Brooches galore!

OK here we go.  Lots more of my felt brooches.  These are selling well on eBay.

As well as the heart shaped ones I made a few new flower ones too.

I am making a good stock of brooches because I think they will sell well on a craft stall and I am hoping to do that next year at the dog show to raise funds for the dog rescue.

My sewing room and those felt brooches.

So you want to see where I sew?  It is our second bedroom but there is no bed only sewing stuff.  I have  Saskia's old desk to put my sewing machine on.  I also have  2 matching chest of drawers.  One small and one quite big.  They are ideal for storage of lots of crafting stuff.

I have her old shelves where I keep, some books, magazines, sewing patterns, fabric, boxes of ribbons and other notions etc.

I have this little shelf unit which was Joshua's but he didn't want it when he moved.  I keep my button jars and other little bits and bobs on here.

I have a  gate leg table which I can extend when I need a cutting area. At the moment it is half open , you can see it behind the ironing board.  I also have an ironing board and iron in here in addition to my ones downstairs in the utility room.  With  quilting it is important to keep pressing your seams as you go and I got fed up having to keep trotting up and down the stairs.  Those plastic tubs in the corner contain fabric and wadding.  The white roll on the table is wadding.  You can also see another cat door stop there.  He just needs his eyes to be finished.

In the corner of the room I still have a desk and my old PC. It is messy as I have been sitting there hand sewing.

This is a nice size room for a sewing room.  It has 2 windows, one looks down to the side of the house and the drive.  The other looks out to the back so I can see the back garden and the fields beyond.  I like that view and can see it whilst I sew.

Despite two windows the light is not great.  I only have a ceiling light and need to invest in a good floor standing, adjustable lamp that I can move around depending on where I am working,

At the moment the room is still as it was when we moved here 10 months ago.  It is in green and yellow with green carpet, not very attractive.  After Christmas I am going to decorate it.  I want it to be very pale to help the light situation.  I think it will be white above the dado rail and a pastel colour below. possibly pink.  I will then make new curtains for it.  The existing ones are a horrid dark green.

I am well set up in here.  I have my sewing machine, my Sizzix and my new Slice.  I have a huge fabric stash which is always growing.  I am building up stocks of notions such as zips, ribbons and buttons.  I have lots of cottons and lots of felt.  I have toy stuffing and wadding bundles. I have 2 cutting boards, several rulers and 2 rotary cutters.

I need pinking shears.  I might get myself some next weekend.  I am going to the knitting and stitching show in London at Alexandra Palace.  It is my birthday next week so I may have some birthday money to spend.  I bet that fabric stash will grow!

So there you have it.  That is my sewing room where I spend lots of happy hours.  I am very lucky to have my own space to do my own thing.  Simon will soon have his own space in that ginormous garage.

Just remembered, I was going to show you my latest brooches but this is long so once again I will leave them for another blog.  In fact I will do them in a blog on their own and then you can just ignore it if you are fed up of seeing them.

Show and Tell on Thursday

Time for "show and tell".  I have been doing lots of sewing.  Mainly trying to finish off things as I did not want to start anything new when there were unfinished things lying around.

I finished the bunting for my downstairs hall. Those are little cross stitch embroideries you see in the first photo.  7 of them, one for each of our zodiac signs. Click photo to enlarge.

I did do one new thing though. Remember my scrappy quilt that I am making with denim squares?  I had lots of  odd shaped left over bits.  I didn't want to throw them out so I have joined them all up in crazy patch work fashion. I added some wadding and backed it with some brushed fleece stuff and hey presto a new doggie blanket.  It is small but will be useful at night when it can get chilly down in the utility room where the dogs sleep in their beds.  In winter it isn't a problem as we have the heating on 24 hours a day anyway.  At the moment it is still set to go off over night.

Top photo shows it pieced and the bottom one shows it finished.

Here are the dogs trying out the denim scrap quilt.  Not in their beds but on the settee!  Actually Alfie is on our bed in the first photo.  Because Loulou was comfy with the new denim quilty Simon tucked my little heart quilt around Alfie.  It is normally on the end of the sofa.  Are my doggies spoilt or what!

Something that I had to get finished was the jewelery roll that was a project we had done with Denise.  All 3 of us made one.  It was supposedly a quick and easy project to remind us how to do zips.  I had SO much trouble with that zip!  Had to take it out and start over.  I am actually really pleased with how it has turned out now.  It has the zipped pocket and an open top pocket and a thingy for rings.

I used stippling to quilt it and I am pleased with how it went.  Close up of stippling.

I have completed 4 pages for the scrapbook that I am doing of my Mums life. I shall give it to Dad when we are all together later in the year. Hopefully my girls and my sister will do some pages too.

Remember the block of the month quilt that I am doing?  It is from my patchwork magazine.  Actually it is a row of the month!  It will take a year as there are 12 rows. I have just done row 4 which is composed of 8 inch blocks, each one different.  It is about learning new techniques and patterns.  I like the diamond in the round and the pin wheel.

This is all 4 rows so far.  They have not been squared off.  That will be done once I have all 12 and can put it together.

I told you last time about our latest project with Denise.  We are each making a teddy bear.  I had to get him all pinned together first then over sew and then finally machine stitch his various parts. It was our home work! We have a sewing session on Tuesday so we all need to be at the same place.  The only thing I haven't done is to machine stitch his foot pads as I couldn't work out how to do that without catching it up.

I have another new bit of kit.  Something that I have been coveting for ages.  It is a Slice Fabrique machine.  It is very small but cuts shapes with a tiny blade.  It can cut up to 4 inches but only 1 layer at a time. It is digital and uses little SD cards.  It cuts fabric and paper.  Some of  you are probably remembering that I only just had my Sizzix machine a few months ago and that cuts shapes too.  They are different and do different things.

I haven't done much yet with the slice.  I did cut out this flower shape and made it into a brooch. I got my Slice on eBay so it isn't brand new.  It came with 6 extra pattern cards and 2 of them were still sealed up so never used.  I am looking forward to trying out some of the designs. Will get round to it soon.

OK, I am now going to bore you rigid with more of my brooches.  These are selling quite well on eBay.  Last week I sold 12.  Every single one is different.  You can sign out now if you have seen enough of these already!!

The other day some one asked  where I do all my sewing so I am off now to take some photos of my sewing room.  Hopefully I might get around to posting them soon.

Actually as this is long I have decided to post photos of my brooches along with the photos of my sewing room.  You can breath a sigh of relief!

Wednesday 3rd of October.

Another week gone.  Seems like weekly blogging is as good as it gets at the moment. I just seem to be constantly busy.  Not getting out much but that isn't a problem as I have lots to work on here.  Not to mention that the weather is dreadful.  Cold, very windy and rainy.  I hate the cold.  We have the heating on and even lit the fire at the weekend. Did I mention that I hate the cold?

The garage has not really made any further progress because of the weather.  It is flooded inside again as Simon has now removed the roof from the original part so it is totally open to the elements.  It has been too windy for him to do any more of the roof.  It wouldn't be safe. Plus it is now dark by about 7.15pm so he has less time during the week.  By the time he gets in from work at 6pm and has his dinner there is only about half an hour left.

In my last blog I mentioned that I was doing a few hours with a collecting tin in aid of the Three Counties dog rescue.  I did 11am - 1pm last Wednesday and Thursday outside Tesco.  I was with another lady, Judy.  She had a rescue dog with her that she fosters while he is awaiting his furever home.  He is a Staffordshire bull terrier and absolutely gorgeous.  I would have adopted him on the spot if I didn't have my 2.  Don't think they would be too happy!!!

He is called Billy and he was so good.  Sat quite happily for 2 hours.  He enjoyed all the attention and petting and he gets a few biscuits every 20 minutes  for being good.  Some one gave him a dog chew too.

The whole thing was a real eye opener for me.  I have never done it before so didn't know what to expect.  It is amazing the lengths some people will go to avoid catching your eye! Horrid standing there with your empty tin and wondering if any one will ever put anything in it.  I don't think I shall ever be able to walk past anyone with a collecting tin again!

I had a phone call today from Margery who organises it.  Over the 2 days the total collected was £525.69.  I personally had £81.02 in my tin.  I was thrilled with that.  I bet Judy got more as everyone was going to her because she had the dog.  Doesn't matter of course as it is all going to the dog rescue.

Just realised that was the last time I actually left the house!  That is a week ago!  Told you I was busy here.  Oh no, just remembered I did pop out on Saturday afternoon. I went to Peterborough to a sewing shop with Coralie. We went to get a sewing machine for my Dad. He has been impressed with the stuff Coralie and I have been making especially the quilting.  He wants to give it a go.  He says he needs something to do on the long, dark winter afternoons when he can't get out.  Years ago he used to do a lot of sewing.  He made a lot of our clothes.  He even made the bridesmaids dresses for my wedding.  I think he will probably be quite good at quilting. Coralie is taking the machine up to him tomorrow.

So, what have I been so busy with?  All the normal stuff.  House work of course.  There is always house work.  We are at that time of year where it is a constant struggle to keep the floors clean from 8 wet and muddy paws. I wash and dry them every time they come in but they still make a mess so mopping the floor is quite often a twice daily chore. Plus the bedding needs  more frequent washing and then there are all their towels.  It is never ending.  My washing machine has been complaining this week too.  It keeps giving the error code for blocked filter and wont spin.  When I check the filter it isn't blocked at all.  After checking it will then spin.  Hope it isn't going up the creek.

Apart from housework I have been sewing, and doing family history stuff. Then some more sewing and then yet more sewing! Oh and I have another new shape cutting machine.  Must show you that.  Actually, time to do a show and tell I think.  Maybe I will find the time for that tomorrow.  Time to go now I think.