Freestyle machine embroidery

Greetings friends. I've been as busy as a bee since I last popped in to say hello. My sewing room has been a hive of activity whilst I created little bags and pencil cases to pop into a new Etsy shop I opened recently. What better way to cheer up dull wet days than working with brightly coloured fabrics!

I've always loved freestyle machine embroidery and use my trusty 'vintage' Bernina exclusively for painting pictures with stitches. Once the picture is complete I use my 'modern' Elna to construct the item. Using two machines in this way means no time is wasted changing settings, lowering and raising feed-dogs etc.

This little elephant was inspired by a tiny button I have in my stash! The tail is made from twisted yarn.

I always love using this toadstool fabric and having been searching for a little someone to put with it. 

One evening, whilst I was doodling, this little gnome popped up. Of course he insisted on catching a goldfish in the garden pond!

Although I love the toadstool fabric, I love Liberty Lawn even more and usually return to my cheerful little dolly girls when using it as they always pose obligingly. This one as you can see is gathering flowers.

And here is another little cutie. These small pouches are just large enough to hold a few essentials such as phone, keys, credit card etc. 

Nineteen different Liberty Lawn florals have been used for this needle case.

Most of the fabric contains red or dark pink (including dolly girl's dress).

The contrasting lining is covered with tiny blue flowers.

I have more stitching to complete today and one or two more pieces to pop into the shop. I've named the shop Flutterby Stitch. 

I hope you are all having an enjoyable weekend wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Until next time x

Cosy daffs and cottage bags

All I said was, "I bet the daffodils are feeling cold, poor things" and the dolls in the playroom went into action. Scarves were hurriedly collected and then a happy little rascal braved the cold weather to bring the chilly blooms a bit of comfort. What a kindhearted lot they are!!

My sewing room here at Flutterby Patch has been buzzing with activity this week. With such a cold, dull start to spring I desperately needed to surround myself with bright sunny colours. After much planning, snipping, and stitching the result was . . . . . . . . . 

 

. . . . . . . . .  three colourful little 'cottage' bags for tiny tots to enjoy.

Each crooked door has a button knob and a tiny bell (that really works) for visitors to ring. The little girl looking out of the window was created with freestyle machine embroidery. She is looking for the friendly gnomes who live in the wood behind her cottage. Every day they bring nuts and berries and she thanks them with a cup of tea and big pieces of home baked cake.

You can turn the bags over to reveal the friendly gnomes in the wood behind the cottage.

Such happy little fellows.

 

I hope you have a happy weekend and the sun shines for you.

Cottage garden fairies

I've been busy making little fairies this week and was hoping to show them having fun in our garden but unbelievably we are still in the depths of winter. The garden remains cloaked in white and the wind is bitter and so my little girls are posing beside their favourite cottage pictures.

 

Each fairy measure just 6ins (15cm) and wears a little knitted sweater, stockings and shoes.

 

An apron with pocket is worn over a pretty floral skirt. 

 

The wide brim on the felt hat is pinned back with tiny beads.

 And imitation leaves have become fairy wings.

I know many of you are experiencing similar topsy-turvy weather conditions at the moment. Unbelievably at this time last year Britain was in the middle of a heatwave and water supplies in several areas were running dangerously low. What a difference a year makes. Let us hope things warm up in time for the Easter holiday.

Stars and fairy dust

Here at Flutterby Patch we are dreaming of warm summer days to come and hoping that this year they will actually stay for a while. Last year the sun popped in to say 'hello' early in the season and then packed his bags and returned only fleetingly. Sadly, when summer days remain cold and damp our tiny garden fairies hide themselves away.

 

In previous years, when the weather was warm and summer days long and golden, we often spotted them hard at work around the garden. They swept their tiny pathways.

 

 

They gathered tiny eggs laid in the meadow grass by their tiny hens

 

And when their work was done they busied themselves making daisy chains.

 

Last weekend, when unseasonal snow once again cloaked our garden, I decided to add a few more flutterby fairies to the little family we already have. 

 

 

So out came my prettiest floral fabrics and with a sprinkling of stars and fairy dust I'm currently busy with needle and thread whilst continuing to dream of summer days to come (and I'm hoping to add a little bit of fairy magic to our dismal UK weather forecasts!)

 

Paper dolls and a dolly chain

Whenever I visit a bookshop I go straight to the children's area as I love looking through brightly coloured titles written for little ones. When I discovered 'The Paper Dolls' book recently I knew I couldn't go home without it.

 

 

The story is written by Julia Donaldson, author of the much loved Gruffalo books. The illustrations are by the very talented Rebecca Cobb and they fit the story perfectly.

 

The story starts with mummy helping her little girl to make a chain of paper dolls.

 

 

The dolls' have comical names which are repeated in a little rhyme throughout the book; just right for little ones to remember and recite at the appropriate pages. 

 

 

 

 

The little girl and the dolls play happily together.

 

 

 

They have all kinds of adventures until one day! . . . . . sorry, it would be unfair to spoil the ending!

 

 

I used to love making paper dolly chains when I was young but these days I'm more inclined to make them from fabric. . . . . and so, inspired by this sweet story I gave it a go!

 

 

I made five little girls. Their hands are made from 'Velcro' so that they can be linked together to form a chain and dance.

 

 

 

 

With a piece of fluffy fabric attached to a pin board the dolls can be attached individually.

 

 

 

 

and each doll can link their own hands together as shown above.

 

 

 

 

All you have to remember is to put one Velcro hand facing forward and the other facing back.

 

These 4 inch (10 cm) squares of brightly coloured fabric that I purchased from Ebay some years ago were perfect for the dolly chain project.

 

 

 

 

I didn't have a pattern as I wanted each dolly to look slightly different. Each one is approximately 6 inches tall (15 cm). They are stuffed with tiny amounts of toy filler and their faces are drawn on with fabric pens. I used coloured wool for the hair and stitched it to the top of the head only. Too much hair would make the head too heavy.

If you have a little one in the family I'm sure a chain of dollies (paper or fabric) would provide hours of playtime fun.



Jolly chaos

After several weeks of grey skies and rain I felt I needed to put some extra colour into my life. So I spent last week in the sewing room and made a few little smiling cuties like this.

I ended up making four and once I've added lining and handles they'll become little tote bags.

I also made three cheery bunny pencil cases. A small bunny can be seen peeking round the door with a cup cake (from the pantry) or a ball (from the toy shop). Mother bunny as might be expected is looking far from pleased!

 

This needle book has a stiff card interlining so that it'll be easy to flip open. Quick and fun to make I think I'll do some more of these.

 

Before I'd had time to fill the house with needles some mousy visitors took up residence.

 

 

These scamps belong to my daughter who is currently in the process of moving house. Things are chaotic with her at the moment as she has urgent arrangements to make and lots of packing to do so I suggested she let me look after the rascals from her Toyshelf shop until she is settled in her new home.

 

The visitors, living in the playroom with my family of knitted scamps, behaved well at first.

 

 

However, over the weekend things got a bit chaotic when my two mischievous bunny boys escaped from the playroom with a number of the Toyshelf visitors and they all found their way into my sewing room. The result was a jumble of rascals having enormous fun with the newly made pencil cases and little house.

 

 

Luckily help was on hand. Two of my 'sensible' dollies (Kate and Tilly) were quick to spot the rascally runaways and wasted no time in gathering them up and depositing them in a basket.

All are now safely back in the playroom with the door firmly closed. If you're a knitter you'll probably recognise these scamps, if not you can find them here.

 

Busy days

September, and a new school year is just beginning. Of course it's many years since I was in the classroom but there's something about the golden glow of shortening September days that gives me a renewed energy and a need to start something new. . . . . So this year I decided we'd decorate our bedroom as it's needed some TLC for quite a while.

 

The first job was to empty everything from the bedroom shelves. Pieces of china were washed and then put into places of safety until the decorating work is over. The Brambly Hedge looks rather nice on the downstairs dresser so I might leave it there for a while.

 

Other precious pieces, like this dolls Victorian tea set, have been placed into my glass cabinet along with a few other treasures.

 

 

Next the curtains came down and after washing they looked as good as new. I'm happy about this as I've always liked them but I suppose it would have been nice to have an excuse to buy new ones so if they'd emerged from the machine in a dilapidated state I wouldn't have minded too much!

 

 

Hubby and I have always shared decorating jobs. Thankfully he's happy to strip off old wallpaper (which I hate doing) and paint ceilings and walls. I do all the remaining paintwork and then hang new wallpaper. Whilst he was taking off the old paper I was able to spent time considering new colour options.

Previously I'd hung wallpaper on all four walls but this time I plan to do just one feature wall behind the bed and then get hubby to paint the remaining walls. We used this jade white in the cloakroom recently and it matches the stripes on the bedroom curtains perfectly so it might be the right choice. I've painted a small patch on the wall so that I can make a decision.

 

With a few days of much needed sunshine the bedroom windows have been wide open and yesterday this pretty little butterfly flew in for a look around. It wasn't one I was familiar with so before setting it free I took a picture for identification purposes.

 

 

Out with my trusty 'Reader's Digest Guide to British Butterflies' and I was soon able to identify the 'Speckled Wood'. Looking at the map of Britain on the page it was obviously not found anywhere near our area when the book was published several years ago but during the intervening years has presumably colonised further north. I suppose the experts would say the butterflies' gradual move north is due to 'climate change' (it's the usual reason given). Anyway, the Speckled Wood butterfly is very welcome in our garden so I'm not complaining!

 

 

If you are hoping for a new knitting pattern to appear in my Dollytime shop soon then you'll be happy to hear I'm finding a bit of time to knit during the cooler September evenings. I'm never 100% certain that items will be good enough for patterns until they are complete so I won't give you any clues about what I'm making until I've finished. I must admit it doesn't look very exciting at the moment does it, but hopefully the result will be quick and easy to make and a useful 'stash buster' (dolly related of course!)

 

 

Thinking of dollies! I made another item from my Liberty Lawn at the end of last week. A zipped pencil case with another little 'Jolly Dolly' on the front.

 

With the start of the new school term fast approaching I asked Lucy Lavender and Kate to sharpen some pencils and pop them into the new pencil case.

Everything was going well until . . . . . . . . a head with long ears suddenly popped out and surprised them both. One of the rascally bunny boys had obviously fancied setting up home for a while in the pencil case. Usually this could have resulted in playroom antics and eventual chaos but not this time. . . . . .

 . . . . . . the little fellow behaved like a very sensible bunny and, without any prompting from the girls, began passing pencils when they were required.

I can't believe this much improved bunny behaviour will continue for very long but for now all is peace and tranquillity in the playroom!