Progress

I have completed most of the shirt now. Thank heavens for an overlocker!!. I just have the dreaded button holes and final hemming to do - photos soon : )

A Learning Curve.

DH is 6'7" tall and broad shouldered, but slim. This means that all his shirts are too short for him.

Solution? A clever wife with a good sewing machine and a DH with endless optimism and faith in his wife's capabilities.

So I have somehow ended up volunteering to make him some shirts. I am starting relatively simply with a McCalls shirt pattern, number 2149. (blogger wont let me link today) It has short sleeves and he wants the round collar. So I only have to think about stuff like button holes, interfacing and adapting the pattern - gulp!!!

So far I have successfully lengthened the body and sleeves by 2 1/2" each. I remembered to do the same for the interfacing. I have cut out the fabric. Mercifully he has chosen a non-directional batik for the first shirt, but he also bought 4 yards of striped shirting material for my next one...............

Now I have to work out which side of the iron-on interfacing is the sticky side.

Oh my, what have I let myself in for..................

Knitting and Sewing

This is the completed back of Fred's cardigan. Fred is my soon-to-be born grandson and this should fit him just perfectly when he is 3 months old. It is a plain stocking stitch cardigan pattern using sock yarn to make the jazzy effect.
I have also been using my over-locker to make this bag. You know the sample books of curtain fabrics? A shop was throwing one out so I snaffled it and cut rectangles out of the fabric. Then I flat-locked it on my overlocker, using shiny thick embroidery thread. The lining is calico and it is wadded in between for extra squidgy-ness (is that a word?)

I am now back to knitting my Volcano Cardigan for me : )

Another Dinosaur Cot Quilt

I think I am on a Dinosaur kick with these fabrics. This time I used 10" squares printed in panels. I cut the panels up and put sashing between them. This made a square so I added strips of smaller dinosaurs Then I put a blue 2 1/2" border all around and bound it in orange. I used a border fabric for the backing so it would be reversable.

I mitred the binding and hand sewed the binding on the back. I only lightly quilted it around the squares and sashing using my walking foot. Next time I will have hopefully got the hang of Free Motion sewing and be a bit more adventurous.

It is 42" by 48" and I still have some dinosaurs fabric left............................

A Good Year for Azaleas

Ta Da...........................

This has been flowering on our decking for several weeks now - isnt it a beauty!!!

Quilting and Embroidery

I have not been idle whilst I have been ill. I thought I would try my hand at Surface Embroidery. I alredy have lots of threads from my cross-stitch and smocking endeavours, so I got a piece of pink poly-cotton out of the loft, and bought a copy of The A-Z of Embroidery Stitches, and off I went. The result is 6" square and has become the front of a pincushion (which I havent used yet as I cant bear to stick pins in it)

Next up is a cot quilt for my soon-to-be-born grandson. I quilted round the trees and dinosurs as well as straight round the panel. It is 42" x 53"

Finally, a Cot quilt for my very wriggly and crawling Grand-daughter. I quilted round the caterpillar, butterfly and leaf as well as the borders etc. I also managed to master Mitering the binding, which is much neater, I think. It measures 42" x 52"

Alottment-ing

Here is our sunhouse, built the traditional allotment way with odds and ends from other sheds, and old window frames from an ex-greenhouse. Note the chair in front of it with the orange knitting on. This is my Volcano cardigan in progress whilst I am supervising the workers : )
We have had to take to watering the allotment every 2 days over the last few weeks. Eight weeks with no more than a drip or two of rain - incredible!!!

The cross hatched branches on the bottom right of this phot are DH's hedgelaying skills coming to the fore. Another year and it will look sensational.

We have lots of seedlings waiting for the right conditions to plant out. There are also some hanging baskets maturing in safety, ready to decorate the back of our house.

The fruit bushes seem OK. The tree stump you can see in the middle is the result of the old pear tree shedding a couple of branches and becoming unsafe. The man in the next plot pollared it a bit hard. At least we no longer have it shading our runner beans and attracting the wasps.

Open for Business

We are all well again and back to work. We are taking orders and have some swifts in stock already. More details of our swifts and nostepinnes can be found at:

www.sunflowerswifts.blogspot.com

and our custom-made spindles and niddy-noddys at:

www.sublimespindles.blogspot.com

I hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather. I will hopefully post photos of our allotment on here tomorrow.