Inspired by spring......

 While it is officially the first day of spring here, the wild, wet and cold weather is not feeling very spring-like. I did manage to pick a few spring flowering blooms from my garden late this afternoon during a small break from the constant rain. 

 This pretty Scandinavian fabric arrived late last week just in time for some spring inspired sewing. It's going to help brighten up a couple 70's lounge chairs I have been working on lately and maybe a cushion or two as well.... 

In between sanding and applying polyurethane to a couple of pieces of furniture last week I did manage to cut and sew these 3 aprons for a lady at church, finishing them off on Saturday night just in time to give them to her on Sunday morning. They are to be sold at a stall to raise funds for the local 'Parkinson's' group. 

Grateful......

 I woke up on Sunday at 6am to go for an early morning bike ride with my cycling buddy neighbour and was greeted with this stunning sunrise as I stumbled into the lounge. It certainly made getting up early on Sunday worth it. It was a bit of a chilly start but once we warmed up it was a beautiful calm morning for a bike ride too with the bonus of very little traffic at that early hour. 

Yesterday I was reminded of how very grateful I am of the people that have been put into my life in the last couple of years. When you go through something challenging in life you learn quickly who in your life are true friends that 'get' what you are going through and know exactly what to say at the right time. They are the ones that stick around and are not just there for the big dramas. One such person is Lily who lives far far away from me in Dubai. We have actually never met but have connected through our blogs originally and now keep in contact as regularly as life lets us. Lily is a very talented creative person and I wish she lived closer. Every now and then, usually when I am least expecting it a 'surprise' parcel will arrive from her containing beautiful things, often made by her for me and my daughters.  She made all of the above earrings and .....

 picked out this selection of Washi tape on her recent trip to Tokyo. She also made me an ' infinity scarf ' of which I forgot to photograph before the light faded tonight. It is of course beautifully sewn and made with some bright colourful fabrics thoughtfully chosen for me. Thank you Lily for your thoughtful, generous spirit and your faithful friendship.

 Yesterday I spent most of my day in my little sewing attic sewing these new journal cover sets for my Etsy shop whilst listening to podcasts and music. My girls are now back at school and it was nice to be able to completely focus on what I love to do and that is to create beautiful things.

These covers fit A5 and A6 journals and with the elastic band that keeps everything together plus with a penholder on the front of each one they are all ready and waiting for inspiration to strike. The small one is the perfect size to fit in a handbag and the larger A5 one also happens to be the perfect size to double up as a mini Ipad cover/keeper as one of my other good friends found out recently.

I sell them as a set of two over here in my shop. 

Hand embroidered cushion designs...

Just added to my Etsy shop are these hand-embroidered cushion designs that I've been working on for a couple of weeks now in between other bigger projects. The front one is my favourite with the two "lovebird" centred flowers plus I love the colour combination of aqua blue and grey. It looks quite at home on this chair too ;-)

 I've had a bundle of Kaffe Fassett prints in my stash for a while now waiting patiently for that perfect project to use them in.  Each print is so unique, colourful and bold, that I decided to just add some simple hand-quilting in a variety of colours using some Perle cotton threads to compliment the colours in the prints.

A simple wave pattern was added to this bold tropical flower print which I think is enough to add texture but not too much to take your eye away from the print. While the hand-quilting does take a little more time and effort it does give me something to do at nights while watching TV :-)

Each cushion has a handmade button and loop enclosure on the back using some of the featured print from the cushion fronts.

These cushions are now available for sale here in my Etsy shop

Busy, busy

 

I think I started making these to cushions a couple of weeks ago maybe but had to put them aside for a custom order of 3 cushions covers for a friend so this past weekend I finally got to finish them. I love how they both turned out but I'm particularly pleased with the union jack design. 

 I've been wanting to make a union jack cushion for a while now but wasn't quite sure how to go about it but in the end I decided to just appliqué the pieces on using Visoflex and finishing them off with a machine embroidered blanket stitch. Quite quick and easy once all the cutting out was done.

And this bright floral cushion reminds of all the colourful spring flowers blooming in my garden at the moment. This one is quilted with some wavy lines that intersect each other randomly breaking up the straight piecing and giving it a modern edge. Both these cushions have an envelope backing using a strip of a print from the cushion fronts and some fun ric-rac. These cushion covers are now listed here in my etsy shop :-)

And a bit of progress has been made with my first re-upholstery project. It now has a double layer of all new foam rubber and is so much nicer to sit on now. I felt ridiculously proud of myself when I finished stapling the foam on and made sure my girls noticed what I'd done. 

Some pretty finishes......

 My eldest daughter has been in desperate need of a new pencil case for a while now so I whipped this one up for her on the last week of the holidays. She chose the fabrics, designer fabrics I might add :-) She definitely knows what she likes and doesn't like this girl  :-)

 I found the free pattern and tutorial over here at "A spoonful of sugar" I like the triangular shape because it's just a bit different to your everyday pencil case shape plus it sits nice and flat. The pattern is a little on the small side so I made it a couple of inches longer mainly to accommodate the larger zip that I had on hand.

 I also gave it more of a scrappy look and added some pretty machine embroidery stitches too.

 

And I finished covering this lampshade last week using up some of my scraps. It was a pretty quick and easy project plus I had fun putting all those gorgeous fabrics together :-)

I love how it turned out but I'm not quite sure where it's going to go yet. I think it would be perfect for a girls room so might have to look for a lamp-stand for it to go on.

And here's a sneak peak of a couple of cushion designs I'm working on this week. I spent yesterday morning brainstorming and sketching and now I have more ideas/designs than time which is a good thing really. 

Journal covers in the making.....

I can't remember what my inspiration was when I started making these journal covers but I do know that I like to have pen/pencil and paper at the ready when inspiration strikes. I also know that I like to make plain, everyday items pretty and inspirational to look at. The above journal cover set was the first one I made and my good friend Darleen promptly purchased it as soon as I showed it to her so I guess that spurred me on to make more. 

Of course the best thing for me about making these journal covers or keepers is putting the fabric combinations together. Out of the 3 sets above I think my favourite would have to be the one on the right made from one of Heather Bailey's prints. I love her fresh modern retro vibe she has put into this fabric collection, the vibrant colours and the detail in the paisley motif. 

I have just added these sets to my shop this morning. The larger size fits an A5 journal and the smaller fits a A6 journal so the smaller one is perfect for on the go journalling/sketching down of ideas as they strike. The elastic bands holds everything together and the elastic pen holders ensures there is always a pen handy as well as the paper :-)

Buds of spring hope.....

I noticed this week that my garden is starting to show signs of spring. I picked this bunch of snowdrops, winter cheer and the first 2 daffodils to bloom to go on our dinning table yesterday. After noticing all the buds emerging here and there I had to take a few shots to share with you here.

 This has to be my favourite to emerge so far. I love the delicate pale pink of these petals. 

Can you see the bee hiding in one of these flowers?? I didn't notice it until I uploaded the photo on to my computer. I think the best thing about flowers at this time of the year is their beautiful fragrance.

We've just had two weeks of school holidays here and during the last week we did a girls road trip down to Wellington to catch up with friends that we hadn't seen for 3 years. Fortuitously for us they were house/dog sitting for family who just happened to have a lovely home in Paraparaumu right on the beach with the above view from the lounge of Kapiti island. 

I finished up these colourful zippered pouches before we went away. They were a custom order for a lady from church who wanted them for a stall to raise funds for Parkinsons disease. As you can see they are all made from scraps and embellished with a variety of machine embroidery stitches...so much fun to make and I love each one equally. 

 

I have some more sewing to show you and lots more planned in the coming months plus I'm looking forward to learning how to upholster furniture. I have plans to eventually do something like this, this and this!! 

For the babies.....

These bibs are the latest additions to my shop this week. I love working with such cute fabrics and they don't take at all long to whip up in an afternoon. Putting the fabrics together is of course my favourite part of the process and I keep finding further combinations that would look good together. I was challenged a couple of months ago by someone who has a couple of grandchildren due but was finding it hard to find suitable non-gender specific items to give before the babies arrived. When I looked at the baby items that I had already made I realised that they were definitely either for baby girls or boys so I have since been looking at my fabrics in a different light.

It is definitely more challenging to make non-gender specific items. I seem to have a lot of fabrics that are 'for the girls' because of the colours but also the motifs on them. The front 2 pairs of baby shoes in the above photo are what I came up with that I thought could be for either boy or girl. Most expectant parents seem to want to find out what they are having beforehand so it was refreshing to hear of parents wanting to wait until their bundle of joy arrived to find out whether they were having either a girls or a boy. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I kind of like the idea of a surprise at the end of all that pain of giving birth.

Back to my happy place......

 This past weekend I got back into my Sewing Attic aka "my happy place" :-). Not much sewing or much at all has been happening around her for a couple of weeks due to a minor operation on the arch of my foot to remove a sunspot. Although the operation itself was minor the recovery was very unexpectedly not so minor and I have had to keep walking to a minimum even resorting to getting crutches to help get myself get around more easily. (Whilst hopping around was good for working those abdominals it was hard work and crawling up and down stairs is slightly undignified.) Thankfully my girls have been very helpful, cooking, cleaning and hanging out our washing etc... plus I have good friends and neighbours that have also helped us out. I am getting around a little bit better today and the stitches come out on Wednesday so hopefully I'll be even more mobile by the end of the week as my eldest, Amelia, turns sweet 16 on Thursday :-)

For this project that I'm currently working on I have picked out some mainly turquoise/blue prints and have even cut into some favourite 'Amy Butler' and 'Heather Bailey' prints to get the right mix of prints. These colours are so me. My bedroom has various shades of aqua/turquoise and I plan to redecorate my lounge one day soon in these colours. They are so calm and restful don't you think?

Happy Mother's day....

So this cushion that I was working on last week wasn't actually for my shop :-) I had to tell a tiny white lie as it was my Mother's day present for my Mum and she reads my blog so I didn't want to give away the surprise for her. I chose 16 florals that I thought she would like, some have been used before in other projects I've made for her. She has long admired this cushion that now resides in my downstairs window seat so I knew she would like this design.

The centre came out nearly perfect but good enough for me with all those points to match up. I actually meant to sew on a button but completely forgot :-( 

On the back I did a scalloped button enclosure which seemed to go down well with Mum as she likes this side more than the front??!!

Anyway I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's day like I did. We were blessed with a beautiful clear sunny day here and my girls spoiled me by giving me a set of  champagne glasses (I might have dropped a small hint earlier) and some dark chocolate. My day was made perfect with a walk along the beach and an ice-cream.

Some finishes

So the last 2 weeks seemed to have flown by and I don't seem to have much to show for it. My father is out of hospital and seems to be recuperating well. He can't drive yet so I have their car and am going over once a week to take them shopping which isn't such a big deal as I do my shopping at the same time and their supermarket is way better than our local one. 

I have managed to get some sewing in now and then. The above bag is for a friends daughter to use as a peg bag. Her previous peg bag was well and truly worn out so I hope she gets as much use out of this new one. The strap is long enough to sling across your body making it hands free plus as requested I have put one pocket on the front to hold her cellphone. Her washing line is up a hill and must be some distance from her house hence the need for a cellphone. I decided to quilt it with a layer of thin batting in between the layers to make it more sturdy and durable. 

I do hope she likes the fabrics and the bright and cheery colours I've used. Hopefully they will brighten up her washing days.

And this pretty purple pouch is for another daughter of a lady from church. Her only instructions were to use the colour purple so I do hope she likes this mix of purple fabrics I have used . The fabrics are an assortment of batiks, florals with one or two vintage fabrics thrown in for good measure.

Now that these two bags are finished I am free to sew some things for my shop and I have no idea what yet which will not doubt mean I will have to have a play with some fabrics until inspiration strikes. Nice to have a clean slate but somehow daunting as well :-)