Scrub Stitchin' 2025 - A Finished Project...

(Probably about time I got this out of being a draft post!)

I did sew at Scrub Stitchin', more than usual as instead of rush rush rush rush and still being in work mode when I got there I started leave the week before so I had time to decompress beforehand and actually be able to concentrate, relax and get into it before Sunday lunch time (you know, pack up time!).  I considered schlepping a machine with me this year but got over that idea and spent a day prepping up the embroidery/stitchery/applique type parts of a few kits I rediscovered (aka forgotten I even had!) when looking for one specific kit.  The plan being to get done whatever got done and worry about the machine sewing later - and what wasn't done sets up a nice supply of pick and go hand sewing for Thursday nights at quilt group so win/win for me!

 

I didn't do anything on the kit that set me on this path - but it is prepped for another day so no loss...I started with a Lynette Anderson Design Christmas Needlecase...No idea where this came from as it is not something I would have bought, so maybe a group swap of some kind?  The pattern packet had most of the fabrics (except the scissor keep heart as the piece in the pattern was too small) and the wee bell for the reindeer's collar...

I would have finished the handwork at Scrub Stichin' but wanted to use green for the words (not the black the pattern called for) which I knew I had heaps of but not with me (that will learn me to pack light!).

Finished when I got home to the green embroidery floss and quickly sewn up.  It was finished before I went back to work.

 

Now in the needlecase pile, it will come in useful in a project box at some point. 

 

Happy Stitching... 

A Bag, A Book and a Pair of Shoes...

OK Rosie get a cuppa...

At Maldon on retreat (what seems like a million years ago) I started the second Rosalie Quinlan Dance of the Heart embroidery using Cosmo thread (8073) I bought at Urban Stitches.  I chose the thread colour when I bought it just because I liked it...a lot...not because I had any particular use in mind for the embroidery when it was finished...it took me a few weeks of occasionally putting in a stitch (well I did spend a lot of time on retreat scrabbling around on the floor picking up hexie papers that made a bid for freedom - why is it always a pack of 1,000 that is picked up upside down and open! - making cuppas, eating freddos, chatting, cuppas, freddos, wandering the room looking at what others were actually achieving, freddos, going down the street to the shops, cuppas, freddos, playing show and tell with Rosie's project and generally not actually putting needle to fabric) so it didn't get finished at retreat but eventually a couple of weeks ago it became a finished stitchery...

This time I used backstitch not chain stitch and it took just as long! You'd have thunk that :J...

The Bag...after making the tote bag from Natalie Bird's Red Home book for a present with the first Dance of the Heart embroidery (last post) I was quite keen to make one for myself and last week my overloaded brain cells emerged from their fog and found some stitchy space. I was absolutely wrapt to find that two pieces of green fabric I'd bought ages ago at Threadbear, because they yelled at me that I needed them to make a bag, matched perfectly with the 8073 Cosmo thread in the finished embroidery - serendipitous indeed. 

Just the right shades of green, cream and brown in the fabric and the thread. I'd bought a metre of each fabric at full price no less, I know - imagine! and the fabrics had become "precious" in that I just couldn't seem to find the pattern that spoke to me to use them and now they'd found their Perfect Match...wahoo!

I added the chocolate browns from the fabric boxes so it was a free project, no shopping required!!! and used bag batting again rather than pellon to give it structure...the lining is the non-floral green...I still love the two fabrics.

The colours in the photos are a bit dodgy...it's winter, the indoor lighting is not up to scratch for photo taking...the second photo is the only one that is true to the colours of the thread and fabrics...but you get the idea close enough.

I've given the bag a test drive and it passed with flying colours...

The Book...Cinderberry Stitches Elfin Delight Needlebook...

This was a project from Daylesford Craft Experience maybe last year, maybe the year before...the stitcheries (there are two of the same design, one on the inside and one on the outside) have been on the go for months and were finally finished.  Feeling rather over confident after finishing the bag in two nights after work I thought, oh it will only take 1/2 hour to put this little needlebook together...yeah, really should know when to pack up and go to bed...it took considerably longer than 1/2 hour and involved much reverse sewing on one seam...you'd think I'd never sewn before...it has "issues" but I was not reverse sewing that seam again, I'll just live with the dodgyness...

The buttons are self covered with motifs from Natalie Lymer fabric...way cute...

The Pair of Shoes...the shoe block for Some Kind of Wonderful...

It's not that big of an achievement as I only had the words "gorgeous shoes" to go to be able to tick this one off.  The SKOW box has re-appeared on the couch for an airing, need to do some back basting prep on the remaining blocks...

Whew...now I think it's time for me to go make a cuppa...

Happy Stitching...

From Little Things...

Well...um...more little more things really...Sunday I woke up with a sinusy headache and after spending the morning on the couch aimlessly wandering around the world wide interweb while begging the paracetamol to work eventually wandered into the sewing room with the aim of some hemming and ironing...boring but necessary evils that didn't require too much brain cell energy expenditure...the aim misfired and instead...I made a towelling car seat belt cover (you know the little wrap around jobs that stop it from sticking/digging in when it is hot) that had been needed for ages as the first attempt was well worn out, that took all of 1/2 hour going at the speed of a snail so why had I waited so long?...mmm what next...still avoiding the boring stuff...recently I finished up a little orphan stitchery (I think it is a Red Brolly/Bronwyn Hayes design) that had been going on for ever so I turned it into the front of a needlebook...

That took all of an hour...what next? (still avoiding)...the scrap of broderie perse applique sampling that I did at Summer School was flung on the cutting table...I said I'd use it for a pincushion or something and so...a pincushion it now is...not good enough for anyone but me but hey it's always handy to have an extra one lying around...

Next!...I was starting to flag again but still needed to actually do something rather than just aimlessly watch tele/DVD/iView and found a couple of why did I do this? traced stitcheries...so I started the one with the simpler and quicker design using a pretty multi-coloured variegated floss to stitch while watching catch up tele on the PC...finished  yesterday and became...another pincushion...

A fairly substantial sized pincushion from a Leanne Beasley design. With butterflies on the front it had to have butterflies on the back too!...

These little projects have cleaned up a few odd bits lying around the sewing room and hopefully kick started the creative mojo again...it has kept wandering off the last few months without leaving a forwarding address...and as for the boring stuff? well I've unpicked the old elastic on the mother's skirt and pinned on the new piece so that is a start...oh and K, I also stitched on all but about I think 4 of the front patches for the "joint project", progress!...

Happy Stitching...