Rain, rain go away

After five or six days of rain, rain and more rain, the sun timidly made a brief appearance yesterday afternoon and I ventured to visit one of my best buddies, Marie.   I told her about my new adventure in blogland and she made a quick perusal of my blog.

Marie keeps me sane and makes me laugh.  I laughed all the way home one day when, while at her house I asked her for some pins.  She´s not a sewing enthusiast and after rummaging through drawers, opening tins, and peering into boxes and containers, she produced a total of four pins, one blunt, two rusty and one bent.  I´m going to buy her some pins and make her a pin keep one day.

Here are some photos of a tissue holder house that I made Marie on her request a couple of years ago.  The petition wasn´t so easy because the item was for her brown and beige bathroom and she only wanted those colours.

I added a lot of silver beads and sequins because I liked the contrast with the browns. Here are a few close ups.

  

  Decorated window boxes 

Apart from her image peering from behind the curtains of one window, I think she liked the end result.

I´m making a table runner and some ornaments so I found these Christmas fabrics and cut out a few  hearts for the ornaments.

Then I embroidered a few tiny designs and the next step will be to mix and match.

Which I hope to show in my next post.

  Thank you for visiting.

Sheryl   

                                                                                                  



A terrible weekend

...weather wise that is.  Our mild dry Autumn has suddenly evaporated and been replaced by low temperatures, high winds, rain, hail, storms and the promise of snow to come - all fury let loose.  We have innocently been taken by surprise, misled to the proximity of Christmas by such a placid November. Those young things, who only last week sported T-shirts and shorts have suddenly vanished into oblivion.

These grey afternoons have really been well put to use and I have been sorting out fabrics and patterns to make some small Christmas items.

I´m going to make a table runner with these colours and will use other fabric oddments to make some ornaments. 

I´ve been hunting around for some tiny ric rac ribbon but it doesn´t seem available here unless you want pale blue or pink, not very Christmassy at all.  However I did find these cuties which insisted on coming home with me.

Here are a few more photos of the Christmas tree skirt which I made for my grandchildren.

This perhaps is my favourite  little shop as I enjoyed sewing the various jars of sweets.  I also like the dog with his Xmas hat.

  

This is the gift shop.

  

 This is the sushi house with a hungry cat outside.



The church.

This photo shows the backing fabric with a small label, I wonder if you can spot it?.  I hope they like this gift, it was great fun making it and hopefully they might remember me when each Christmas comes around. 

  Until next time. 

    

       





Friends for Life

Congratulations to Pokey Bolton on having raised a staggering $40,666.18 with her Pet Postcards for the Friends for Life project at the Houston Quilt Festival this autumn.  Pokey had appealed to all and  everyone with a needle in hand, to make a Pet Postcard to raise money for an animal shelter in Houston.  I only discovered this project at the very last moment and quickly stitched up this sole offering.

However I plan to sew up a few postcards now and then during the year and encourage any other animal lover to do the same, so we will have a nice number to send in to Pokey for the next festival.  All information is found at Pokey´s ponderings (including how to make a postcard).

Happy stitching until next week.

        



The Top Secret Christmas Thingy arrived

So out of the window go all my good intentions of repairing and covering my address book because this Christmas thingy takes priority. However before placing The Queen of Hearts back in `that´ drawer, I´ve been looking through my stash to find a prime candidate for the backing fabric, and have come across these compatible colours.

From Spain to Denmark.

Well I can tell anyone who may be interested, that a parcel sent from Spain to Denmark takes exactly 6 days (including a weekend) to arrive.  Here is a photo of the Christmas tree skirt which I made as a surprise for my grandchildren.

  

This tree skirt was inspired by a beautiful one made by Mrs Twin which I saw on her blog about  four years ago, and I saved the photo, vowing to make one myself some day.  Mine isn´t exactly the same as I´ve added my own bits and bobs, but it´s very similar.  Here are close ups of some of the houses.



My granddaughter´s cake shop.

A little sleigh and Xmas tree

  

This is the tea shop.  Of course to make something like this tree skirt takes a bit of time and one has the whole year really to plan, design and sew at one´s leisure and with calm and patience, taking things with ease unless of course you forget all about Christmas until nearly the end of October, when you unexpectedly tumble upon the saved photo.  I´ve never made anything in such a rush and hurry.  I would sew until late at night with the fabric extended over my entire bed, precariously risking dispersing sequins far and wide with the move of a limb. 

Mrs Twin had commented on the amount of sequins used, and I´m convinced that a great many fugitives are still to be discovered hiding in nooks and crannies, although a considerable number of these runaways were irresistibly attracted to my husband´s bare feet like pins to a magnet.  

More photos to come in my next post.  Thank you for passing by. 

That Drawer

I wonder how many other stitchers have the habit of practically finishing a piece of work which may be cross stitch or crochet or patchwork and then jumping to a new project with the unfinished getting put away in a drawer.  None of my friends share this habit and always diligently finish one item before abording a new one.  Well my queen of hearts has been in the drawer for ages and although the embroidery is finished, I haven´t completed the entire project.

This pretty design is by Prairie Moon and the recommended colours are far prettier than the ones that I have used here. 

  

 The pattern was stitched with the idea of covering a dilapidated address book of bygone times.
 

As you can see, a sorry state of affairs,  DH says ¨for goodness sake, buy a new book¨  but you can´t when it contains a whole array of characters who have passed through your life at one stage or another.  Even school pals as old as today but remembered as yesterday, and that old flame who lived up the road, all acclaim your remembrance with the turn of a page.
 

Until next week.

      

Works in Progress

I´m finishing a Christmas `thingy´ which is a surprise for my three grandchildren.  All top secret and I´m in a great rush to get it finished and off to Denmark where they live.  I can´t show anything here for a week or so until they receive it, but here is a peek of the materials used.

Doesn´t look very interesting does it?    but  it will..

A few more goodies. This week I have also been working on my mermaid pouches which make pretty gifts for Xmas.  This blue one is a scissor holder.

This larger shape is handy to hold a couple of cosmetics or tissues.

The reverse side  is also embroidered. and the insides are lined with silk or satin and I add a few tiny beads to the metal clasps.

Here is a close-up.

 Thank you for visiting, until next time.

Something fishy going on

I recently embroidered this blackwork design which I have had for over 30 years. The pattern is taken from my first collection of needlework magazines of the 1970' s called `Golden Hands´  and from this invaluable collection grew my great love of all needlework.

I embroidered the fish in the rich rusty colours that were seen but not given in the magazine and used DMC 918, 920, 300, 3771  and 3774, stitched on 28 ct  Brittney Antique White.

I slightly changed the body shape of the first fish and I added a couple of beads and sequins for the eyes and hunted about in my stash for ideas of how to complete the finished embroidery.

I decided to cover one of my notebooks and added more beads because I like to add them wherever possible - just love beads and sequins etc.

Linking this post to Supermom-no cape  stitchery party

Thank you for visiting. Hope you will come again.