Mission accomplished - and some other stuff

So, here they are: 3 wedding clutches.  I had to modify them as I didn't have much material: 8" per bag in fact!  Anyway, I love them and am really pleased with how they have turned out - and they were amazingly easy to do:

The bag fits my important stuff: my inhaler and my lippie!

And the bag closes quite nicely with these in:

On top of these I: had a spray tan at 9am with Zoe, went straight to the hairdressers and got my highlights updated, did a bit (not a lot) of housework.  Then met the girls from school and we went and got our nails painted.  And I also managed to start the binding on this quilt:

I wanted to get this started as we are going away for a few days after the wedding, so can spend the evenings finishing off the binding.  We are off up to Kendal in the Lake District to stay with my dad and stepmum.  They are always relaxing breaks, so I am looking forward to that!

 Tomorrow we are ferrying stuff to the venue, so that will be exciting. Zoe was very calm about everything today.  And then tomorrow evening, I am out with my work collegues as someone is leaving.  They are always fun evenings.

Wedding clutch

It is tim and zoes wedding this sunday - can't believe how quickly that has come around.  Anyway, I happened upon this tutorial for a wedding clutch at purlbee.  This would be a great idea, and I do have some of my bridesmaid dress from my fitting - they had to cut loads off the hem!!  I cant just make one for myself and not the other bridesmaids, so am wondering if there is enough for 3 clutches in total.  I have Thursday and Friday off this week, so would have time..........



(picture taken from tutorial on Purl Bee blog)  This is an amazing blog with loads of great ideas for sewing, stiching, knitting etc


Also, over the last 8 months or so, I have accumulated about 100 hours in overtime: I work term time only, so I was never going to be able to take any more time off!  I opted to be paid for the work, and at the weekend, I was able to book a holiday to Turkey in August for the girls and I.  I would never have been able to do it without this payment, and it makes all those veeeery long days seem worthwhile now.  I can't wait!  Hopefully there will be no active volcanoes spewing their stuff everywhere!

Any ideas?

I have started to make things with the huge stash of fabric that was left for me by the volunteers of Farleigh Hospice, hope I am making what they need!

The cushion covers were very easy to do, especially the grey one, as I rekon this material was a sample for cushion covers (and/or curtains)   

I thought I would go patchwork on the cushions as well, which I enjoyed doing, although the material is really silky and frays so easily - there were bits of thread everywhere!

I have so much of this material, that there will be a lot more cushions.  I am also thinking table runners.

This material was much easier to manange as it is a heavier cotton.

So, any other ideas as to what I can make out of all of this - all ideas gratefully recieved!

Block 2

I have completed block 2 of the mystery quilt along : take a look at the pictures of the blocks others have made

This was the first time I have done paper piecing and I really enjoyed doing it!  Now, all I can think of is all those patterns that I have seen before with 'paper piecing' written in the instructions which I avoided like the plague.  I need to try them - where on earth am I going to find these extra hours!!

It's a small world

On saturday Jenny and I visited the local flower festival and craft fair at the church.  One of stalls had a variety of sewn and knitted items and I got talking to the lady there about sewing.  Turns out the stall was for Farleigh Hospice, which has several hospices in the area.  They have a group of ladies, who meet once a month and make things for fetes and fairs etc.  Unfortunately they meet in the afternoon - no good to me as I am at work.  So, she said she had some material that had been donated, that she could drop off to me and I could see what I could make from it 

This is what was dropped off to me today!  There is masses of material

The material has all been donated by the Curtain House, in Tiptree.  A lovely little shop in the village, that makes up curtains, cushions and also sells some gorgeous 'nick nacks'

These are all swatches of curtain and cushion material that were surplus to her requirements and she has donated.

I can't wait to get started, I have so many ideas already and how fantastic will it be to sew for such a good cause instead of sewing because I have an addiction :-)

Anyway..... I am busy telling this lady where I live so she can drop it off .... and it turns out she is the daughter of my next door but one neighbour, Charlie.  I soon as she told me I could see the resemblance!  Charlie is an amazing neighbour, he is in 80's and mows the front lawn for me and my other neighbour, passes on spare plants to me and always has a chat and a wave.  The girls cook him up fudge and truffles at christmas. 

So, that is where my small world comes from!  Bet those of you with children (any age) saw my title and starting singing that Disney song in your head - he, he!

A Sunday of finishing

Woo hoo, this is finished - well finished sewing anyway! (and thanks to Jen for holding it up for me the minute she walked through the door!)  This quilt does have an ultimate destination, but I can't say yet.  However, I do have a good long while to quilt and bind it, so no pressure!

It was made from 3 charm packs - I can't remember which ones, but I thought the fabrics were very 70's, lots of bold patterns and dark greens and browns.

  The pattern came from here.  There was potentially a lot of waste, but I now have a bucket full of  these:

I made these as I went along, otherwise, I would probably never do them.  I think they will make a nice cushion to go with the quilt.

I see I wasn't the only one being busy today: flyingblindonarocketcycle also has a finish up on her blog too and it looks fantastic - take a look!

Lost post and flowers

If my blog from last night wasn't missing (aaaaagh) then you would have read that I was at flower club last night.  Once again we had a fantastic demonstrator, who also teaches 'flower arranging' at a college.  And yet, she has not passed her NAFAS demonstrators exam - what a travisty because she was excellent and I don't know how she failed!!

This was so clever, taking a variagated reed, bending about 1/3 of the way down and then winding around the leave: what an amazing idea!!

And look at the fern that she plaited in the same arrrangement

This was an amazing display - again it involved some bull reed (?? I'm rubbish at plant names)  which she kind of wove together  to get this cone effect and then placed pink roses inside.  As she was doing it, I think I got how she was doing it, but now I don't have a clue!

This was a cascade display that she put together in no time!

This was a display with gerberoas (is that how you spell it??)  I love these flowers and these were a stunning yellow - no justice done by my phone!

And this was stunning - a simple dome shaped display (well, i say simple, not something I could come up with obviously!)  and then she produced some cottonwool like 'stuff' that she put over the top, that looked like beads - but they were about as fine as spiders webs

All of these she whipped up in about 90 mins, plus one other that i forgot to get a picture of.  They are stunning and even if i had had all day, I wouldn't have done anything like these!!  At the end of the evening they were all raffled off - I didn't win :-(