Sewing, stitching, baking, cooking, gardening, shopping and general homemaking.

Saturday 30 May 2009

Another Sewing Set

This fabric is from my fat quarter stash, I've had it ages and only bought it because I loved the colour and design. Now at last I'm using some of these fabrics, I felt under pressure when I thought I was going to have to make quilts, hardly any of the fqs went with any of the others. I have made a couple of patchwork table cloths and a couple of lap quilts. Hanging over my banister is a quilt top waiting to be quilted, it's been there a year. So, I don't think I'm destined to make the gorgeous quilts I often see. Think I'll stick the these little items and just have fun with my sewing.

Friday 29 May 2009

Sewing Set

I've got a bit of a thing about making these 'sewing sets'.  The little jar is the sixth I've done so far, it's one of those individual portion jam jars, just the right size for a packet of sequins to fit in.  The sewing roll is probably the eleventh or twelfth I've made altogether and the pouch is the tenth.  I've really enjoyed making these things and it was only yesterday that I decided to coordinate them into sets.  So, this is the second set and I'm about to start another, maybe I'll make a needlecase and pincushion to go with this next one - I love sets!!!  I've made several with either cross-stitch or embroidery on them but these in the picture are so much quicker to do and I can use up some of my fat quarter fabric that I have loads of.

Monday 25 May 2009

Our 2009 Lake District Holiday

My first attempt to make a slide show of some holiday pictures, well I hope it works, it took me long enough to realise I could do this, think I'm getting a bit lazy about learning new things on my computer!  And the captions didn't come up on the slideshow *&^%$%^&!!!


Sunday 24 May 2009

May Flowers




There are lots of flowers out in our garden now. We have loads of aquillegia, they self-seed everywhere and each autumn I scatter their seeds around the garden. I love to see all the new colours and forms they produce. It's amazing how they change from year to year, I did take some close-ups of the individual flowers but my camera battery ran out so I'll put them here another day. I just caught the peony before it goes over, the flowers are amazingly huge! The one here is a piece that was left in the ground when Graham dug the main plant up and transplanted it, we didn't even know there was still a piece left there, it's doing well.

Thursday 14 May 2009

Blue Bells

Graham went camping in Worcestershire for a few days this week and he took some pictures of the blue bells that were everywhere in the woodlands he walked through.  He said it was an amazing sight and the perfume coming from them was beautiful.

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Parchment Craft

I've always admired parchment craft, the cards look so delicate and pretty. Many times I've tried to get the hang of this technique and have never been satisfied with the result. This time though I think I'm getting the hang of it. It's a very slow process and I like things that are fairly quick to do. I must be getting a bit of patience because the card here is one I finished today and I love it. The big difference was buying a grid, which I've been putting off because it seemed expensive. The grid was used to make the dotted background and it really did work nicely. The pattern I used was from here. There are lots of lovely freebies about but I will be buying some patterns now that I'm better at this technique.