A summer wrap in winter

I had an old copy of Sew Hip and had been meaning to try out the Möbius wrap project.

Whilst shopping I couldn't resist the rich jewel tones of the Kaffe Fassett so "whipped" this up last weekend. I didn't have quite enough strips to make the longer length I wanted so augmented with toning fabric from my local fabric shop. Happily they had a few bolts of Kaffe Fassett prints in the shop which fitted in just fine.

This is me using it as a scarf - the main way I have been wearing it.

If the cold weather carries on for much longer though I may have to consider swapping it for one of my velvet creations, but now I come to think of it maybe its time for a new velvet wrap......

I know what I said...

...but if you are mentioning the-x-word and looking for things to do with little hands before you-know-when-mas then you shouldn't miss this online magazine

I might use my not so little hands for some of the projects....

Non-Christmas sewing

In purchasing something Christmas related the other day, I got sidetracked by a yummy strip roll pack of Kaffe Fassett fabrics in jewel tones on the same site. So instead of stirring things up for Christmas* this weekend I have pootled about making something for myself. Its not quite finished yet but here is a sneak peek:

Just realised I am talking about Christmas - which is a bit early for me. Now I am not going to mention it until well after the first week of December.
(*pudding & mincemeat already made - last year!)

A lovely Handm@de day

Yesterday, I finally did something I have been meaning to do - go to a Handm@de craft fair.  I am so lucky to be near the one in Winchester and it was great to see such a range of designer/makers.

I had been a long time admirer of Turned Light's beautiful lampwork beads and pendants and was delighted to get to chat to Kathryn and purchase some of her wares. I conceded that I was never going to get around to making something for someone(who should have had been given something for her birthday years ago) so paid a visit to Raspberry.

I was really impressed with some of the lovely silver jewellery for sale, from both Daiychain Jewellery and Quercus Silver. One of the most original vendors who I will need to visit in the New Year (once I have bought the right dress) is Soobird - who makes the most amazing and inventive fascinators.  Other people exhibiting who caught my eye were Smashing Chintz, Esther Coombs, Glowbox, Grey Duckling & Lucy Gilchrist.

Some pre-Christmas gift sewing

October is, I realise now, a dress rehearsal for Christmas. 7 birthdays.....
This year there were one or two gifts that I could not find in the shops - oven gloves to coordinate with a Birthday girl's new kitchen:

A beanbag at a price I was prepared to pay (58 quid for a bean bag! - for that amount you could buy a proper chair!!!)

For the oven gloves I adapted a pattern from this handy book which is a lot better than its predecessor which did not live up to its name (make != embellish).  The bean bag was a slightly adapted version of this pattern, instead of the velcro closing I inserted an overlapped zip.

Some needed sunshine

This week I needed a bit of sunshine in my life. So I bought myself some flowers:

and made (& shared) a large chocolate cake:

Weekend working and catch up

A little collage

 

The fun of cutting up an incredibly snotty English magazine and playing with my new (wish I knew they cheaper from Amazon) Inktense pencils.

A weekend texture worksheet

Aquaman and his stylish fish hat

Well it is at least falls into the silly bracket.

Feather in his cap

It is unbelievably relaxing just doodling on things like this and then colouring them in. Colouring in is forever not just for Childhood.

Ubirdies

Time to get Silly

Chicken Tonight

Test worksheet for the Art of Silliness 2 workshop with Carla Sonheim.

Pen & paper tangling

This was a bit more than doodling - I started off with pencil outlines and a bit of guidance after reading this post over at Pin Tangle and following one of the links provided.

I think this is a slightly more organised version of my doodling from the other day.

A trial mandala

Created with the aid of a set of compasses and some inspiration from Daisy Yellow.

Drawing

Drawing has, for some reason, eluded me for some time, some would say it has always done so and that I am a doodler.  The time came for me to start again - and if my first efforts are more doodling (with a little direction) then so be it.

My intention here was to just fill the page with pattern and doodle, to reacquaint myself with pen and paper.

A Quartet of Spectacle Cases

At first appearances these seem a little bit of frippery - I needed all of these:

• a case for old trusty I got married in them 6 years ago sunglasses
• a case for my car/sporty sunglasses
• a case for my replacement but not quite the same sunglasses
• a case for M's glasses when he wants to pack light for a long bike ride and I don't want him swiping my glasses case case

 The fancy case took a few nights of hand sewing in front of the TV.  The other 3 were overlocker experiments, one of which involved the piping foot.

A trio of pin cushions

I return to stitching with a little bit of procrastination - pincushion construction.  I justified my endeavours with the reasoning that ever since my oversized pincushion went to the sofa heaven in the sky and that new one (leather) could no longer be classed as such, that I needed alternative means to park my pins and needles.  Although I already had a few pincushions (one here and one from this forthcoming book) they have already got permanent places on the ironing board and next to my sewing machine.

This big one is the pincushion caddy from Seams to Me by Anna Marie Horner (Craft magazine had this as a pattern podcast a while back) this is also handy for keeping various bits in one place instead of half scattered under aforementioned sofa.

The next, medium sized one I made after catching the tutorial over at CraftyPod.  Perfect excuse to make more use of my Clover yo-yo maker.

The last and littlest one and now, I find, the most useful of all is this pointer finger pincushion.  I find it best placed on the pointer finger on my non-sewing hand.

2 skirt weekend

Returning to work meant having a look at my wardrobe.  Trousers are still not comfortable, and one of the key skirts I have been wearing is a little - shall we say - short.  As I was up for a little more gentle pottering I treated myself to a new Clothkits skirt kit.  The kit I had been hankering after for a while from as long ago as last summer, but I was not considering wardrobe additions then.  Luckily they were still selling the kit and at the nice price it was previously.

With my first ever skirt kit from this company I had the skirt received, cut and sewn in an evening, but this time I paused.  I was not happy with the rather dull white lining they had provided.  So a short trip to John Lewis' fabric department to find an alternative cotton lawn.  If had been up to it I would have launched myself up the loft ladder to look at my own fabric stash but those kind of acrobatics are currently out.  I found a fairly tame pink which I thought would work well - which I show below with the cute but relevant facing.

Whilst in the fabric department I found some stretch denim and bought double the amount I ended up requiring to make a more work length appropriate denim skirt.  This I designed myself by taking the previous skirt as a base and adding pockets and top-stitching whilst jettisoning the lining.

3 week recovery

I have spent the last few weeks signed off work with a week's leave to finish (and was grateful for I needed more time off).  The first week I spent sleeping and in front of the TV.  I read a few books on creativity and documented my week by making a doll for each day of the week. The doll template which I styled to be a slimmer and taller version of me I got from the book that I found most fun to flick through Mixed Mania by Cheryl Prater and Debbi Crane.

Notice the lack of jeans - trouser wearing that week (and even now) was not the most comfortable option.  As a habitual trouser/jean wearing girl it was stretching my wardrobe to find enough skirts to wear, but the addition of a comfy dress helped.  Two of the skirts - the red one, and the patched one - were skirts I had made previously, one from a Clothkits kit and another by appliquéing some of my mono-printed patches on to one I had derived from the former skirt.

Thankful

Today I woke up thankful for:

1. the NHS
2. waking up in my own bed
3. a good nights sleep
4. less pain
5. the person next to me

I am now nestled in my cosy kitchen sipping peppermint tea and listening to Johnny Cash and watching someone else do chores.

Luckily I had completed my postcards for iHanna's postcard swap and popped them in the post before the last 48 hours occurred.

The sent postcards can be seen in more detail from my Flickr set, unfortunately they aren't the best photos as I only had my camera phone to hand.  Check out the rest of the swap pool.

Some winter walking

At the beginning of the week in between some of the snow we had in South Wales M and I branched out together for a wonderful (and in the latter half) challenging walk along part of the West Pembrokeshire coast, a circular around the Angle Peninsular.

The full photostream can be viewed from here.

New Years in Wales

M and I went away for the New Years along with G & Mr. T, X & S.  We all stayed in a comfortable cottage in Wisemans Bridge in Pembrokeshire.  Despite it being a little chilly, it was sunny and we were able to get out and about a bit.

We started the New Year with a barbecue

and some fireworks.

I watched a few hundred nutters people go for a New Year swim

and then for a New Year's stroll around Kilgetty.  It started of sunny and ended up snowy:

 There has been snow about ever since!  We had a little cycle to Tenby on slightly icy roads

Lit a few balloons:

Went for a really long walk:

(more on that in another post) and ate a lovely fish supper in nearby Saundersfoot. We thought we saw a little few wisps in the sky....

Then woke up on our penultimate day to this:

We then considered our options whilst checking the weather forecast and realised that even our little corner of Hampshire (last to get snow, first to thaw) was going to blanketed. So we struck camp and made our way home.

Some Christmas sewing

I saw just enough of somebody's Handmade Christmas to see them create a stitch and flip stocking before I turned it off thinking "I can do better (and cheaper)" and went off to my fabric compost in its nice colour sorted bags and came up with these babies just in time to be filled for Christmas. One for me and one for him. Can you guess which one is mine?