My 3 year table runner!

Hello again,

Yes, I was pretty happy yesterday because I finished a Christmas table runner that I 

started 3 years ago! I'm so happy to finish an uncompleted project.

This was a pretty simple runner - I bought a selection of Christmassy fabrics off the market at a very reasonable price and literally cut rectangular/square shapes from the fabric and sewed together in a very rough and ready patchwork fashion. 

My aim was then to quilt it but that went disastrously wrong and I ended up unpicking all the quilting stitches and I finally decided on just using an old flannelette sheet as wadding to give it a bit of body and folded the plain green backing fabric over to the top side to act as an edging. 

 

Please don't look too closely as the edges are not straight!  

It's quite long! 

It's far from perfect but it will brighten up our table and it is FINISHED - YAY!

I also finished four cross stitched Christmas cards - two of which are now winging their way to far corners of the globe! The other two are staying nearer to home.

And my final completed project for now was this little cross stitch kit purchased from Hobbycraft, I think last year, which I made up into a little hanging ornament with a few added embellishments. 

 

 I enjoyed making this so think I may make a detour home from work one evening this week and call in at Hobbycraft to see if they have any other little kits of interest. 

 I am enjoying all the project ideas I see bloggers sharing on line - it gives me so much inspiration.

 I hope your Christmas project making is going well - have a good week

xXx 

Remnants

Hello,

Recently I spent a few hours on a Saturday making a patchwork cushion, I posted about it here. I had a smallish piece (measuring approximately 22 cm by 30cm) of patchworked material left over which of course I couldn't discard. I pondered over what I could use it for and a small zipped bag seemed the most obvious answer given it's dimensions.

So on Thursday when I was in town I found myself at the harberdashery market stall and without hardly a blink of an eye I'd bought an 8 inch zip in bright yellow. (I hadn't actually measured the piece of material before I left home and I hadn't taken it with me to colour match so purchasing a suitable zip was pure guess work). But luckily it was the right size and colour. So here is my remnant and said zip.

The remnant wasn't quite wide enough so I used my newly purchased patchworking equipment to cut an extra strip of green which I sewed onto the right of my remnant. 
My patchwork class taught me the importance of ironing each piece as you sew.

Then I cut some more of the same green material that I'd used to back my patchwork cushion to a suitable size to act as a liner to my bag.
Wow - it's so much easier to cut accurate strips of fabric using a cutter and cutting board than scissors!

Now to find some cotton. As you can see I have quite a collection/mess of cotton threads, stored in a lovely wooden box. There must be a yellow in there somewhere to match my zip....

Would you believe it, the only yellow I could find was this one below in the middle of the photo! But I reckoned there was just enough to sew in an 8 inch zip. For the remaining sewing I was happy to use green thread of which I have plenty.

And thus my zipped bag began to take shape.

In fact, I became so absorbed in the task I forgot to take any more photos until I had finished!

And here it is!

I'm not quite sure why these photos show a grainy pattern to some of the material.

I like the lining too.

I am pleased with my little bag made out of remnants - and all for the price of a little time and an 85p zip!

Happy sewing!

xXx

yellows and greens?

Hello

Yesterday was the first Saturday in months when the young people in our family had neither a cross country race or a football match which was brilliant timing as several months ago, long before I knew the sporting timetable, a friend and I booked a day's workshop at our local yarn store to make a patchwork cushion.

We were both really looking forward to our patchwork day but oh my goodness, how stressful it was! The first stressor was to decide on material - not an easy task when there are 10 women in a well-stocked shop nudging and squeezing round each other while carrying rolls of potential candidates and trying to find coordinating patterns and colours. After some rather hurried deliberations, as the longer we took to decide the less time we had to sew, I decided to go for spring colours of yellow and green to match the bunting I made a year or two ago. Work in progress can be seen below.

We had 6 hours of patchworking and the time flew by - we hardly dare stop for lunch. We all worked so intensely and enthusiastically. A later photo of work in progress can be seen in the photo below, along with my friend's cushion cover  - she chose browns, creams with a hint of turquoise blue and it looked fantastic

We finally finished at 4pm. We left the shop, our completed cushion covers folded in our bags and walked out into lovely warm sunshine feeling slightly foggy in our heads - we had spent 6 hours focused solely on our sewing. It was such an extravagance for me to spend a whole day crafting but I did enjoy it and would love to do more - the challenge of a patchwork quilt beckons. 

BUT .... do I like my finished cushion? I'm really not sure. I'm not sure whether the colors go together/work/coordinate or not? What do you think? 

And just to finish this post - some photos of our elderly guinea pig on the patio today eating (*cough cough*) weeds, yes the patio needs weeding.

Here he is hiding under the table tennis table. 

And some beautiful roses from the children for Mother's Day.

I hope you have all had a lovely weekend. 

xXx