a week later Valerie had got this far

And by this week she was trailing this at practice:

With six layers of wadding (batting) and the outer fabric - what do you reckon?  Well it's been to training and she says she can't feel the whacks!

Doesn't that grin say it all!!!

Random Lesson

One of my students was hand sewing, even though she has a sewing machine.  " I hate it" she told me - "the tension is rubbish, I wish I'd never bought it". I suggested she bring the machine in and I'd help her love it. (There speaks the voice of confidence!)

Well, in it came, and I went to show her how to thread it . . . and stopped!  You know the "back-on-itself" / tension bit in the bobbin compartment - well it wasn't there, nothing , just a smooth compartment

We agreed I would take it and let her know when I'd solved it.  Husband looked at it for me, and was equally stumped. No back-on-itself bit meant no tension, so the stitches were rubbish.

She hadn't brought the book of words, so we checked lots of chat rooms and forums and they were mostly very critical of the machine, especially the threading of it - so no help for us!  The manufacturers kindly emailed me an instruction book, and one tiny sentence stood out as strange - you should only use metal bobbins.  Strange because nearly all machines use plastic these days, and very strange given that the "goodie bag" she got with it had PLASTIC bobbins in!  

Anyway we decided to try a metal one just to eliminate that issue - and it worked! Astonishingly, the ring in the base of the bobbin compartment is magnetic, and that provides the bobbin tension.

From despairing with it, and agreeing with the critical reviews, I have now fallen in love with  the Beldray 12 stitch mini. A great starter/lesson machine, with choice of foot pedal or start/stop button, it's lightweight and comes with a carry bag - shame it comes with rubbish instructions and a confusing, misleading goodie bag  

(No affiliation :-)

Sarah's Saturday

I didn't tell you, I joined the strangest party on Saturday- a Baby Shower for the lovely Sarah who blogs [here] and who is having a baby soon.

Sarah lives on the Shetland Isles, but Rhonda from Cumberland Gap, USA, decided to throw her a baby shower . . . despite there being nearly four thousand miles between them - so it was a virtual baby shower!!!!!

We tried a video conference call, but some of us couldn't join with video. I managed to watch and listen to the others and could join in with typed messages. Sadly Sarah had no broadband, so she joined us by landline phone, not able to see anyone, or show us what she was opening, but as soon as she mentioned whose present she was going to open next, Rhonda whizzed to the appropriate photo from the Flickr so we could all see what was being opened.

The hand pieced, hand quilted ISpy brick quilt I sent seemed to go down well: some really super gifts had been sent to her.  It was a great party, thanks Rhonda, and thanks to Sarah's mum who took lots of photos of the present opening

The rest of my Saturday was largely spent finishing piecing my Christmas vanishing 9 patch and machining the binding to the front: I have used the softest chenille fleece on the back, it's going to be sooooooooo snugly!

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Monday Madness part 2

Yesterday evening saw me back at Oakfield school making costumes for their Christmas play: the traditional tale of Cinderella at the Nativity (yes, really!!!)

We finished the last of 15 outfits, 

and made a dozen sparkly twirly skirts for the stardust children 

Then home for a well earned glass of wine, and a sleep!

Monday Madness part 1

Once upon a time it seems like a good idea to teach two adult education classes on the same day, a day I also happened to work at school.  It turned out wasn't a good idea! I love both classes, but it's exhausting!  Anyway today was the last triple day!

The Broom Farm girls were finishing projects, apart from L who has a shiny new sewing machine and wanted to learn how to drive it (and I never got a photo :-( gutted !  Although I did manage photos  of the yummy cupcakes she'd made, before they all went

C's finished bunting

T making binding for her quilt

D tacking binding on the cricket quilt 

And D who brought in a finished dress- on the cutest model!

I've really enjoyed this term