Despite my best efforts, my back of the envelope calculations show I don’t have enough fabric for my initial plans.
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Earlier this month while working from home, I received a panicked message from a colleague wanting to know if there were any safety pins in the office. Unfortunately, none were to be found and they had to resort to a selection of stationery items to fix a wardrobe malfunction. Fortunately, I had plenty of spare sewing items at home that could be useful in such an emergency and spent a few hours at the weekend making and filling a suitable container.
I covered a cardboard box with a novelty button fabric that I hope will be easy to spot on the office shelves. I did consider sewing a slip cover for the box but decided glue was easier so the only sewing involved was to fix the toggle and loop.
Hopefully this will prevent any more panic in the office and save the stationery supplies for their intended purpose.
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The start of a new year has seen me return to an old project started back in 2013. I’ve been working on this Liberty hexie EPP quilt at Leeds Quilt Group for the past few months and finally remembered to take a photo so I can keep track of progress.
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| 2023 |
Progress goes in fits and starts and when I started this quilt I had limited Liberty in my stash and the fabrics would not now be my first choice.
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| 2016 (top) versus 2019 (bottom) |
I’ve also changed the design several times (mainly due to not having enough of one fabric), but I have stuck with the 2019 revision and am now more than half way through.
One thing that will make sewing this easier is a trick I was shown at this month's Leeds meeting to stop my needle unthreading. It is called “Marrying the needle” and details can be found in this blog post.
Let’s see if my interest in this project continues and if I have more progress to show at the end of the year.
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I ended my summary for last year with “I expect 2022 will be more of the same” and in terms of sewing this has proved to be fairly accurate.
There has been a familiar mix of full and mini sized quilts, items for online challenges and something for me to wear; however, this year has also seen a welcome return to sewing for charity and my sewing for 2022 includes:
In non-sewing ways, 2022 has seen a gradual return of pre-COVID normality. When I went to Festival of Quilts, there were still the wide aisles and extra space from 2021, but I also noticed the return of visitors from abroad. Another welcome return has been resumption of in-person meetings for Leeds Quilt Group and the chance to see familiar faces and meet new ones.
Here’s to 2023 and I hope it will be filled with more quilts, more odd items for challenges, more charity items and perhaps a few garments for me.
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This month I have been sewing some tree decorations for the hospice Christmas Fayre. These were a variation on EPP and were made by tacking fabric to hexagon papers, folding each in half and then sewing three hexagons together.
I included ribbon for hanging and added some beads and bells to given them some weight to help them hang.
I also made a few more gift bags, this time with a boxed base and a cardboard insert to give more structure.
As everything I made was sold at the Fayre, I think I will be on the look out for festive fabrics in the sales to make more next year.
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Until a few days ago, I had no sewing to show for October, but I finally manage to spend some time at the sewing machine at the weekend and now have these re-usable gift bags made.
These are for a hospice Christmas Fayre and I hope they will appeal to people’s desire to be more sustainable with their Christmas wrapping.
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I’ll start this by saying that the pattern was a lot easier to sew than to photograph and apologise for the photos - gathers and a cowl neck are difficult to show.
I’ve not sewn a Burda pattern before and I knew that the newer patterns now included seam allowances, but I wasn’t expecting to find the pattern layout diagrams on the tissue paper rather than on the instruction sheet.
Once cut out, the pattern went together fairly easily and quickly, though I might try a different way of finishing the back neck edge if I make this again. I may have stretched the binding while sewing but it seems bulky and doesn’t want to lay flat.
I like the ruching at the sides, but again if I were to make another, I would try a stretchier elastic or different way of gathering as the ruching is not as tight as I would like.
Although not perfect, this top is wearable and will be useful to go with plain trousers or skirts or with the matching skirt I made three years ago!
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