Christmas Through the Year

And this will be my last CTTY post for the year as I think I have completed all my Christmas stitching!

Many thanks to Anthea for keeping us on our toes this year - you can see what other people have been up to on her blog here

I have finished two more wheat bags

and a couple more crazy hearts.

Then I decided that it was time for a Christmas gift for me! I love this Mouse Pincushion pattern by Natalie Bird and bought the pattern last year when I finally tracked down a copy in the UK. But that is as far as it went. Now seemed like a great time to make it.

And here is my completed pincushion.

I adapted the pattern to suit me as I don't do wool applique - instead I embroidered the large mouse and flower on the side panel.

I also swapped the felt ball on the top for a loop - filled with crushed walnut shells this is quite a hefty pin cushion and the loop makes it easy to move around.

I used some of my favourite Tilda fabric and this dusky pink spot which sadly has now all been used up.

The pattern even includes some of my favourite hexies! These are 3/4".

So that's me done for this year - I already have a few ideas for 2017 so watch this space!

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

FNSI and CTTY!

I write this in haste as I have only just got my computer back from being updated to Windows 10 (so far so good, thanks mainly to our local computer whizz who has set most things up as they were before!) and we have guests arriving tomorrow and I want to catch the deadline on CTTY.
So here we go.

Many thanks Wendy for having us round again - good to be sewing with friends. Don't forget to go and vist Wendy to see what everyone was doing on Friday.

My next big UFO to finish this year is my Four Seasons crazy hanging and to do that I needed some fabric for sashing and bordering the blocks. I knew I wanted velvet and so having a large quantity of white velvet in my stash it was time to get my dye out. I bought a pot of olive procion dye powder a while ago in preparation and so as it was a nice afternoon out came my bucket and dye was mixed and used outside.
Here is the result which I am very pleased with - lots of nice subtle variations which is the look I am aiming for by not stirring the fabric about too much.

While I had my dyes out I remembered another UFO languishing in the cupboard. This bag was made a couple of years ago and then I didn't like the colour of the handles! And there was only the lining to add and it would have been finished.

Five minutes with the unpicker and the handles were free - why had I not done this before!!
The handles have now been redyed so watch this space for an update, hopefully on the finished bag.

The trouble with dying is that one thing leads to another and so another piece of velvet and some threads and lace were treated with some marine violet and lemon dye - I am very pleased with the results.

So next on my list while the fabrics were soaking in their dyes were these two heat bags which just needed machining together as I had finished appliqueing the hexagon flowers.

I have used the Anni Downs pattern which is like a pillow case so that the bag of wheat inside can be removed to allow the outer to be washed. Brilliant idea I thought. They have not got their wheat bags yet but as they are going in my Christmas present box they can be filled later and in the mean time take less space.  And so this is why I am linking with Anthea and Christmas Through the Year!

Thank you Anthea.

Have a great week.