Another New Year!

It's nearly a month since my last post. During that time we have been to UK to visit friends and family over Christmas and New Year. I hope that you all enjoyed Christmas and I wish you all a

VERY HAPPY 2019!

A new year means a new journal and this year I have decided to combine my sewing journal with my day to day 'to do' lists etc. I purchased a cheap bullet journal last year and had some fun making a cover for it.

I made a large piece of embellished felt ( you can see my method here ) and used a DMTV travel journal tutorial, adapting it to my own needs.

We spent the weekend before New Year in Bristol and visited the Clifton suspension bridge. I have driven over this stunning bridge several times, so on this occasion it was good to spend some time walking over it and looking around the visitor centre.

There were several competitions to choose the design for the bridge during the early 1800's and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's design was eventually chosen. However the bridge you see above, although his design, was modified by the eventual builders. The bridge was opened in 1864, after Brunel's death.

The bridge is a toll bridge and self funding.

There are lovely views - if it is not foggy and grey!

Good to be out for a walk.

Another lovely visit during our trip was to Hestercombe Gardens near Taunton. Another grey day but even in winter the gardens are beautiful and with a small person in our group the Christmas garden trail was worth doing for it's chocolate reward!

The Witches hut is a favourite stopping place ..

I love the way this tree has pushed its way though the back of the hut and produced some beautiful catkins.

Well I think that is enough for one post - more tomorrow!

Friday Night Sew In for October

Many thanks to Wendy for inviting us to join her again - you can see what every one was working on here

A small package arrived in the post for me yesterday - this little collection that I had ordered from Euro Japan Links. I needed some new scissors and some sashiko thread (it takes dye beautifully) so I
added a couple of little extras - some needles and a white, water erasible pen to try.

The box contained these little snips

which are amazingly sharp and magic for snipping threads. I am not a fan of plastic covers so of course I needed to make a little case for them. I had an odd piece of the decorated felt I made here
which when cut in half was perfect for the job.

While I had the machine set up for this I also machined up the strips that I had cut earlier

 to make some pen holders for my Christmas gift box.

 The rest of my sewing time was spent adding a hanging sleeve to the back of a mini quilt

 and appliqueing some mini hexie flowers.

 Hope you are having a great weekend - the sun is shining here!

Christmas Through The Year October update

Linking up with Anthea at Hibiscus Stitches for this months CTTY update. I thought I had better get cracking on a few more gifts this month so have a few in progress shots to show.

First of all I have a production line of wheat bags on the go

Loosely based on an Anni Downs design you can see some I made earlier in the year here.

These pieces of decorated felt have been cut out ready to sew up into some secret stitching.

And this little Jenny of Elefantz owl is now a complete project apart from her eyes and I need to find suitable buttons for those.

This is a little crazy lavender sachet aprox 4" x 4"

I hope to make at least two more of these if I get a chance.

Autumn is now in full swing - we have lit our first fires of the season and had several frosts.

This walnut tree glowed in the mist when the sun struggled to come through the other morning.

Sadly a very poor crop of walnuts this year.

And a little more autumn colour.

IT's FSNI tomorrow night so if you have not signed up yet then pop over to Wendy's blog now and do so.

Happy stitching

Friday Night With Friends update

Many thanks to Cheryll for hosting us again this month even though she is off on her travels. Do pop over to her blog here to see what everyone got up to.

I started on Thursday afternoon by printing this piece of felt so that it would be nice and dry for Friday and some fun stitching. It is aproximately A3 size.

I used my favourite Hundertwasser spiral print block and some gold acrylic paint.

The next stage on Friday was to finish decorating the surface and this I did by bonding a sheer nylon scarf to the surface

trapping some hot fix Angelina between the layers.

I also bonded some black felt to the reverse to make a nice firm fabric.

Next job was to meander all over the surface of the fabric with some lovely Cotona thread.

And so I ended up with this very firm piece of bonded and embellished felt.

And the reason for all this I hear you ask? Well I have some Christmas present ideas in mind for some of it but for the time being I needed a case for my crazy patchwork stencil/templates - they have sat in polythene bags for far too long!

I hope everyone had a great evening and I look forward to visiting to see what has gone on.

Have a lovely weekend.