Wednesday 24 July 2013

Frantic catchup

I've been a bit slack recently, what with trying to get the Snowy Owl quilt done and lots of visitors in the sunny weather, so I'm a bit behind on my participation with the Victoria Blazer sewalong.

Last week I managed to get the fabric cut for the shell (and only used 1.25m result! Might have enough fabric left for a mini skirt!) and started sewing together the front and back.


The 'crazy' front dart thing was fine, not that hard.  But easing the collar bit to the back was a bit more tricky. Looks OK so far don't you think?


Now I've sewn together all the collar, lapel and cuff pieces and finally got around to cutting out the fabric for the lining.  Just need to finish sewing that together, and sort out the sleeves on the shell then I think I've caught up....



Tuesday 23 July 2013

Rain dance


Hooray!! Thunder and lightening and rain today. We've had hot and dry weather for what feels like weeks - unusual for the UK in recent years.  We'd just reached the bottom of the water butts around the polytunnel and I wasn't looking forward to carrying water in from the house... So hopefully the wetness will continue and these will fill up...



I'm ridiculously excited about these little beauties.  Sweetcorn is this year's experiment as I haven't grown it before. And at the moment it looks like it's going to be a big success.  I planted two blocks of nine plants with about a month between the block planting, in the hope that it won't all arrive at once....One plant in the first block has just rocketed up and is way ahead of the others, so I think we should have good succession.  I'm so excited that all visitors to the house are not allowed to leave until they've been to the polytunnel to visit the sweetcorn!


 

The tomatoes are doing well (as they always do), there's a variety called Marmalade there which are big beefsteak toms and seem to develop into a more bush like plant.  The companion Marigolds are looking good - so things must be OK.  I love the smell as you brush past them both, reminds me of summer, and my Dad's greenhouse.



The cucumbers are making their own way - their vine like tendrils are grasping hold of the supporting string and climbing up by themselves. I don't even need to tie them in.  We should have a good crop - there are a couple of good sized ones already and tons of tiny ones and flowers all the way up the plants.





Wednesday 10 July 2013

The girl is back in town

Yay! Beautiful beast is back from the Sewing machine doctor and singing sweetly.  Big up to Paul Stace Sewing Machines in Wrexham for struggling with over sensitive electronics....

So that means, after a couple of weeks back with the baby machine and only being able to piecing, and making clothes and bean bags, I can finally start quilting!


I think I need one more octagon inside the patterned fabric (about 5'' diameter on the smallest one there), what do you think? 

I'm not quite sure what else to do in the big white area (bottom left) - there will be another vertical line  through the narrow bit above that branches out left and right into the area but I think that will still be too big an area so I might end up doing octagons there to.

I've been marking the lines as I'm going along with tailors chalk but its a bit thick and hard to get it accurate. So after seeing Lee @ Freshlypieced mention the FriXion pens I thought I'd give them a go (and I'm linking up with the WIP Wednesday!).

Monday 1 July 2013

Biased

I've finished two bean bag liners and they're waiting to be filled - that's a least a two person job though otherwise you get polystyrene beads everywhere, so it'll have to wait for a while.  One of the outers for the bean bags is finished as well... The little machine struggled a bit with the thickness of the fabric and zips etc so I had to force it through.

In more exciting news, the fabric for the Miette skirt is cut and I've started with sewing on the pockets.  I decided I wanted a bias tape edge from leftover fabric for the Tova top, so had a little experiment in making my own.  There's an excellent tutorial on the Colette Patterns website - here.  The only change I made to the instructions was the width of the tape - I decided I wanted a bit more fabric showing on the outside of my pockets so I increased the width of the tape to 1.5''.  I don't own a bias tape maker either so I had to do fiddly things with my iron.  The creases ended up being not that even, but the end result wasn't too bad?!


The plain blue cord like fabric that I'm using for the main part of the skirt is also fairly thick and the little machine struggled a bit with the thickness of the front centre seam with the pockets as well. But we got there in the end.  I'll be so happy when the big machine is back from the Doctor!  In fact, tonight I might even pin the Snowy Owl quilt in preparation.....