"Over the Rainbow"

Here are some pictures of a quilt I am working on at the moment. The colours are bright and cheerful and because of that I am naming it "Over the Rainbow". I have used three blocks, a star, a drunkard's path and a dresden plate and some embroideries I did on the sewing machine which has an embroidery attachment. I didn't want to put the whole quilt under my machine to quilt it, so I am going to try quilting it in three different stages. The top, the middle part and the bottom, and then join them together.Hopefully this will make it easier to manage.  

Have you been watching The Great British Sewing Bee?  The final programme was screened this week and was brilliant! A pity it was so short, only four weeks altogether, maybe next time they will extend the series.

How are you doing with your sewing and what are you making at the moment? Join me back here to see a finished version of "Over the Rainbow" over the next few weeks.

Spot the Difference

A friend of mine has moved house recently, so when I was out shopping the other day I picked up this greeting card.

I was delighted with it as it looks like a little stitchery and my friend is a sewing enthusiast so I thought it was perfect for her. It wasn't until I got home and I really saw the card that I realised it had the same colour scheme as my first "Quilt of Memories". Oh! Did I have any fabrics left over from making the quilt in my scrap bag? Probably! Nothing would do but to go hunting and see what I came up with. Soon I had put together a few fabrics with an almost identical colour scheme which meant that I absolutely had to make a little replica wall hanging. How could I not? The temptation was too strong not to use the last scraps of fabric left over from the quilt and turn it into a gift I could give my friend. That's how this little wall hanging came about.

It also gave me another opportunity to try out some free hand machine embroidery, which I am really enjoying. See the little bird on the roof and the green flowers in the garden. And instead of some clothes on the washing line I hung a "quilt" out to dry. I think my friend will enjoy that as she is an avid quilter! Other than that I pretty much stuck to the original design of the card. For this project I used the fusible applique technique, free hand machine embroidery, a double fold binding and some satin ribbon and buttons to embellish and finish.

We are off to a ballet show this evening! Some little members in our extended family are taking part in their biennial ballet production, and we were lucky enough to get a preview today when, on a visit, the youngest member proudly displayed her skills as she cartwheeled across the lawn after lunch, except tonight she will be dressed in full costume and we are so looking forward to that. All the tutus and tights, hair gel and make up and fabulous music and excitement of little people everywhere.

Free Motion Embroidery

I haven't been over to Button Bow Lane for a while now but I am glad to be back and blogging again. I am going to set some goals and try and do a blog a week for the next ten weeks, as I did before, and see how I get on.  While I haven't been blogging I have been busy - sewing, putting some articles together for the Farmers Journal, giving classes, working my part time day job, etc.

Lots of the sewing I do would be for my classes, or if I want to make something to wear or something for the house or a gift for a friend or family member etc., but sometimes I sew just for the sake of sewing itself and while I don't have a huge amount of time for that I love the freedom it brings, no deadlines, no project restrictions, no 'forbidden' colours, anything goes really and if it doesn't 'go' it doesn't matter and that's what I did last night when I sat down at the sewing machine. For ages I have been dying to try out free motion embroidery so I gave it a go!

In order to do this I had to 1) drop the feed dogs on the machine 2) turn my stitch length to zero 3) attach the embroidery presser foot and 4) put the fabric into an embroidery hoop, then away I went. The first attempt was totally freehand and didn't turn out too bad.  For the second and third attempt I added some applique and followed a transfer. I attached the fabric for the applique to the back of the fabric in the hoop with some straight pins, sewed all around the jeans and hat and then snipped away the excess fabric all around the edge.  I am dead pleased with them and love the look.  I will probably make them into some cushions or something using fabrics I have already.

The next few photos were taken on Easter Sunday morning (a bit late I know but better late than never) and show a very seasonal coloured cake that I made using madeira cake mixture with buttercream icing in the centre and ready to roll fondant icing on top.  It was very simply decorated using wafer daisies, chicks in a basket and some candy flowers.

And last but not least, Rebecca and I made some bows for Millie's hair, following this tutorial on YouTube, as it is getting very long now and needs to be tied back off her face.

Here are some photos of a blustery and windy Dun Laoghaire harbour this morning. 

Are you watching The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC 2? It's thoroughly enjoyable and worth checking out if you like sewing etc.

Until next week, happy sewing!