Hooray, I’ve finally finished my free motion embroidery gallery, with the addition of my last picture:
Daisy has now joined her brothers.
Here is a close up of the picture:
Again I think it looks better from a distance.
My family is now complete – and I promise to put my sewing machine away and do some organising for Christmas … but then again I do quite have a fancy to make a map of the world in the same way, or perhaps a picture of the front of my house … watch this space!
Sally
xxx
Help, I’m completely addicted to free motion embroidery! My wall is now sporting 4 pictures and I have another one half made, but not yet ready to be put on display.
This is my fabric image of my eldest son:
Like the previous fabric image I did, looking at it close up it seems a bit weird & I did get complaints from him that I’d used flowery fabric and its a bit girly!
This picture was my attempt at being romantic for Mr D&D’s birthday last week.
It’s the words and music for ‘our’ song, the first one we danced to, many years ago. (22 to be precise!) It was a bit fiddly to make, and the machine sewed writing did turn out to be a bit like a young child’s scrawl, but he appreciated all the work that went into it. I was dreading cutting out all the circles by hand as they’re pretty small, but then I realised I had just the thing – Sizzix die cutter, with the Hello Kitty die – her eyes and nose shapes were just the perfect size and shape.
What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever made or received?
Sally
xxx
I’ve been going through a bit of a machine embroidery phase at the moment and as I have so many freshly painted white walls in my new room, I’ve been making some bright pictures that will eventually get hung on the walls.
See the one on top of the piano? It’s a photo of my son, but I’ve cut the shapes out from fabric. It’s supposed to be viewed from a distance, hence the far away photo, but here’s a close-up view of it:
You can probably now see why I put the distance photo up first as it looks a bit odd close up! It’s not clear from the photo, but its made up of 3 different fabrics, and then I’ve used free motion embroidery to outline each piece.
The jury is still out on whether its going to make it up onto the wall as I’m not sure that I like the effect. I think I’ll just leave it on the piano for a few more days & see if it grows on me.
Sally
xxx
A little bit of excitement this week, firstly my reindeer project appeared in Simply Homemade. A cushion, Santa sack, card holder & tree decoration, all based on my Rudolf template. Very quick and easy projects using fleece and felt so no need for lots of fiddly hems!
They were great fun to make, although I did make them in August so I feel like Christmas has been and gone!!!
Second piece of news is that my banana basques (click here for pattern) were featured on the Mollie Makes blog & Facebook page in their Monday Moodboard. I must admit I did wonder why the number of visitors to my visitors shot up!
Right, time for a sneak peak of one of the Christmas presents I’ve been making – I wrote last year about how my family set a small price limit on what we can buy for each adult, and every year we have a theme. Last year was a challenge as we set the price at £0!!! A big challenge, but one that we all embraced and had great fun with (see this post). This year we have a limit of £2 but for that we must buy a pressie starting with the same letter as the name of the recipient. My younger brother Dan & I have a bit of a joke going about Duct tape & how it can solve anything, so this year I have created his present from the same stuff:
Voila, a waterproof messenger/laptop bag made completely from duct tape.
Now I’ve got to think of £2 gifts starting with the following letters:
M – female, P – male, C – female, another female C, S – male, D – female.
Any suggestions??
Sally
xxx
Taking inspiration from the apple cosies in Mollie Makes magazine, (and with tongue firmly in cheek) here is my pattern for crocheting a banana basque! If you hate bruised bananas then this is the pattern for you – protect your banana whilst also making it look beautiful!
Please bear with me on this pattern as I’m a novice at crochet and I’ve never written a crochet pattern before – I hope it makes some sense!
Row 1 – Chain 30
Round 2 – ch2, dc into 3rd ch from hook, dc into each stitch until the end of the row, 5dc into the end stitch, and then turn the row so you are working into the bottom of each chain. dc into each stitch until the end chain & 5dc into the end chain. Slip stitch the round together. This should surround the whole of your chain with double crochets.
Round 3 – ch2 *2dc into next stitch, dc into next 2 stitches* repeat from * to * until you reach the beginning of the round again. Slip stitch into beginning chain of round.
Round 4– ch3 & then 1tr into each stitch all the way round. Slip stitch into beginning chain of round.
Rounds 5 & 6 ch 2 & then dc into each stitch, Slip stitch into beginning chain of round.
Round 7 – *ch 3, miss one stitch and slip stitch into next stitch. dc into next 5 stitches* Repeat until you have made 5 loops in total along the edge, dc into next 23 stitches repeat* to * until you have 5 loops on the second side. Dc around the end until you reach the start of the round. Slip stitch together and cast off.
Thread ribbon through the loops you created with your chains, place your banana in its basque – and voila, a cheeky but cosy banana!!!
I’d love to know if anybody makes them – please feel free to let me know if I’ve written the pattern wrong – as I say its the first one I’ve made!
Enjoy your bananas.
Sally
xxx
