Sewing room fun (and possible free pattern)

Leaving the playroom door open is never a good idea as you can bet it won't be long before the house fills with 'dolly escapees'. And that is just what happened this morning. Scuffling noises coming from the sewing room alerted me to the possibility of intruders and when I peeked round the door, there were the culprits having a wonderful time playing amongst my bags of fabric off-cuts.

Little Jack, receiving a helpful push from below, was cautiously climbing the ladder to join the bigger dolls who had already taken up residence in one of the bags.

Meanwhile, three Rainbow Rascals were enjoying a game of 'let's dress up in off-cuts'.

A fourth Rascal was encouraging two fearless bunny boys to leap into my box of vintage buttons. Feet first or head first, it didn't seem to matter. One sister gave them a shove from above whilst another tried in vain to catch them. Needless to say, the bunnies bounced and no one seemed to get hurt.

Mountaineering was the order of the day in my bag of fluffy stuffing. When spilling out of the bag it tends to resemble foaming soap suds but thankfully the Jolly Tots were safe and dry and I almost wished I could join them!

I let the activities continue for a while until I noticed the 'bouncing bunnies' had bounced straight out of the button box and onto my bag of string. They were now making short work of emptying the carefully wound contents and so I called time on the various activities.

Whilst sorting and clearing away the many bits and pieces I decided it would be sensible to put some of them to good use. I'm hoping the resulting item might be a suitable subject for a 'free pattern' and be ready in time for my next blog post. It will only be a simple little item, quick and easy to make (for all ages) and will be hand stitched as opposed to knitted, so watch this space!

Back to the sorting and stitching! . . . . . .

Fairy dust and magic

I love mid-summer when evening light lingers until 11pm and there's a definite hint of magic in the air. But oh dear! The longest day was yesterday and darkness came around 9 o'clock as our summer skies were heavy with rain. So I'm glad that earlier in the week I had treated myself to some of this magical fabric. Needless to say it's become a great favourite with the playroom dolls and now everyone wants to look just like a fairy princess. And who can blame them!

Today the rain has lashed against the windows all day and spirits could have been low. But happy little Rainbow Rose raided the dressing-up box and with a crown precariously balanced on her head she proceeded to sprinkle fairy dust on several dolly volunteers. 

And then, much to everyone's delight and as if by magic, a fairy bunny suddenly appeared.

Sadly this magical moment was short-lived as the rascally bunny family joined in the fun. The fairy dust fabric was hurriedly heaped into a wool basket and wool was strewn across the floor. Quite what this game is all about no one is sure but it seems to have kept dolls and bunnies happily occupied all day and so maybe there is a bit of mid-summer magic around here after all.

Have a magical weekend wherever you are and if you are in rain-soaked Britain, do try to keep warm and dry!

More yummy fabric and stitching

I've had another fun week making bits and pieces for the summer fair (to raise money for repairs to the local church roof). These butterfly brooches were a bit of an experiment but I was pleased with the result. I cut the butterfly shapes from patterned fabric then used iron-on fusible webbing to stick them to black felt which was about 1 cm larger.

Next I randomly machine embroidered black veins on the wings. As you can see I used ordinary scissors and pinking shears to trim the excess felt from the coloured butterfly.The black body is a rolled piece of felt, two small beads make the eyes and thin copper wire is used for the antennae. Finally I stitched a brooch pin to the back of the body.

The butterflies were made from left-overs scraps of fabric belonging to these bags. The variety of rich colours is absolutely scrumptious and mixing and matching the rainbow shades took almost as long as the bag making!

I used a Jelly Roll of 'Tropicana Batiks' by Moda and I'm happy to say there are plenty of strips remaining for future projects.

If you aren't fond of vibrant shades then you'd probably enjoy working with the mixture of Tanya Whelan fabrics below.

These bags, like the previous ones, were made from narrow strips of fabric. To line the bags I used a white cotton curtain lining which had been fused to felt interlining. This is easy to cut out, doesn't fray and makes the bags more robust. The lining is the same size as the bag and with narrow turnings on the tops of bag and lining I stitched the two together incorporating the handles as I stitched.

Another Moda Jelly Roll in my collection is the yummily named "Butterscotch and Rose". Unfortunately the visitors to the summer fair won't be finding anything made from these fabrics as it exactly matches my sitting room curtains and so it is destined to become cushions. I can't wait to start on them as I adore this combination of colours.

After my enjoyable extended sewing session with so much yummy fabric I'm hoping I'll be able to pick up my knitting needles again anytime soon but it might be difficult!

Yummy colours

I'm still busily making items to sell at the village fair (in aid of the church roof fund). I haven't done any freestyle machine embroidery for quite a while so last week I had great fun creating these flowers and hearts to make into brooches. I want to decorate them with buttons so have scattered a mixture of sizes and colours over them to make the button choice easier . . . hmm! I think this could take quite a while.

As you can see, my sewing machine has been working overtime recently. After making the flowers and hearts I machine embroidered some little dollies onto white linen. Each little girl then became a panel in the centre of a tote bag.  

Over the past few days my machine stitching has been interrupted by the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. The UK is currently awash with red, white and blue and I couldn't resist making these patriotic little mice. They are only 15cm (6in) tall and just fit inside this tiny basket. The arms and legs contain pipe cleaners (chenille stems) so positioning the little rascals is quite easy, and fun! The pattern for the mice can be found here. I altered the clothes slightly when making them and gave the girl a fabric dress rather than a knitted one.

The Diamond Jubilee celebrations are over but the many flags will remain in readiness for the Olympics in July. I'm happy to escape to the sewing room where red, white and blue is cast aside in favour of vibrant shades of every hue. As always there's no shortage of helpers!

I love working with yummy colours don't you?

Around the garden

I love having pots of flowers on the patio throughout the summer. So with the risk of frost now over (hopefully) I visited the local garden centre yesterday and purchased a variety of colourful young plants with plans to fill the pots over the weekend. The evening weather forecast however brought unwelcome news. The coming weekend could see unseasonal falls of snow in the north. My heart sank. These little beauties will have to live indoors for the next few days until the worst is over.

Today is warm and sunny with no hint of the cold blast to come so I took a stroll around the garden with my camera.

My son and his wife gave me these gorgeous daisies as a Mother's Day gift. I transplanted them into a large pot and they have bloomed their hearts out ever since. They start small and grow 'fat and fluffy' as they mature.

If you have visited my blog during May in previous years you will have seen my pics of our rhododendrons and azaleas. Here in the English Lake District they grow like weeds and the garden is currently ablaze with colour.

This pale pink beauty hangs over the wall beside the kitchen.

Vibrant magenta lights up the driveway.

Scarlet blooms spill onto the lawn

The edges of our garden are left to grow wild and mingle with the woodland that surrounds our property and the whole place echoes with bird-song.

Fresh new buds open and reach for the sky whilst wild flowers like these delicate white wood anemones bask in the warm sunshine.

I always keep a watchful eye on this young horse chestnut tree (below). It started life as a shiny brown conker as of course all horse chestnut trees do. The conker is the special ingredient as it is one that I picked up from the garden of my all time favourite gardening guru, Rosemary Verey. I planted the conker in her memory hoping that it would become a mature tree one day and so far it is obliging.

For many years I had wanted to visit Rosemary's famous garden in the English Cotswolds but she passed away in 2001 before I'd made the trip. Then in 2002 I discovered that her garden was welcoming visitors for just a few days before closing for the last time.

On a sunny day in early October 2002, hubby and I travelled to the much loved garden that we had admired from a distance for many years. Since her death it had been maintained by loyal gardeners and was full of late summer blooms and berries and of course, conkers.

If I could choose the perfect house in which to live it would have to be Rosemary Verey's 300 year old rectory (above) which is built from honey-coloured Cotswold limestone.

Her laburnum walk became world famous so you might be familiar with this picture.

The old rectory has now become a country house hotel and the owners open the garden to the public at specified times. Rosemary's spirit lives on but for me some of the magic has gone and I'm pleased I saw the garden just as she had left it.

But back to reality . . . when not working in my own rambling patch I've been spending time making small items to sell at a local village fair. It will be held in June in aid of the village church that has a leaking roof in need of urgent repair. Here in England our ancient churches require constant money raising events to fund repairs to roofs, windows, bells and organs etc.

Kate and Lucy have been assisting me and looking after these pencil dolls that I knitted last week. They are quick to make, only take small amounts of yarn and hopefully will appeal to young customers who don't like to return home empty handed. They should raise a few extra pence for the church roof repairs.

I used the pattern that I featured on my blog last year. If you'd like to create a fun pencil doll or two then you will find the pattern here -  FREE Pencil Doll Pattern

Have a great weekend everyone