So many projects so little time

 

Over the summer I have really tried to complete some of my on going projects but yet the pile continues to grow.   My mother was a superb machinist and I know I have said this before but she was only 4ft 10 inches tall and in the 50's we didn't have stores that catered for the smaller person but that didn't stop my mother oh no.  She made herself suits and dresses all in the latest styles and for every box jacket suit she made there was always a matching handbag and shoes, I know this as there were boxes full of them when we cleared her house out back in 1990.  Machine sewing was the one thing that had always eluded me until we got to lock down and after borrowing a machine from a friend to do my bit and make scrubs bags I was hooked.  Since then I have gone from strength to strength but I still hadn't had ago at making myself anything.  Around the same time my daughter decided she wanted to learn how to make herself clothes but obviously with lockdown we were not able to be together, but she would show me all the beautiful things she had made for herself and I would show her my latest cushion cover 😀  anyway I finally decided I would take the bull by the horn and have ago at something reasonably simple.

I chose the  Tilly & Button Cleo pinafore dress  and I fell in love with this pattern from the start.  It has really clear instructions and I was able to trace the pattern so that I could preserve the original pattern. It also means if I want to make a smaller or bigger size then I can just trace the pattern again to the size that I want. 

Over the summer I made two of these pinafores one in denim and one in velvet neither of which I had sewn with before.  They are so comfortable to wear and as patterns are not cheap to buy I like to feel I am getting my monies worth and to that end  I have already brought more fabric to make myself some more for over the autumn/winter months as they will look great with my big woolly tights and my boots.

At the beginning of the summer we said goodbye to one of my work colleagues who had always admired my crafting especially anything to do with crochet as she was learning herself.  I wanted to make her something that would remind her of her time with us every time she looks at it and then I remembered I had the machine embroidery pattern for a reading pillow which also covers both her crochet and reading hobbies.  The pattern is from Memories in Thread and stitches out beautifully. 

August also saw my little grandson turn four, I mean how can he be four years old already? Any one with a small child will know how important Paw Patrol is in a small boys life.  In fact he is pretty much obsessed with anything Paw Patrol related.  Always one for promoting reading in the young I knew just the gift for this young man and together with Paw Patrol books to pop in side it made the perfect gift and I am told he uses it every night for his bedtime story, although his parents do insist it's sometimes a good idea to pick another bed time story other than one involving, Rocky, Chase or Marshall (ok I confess that's the only names I know of the characters😊)

Also over the summer friends of mine showed me the merits of charity shop finds.  We had, had a conversation where upon I said I would love to try my hand at machine embroidery onto clothes, but as I still class myself as a relative newby to this hobby I didn't want to spend a small fortune on an item of clothing only for it to all go badly wrong.  Oh you need a charity shop day said a friend. I had given to charity shops many times but must confess it had been a rarity that I would have the time to actually look in them to buy anything unless I spotted something in passing the shop door. 

A day was arranged and after a hearty breakfast to get us started  I not only found a denim jacket that now adorns a beautiful dragon machine embroidery pattern from Urban Threads  but also a denim shirt which now adorns one of my favorite flowers and also bees. 

I have to confess that charity shop hunting has now become a new thing and I might just have picked up two more denim jackets that are now waiting patiently to be upcycled. 

At the beginning of the summer my niece had a baby girl and of course where there is a new baby coming there has to be a baby blanket doesn't there.  I was recently asked how many baby blankets have I made for family, friends and work colleagues and I have to confess I have lost count but I know I have a thank you card or  photograph of most of them on my thank you wall with the new arrival insitu.  

Someone in the office did suggest that when I come to retire that all those I have made baby blankets for over the years should bring their now not so small child into work with their blanket and get a photograph of them all together.  Sounds like a fabulous idea but people do move on and whether we could all get together to pull off such a project would be another thing but I have a few years yet in which to work out the logistics. 

One thing I have failed at this year was my sock challenge.  In 2017 I set myself a challenge to make a pair of sock each month for the 12 months and I really enjoyed doing it at that time, so much so I decided to do it again this year.  I was keep up with it until covid came to our door and I just found for weeks afterwards that I just didn't have the energy to pick up my needles when I got home from work.  This was the pair that I had started in April that did finally get completed in around June.  I have however subsequently cast on another pair with one down and one to go so I am finally getting my knitting mojo back again.

And my final project this summer was to make a retirement cake for a surprise get together for a friend who has just retired from the NHS after 30+ years.  She is my long suffering partner in crime at all things crafty and we have been referred to as Thelma and Louise by our other halves when we set off for our next road trip. She didn't want a big fuss but we couldn't let her go without doing something so another colleague invited her around for lunch under the auspices that they hadn't seen each other before she officially retired and guess who was there when she arrived😀and a great afternoon was had by all🎈🎈🎈  There is a slight back story to this cake as the week before the get together I had been in Cornwall visiting a friend and her dad who at 95 has not been very well of late.  This particular friend is a superb baker so much so that she made my wedding cake nearly 40 years ago. Thankfully the friendship has lasted longer than the marriage did.   She knows I can bake a cake but I know my limitations when it comes to decorating one.  The cake was therefore a joint effort of my baking and her decorating skills.  I think what made it taste as good as it did was the Cornish free range eggs courtesy of the GP who lives next door and good old Cornish butter.  Nobody could believe that the cake had travelled for 8 hours in searing heat all the way back from Cornwall up to the East Midlands and survived. 

As we are now approaching Autumn and hunker down time I had a good tidy up of my sewing room and a look through all my on going projects.  I am not going to confess just how many there are but you will get to know as I share the completed projects here in my little blog space. It's going to be a busy time a head is all I am going to say😍

Mx