Hello my friends,
I hope all is well with you and your loved ones and you are managing to take something positive from these strange and sometimes scary days.
I've been enjoying flitting from project to project, interspersing time in the garden with time in my sewing room. The garden has been loving the early heat we've been blessed with. We are fortunate enough to have a separate vegetable garden and it's already providing us with fresh herbs, overwintered chard, rhubarb and leeks. This year's salad crops are coming along well and this is my lettuce bed.
We eat tons of salad, so I sow a pinch of lettuce seeds every two weeks to keep us in continuous pickings. I also sow a sprinkle of rocket seeds every week to ten days, as we absolutely adore rocket and eat it every which way and as often as we can.
I promised you a sneak peek of some completed quilt blocks for the King Size quilt I am making for our bed. Each block is made up of four 8 inch 'blocklets', therefore each complete block is 16 inches square, making it very difficult to photograph three in a row! I stood on the bed, wobbling around like mad, and this was the best photo I could get!
The pattern is by Anita Goodesign and is called 'Floral Rings' and the fabrics are by Moda and Rose and Hubble. Each block is 'quilt as you go', and it will have an extra layer of cotton quilt batting added when I put it together. This is going to be a loooong project!
Now definitely provides the opportunity to search among the stash to find materials to use for projects, and I found this cotton furnishing fabric to make some cushion covers for the bench in the front garden. I also made a seat cushion for the bench, so that during these days at home we can sit in the front garden and say hello to passers by! Now I've finished this project the rain has arrived, but on the next dry day when I put the cushions out I will take a photo for you!
I bought a pattern for baby clothes, as my dear friend has become a first time grandmother to a beautiful baby girl. I decided to make a little dress, and to save cutting the pattern I traced off the size I wanted to make, using some ordinary tracing paper. The pattern is Butterick 5624.
I finished the dress today and here it is!
This is the back view.
The fabric is Liberty Tana Lawn, a piece just big enough that I found in my fabric cupboard, left over from a shirt I made for my daughter. I posted it off today and I hope the baby's parents like it!
The last project I have to show you today is a teeny tiny project I am making, following my friend Lucy's pattern, at Attic24. She made the most beautiful spring garland and I fancied doing some thread crochet so I am making it using Scheepjes Sweet Treat crochet cotton and a 2mm hook. It's a lovely pattern and the blossoms are so dainty!
And there we have it. A few projects I have been working on to help the days pass by in a happy and contented way. I'd love to hear what projects you have on the go at the moment. Please leave a message below!
Stay safe and well and I'll 'see you' soon.
Donna x
Hello my friends,
Well, I'm so sorry that I didn't return with the promised Projects Post, but not long after I last wrote I fell ill again, and this time it seems it actually was Covid-19, according to our doctor. My husband developed it too and both of us were quite poorly for a while, but fortunately able to treat the symptoms at home, although it meant 10 days in bed for me, and 7 days for my husband, which is unheard of! I am pleased to say we are now symptom free but still get tired out very easily and can't do much without lots of rest breaks!
I didn't feel well enough to knit or crochet much and certainly not to sew, but I am pleased to say I am back in my sewing room this week, making some progress on my bed quilt. It's going to be quite heavily embroidered so I am keeping the fabrics fairly simple and light. The lemon and the printed fabric are Rose and Hubble (lemon poplin and lemon on cream poplin respectively) and the plain cream is Moda Bella 'Snow'. I'll show you some blocks once I have a few completed. It's going to be a big quilt - over 80 inches square - so this is a project for the long haul!
As I said, I haven't knitted or crocheted much but I made a couple of dishcloths. This one is a favourite and is a free crochet pattern on Ravelry called 'Spread the Joy', by Catherine Richardson. It's a lovely, simple pattern, and makes a good and textured 'scrubby' cloth. I used some Patons DK Cotton I found in a charity shop. Our kitchen is painted blue so it even matches!
Before all this happened I had almost finished a dress for my daughter, who was meant to be coming home for Easter, with her fiance, but sadly lockdown made that impossible. However, I hemmed her dress on Saturday and sent her a couple of pictures instead of her Easter dress! I am pleased to say she really liked it and commented it is the colour of a Cadbury's Mini Egg, which I hadn't noticed before, but she's absolutely right - it is! Very apt for an Easter present dress. It's made in a heavier weight polka dot cotton, which I lined with Liberty Cotton Lawn in a plain cream colour.
I've also been making squares for my friendship blanket, which you may remember is squares of leftover 4 ply sock yarn donated by my lovely friends at Cooper's Creative Group. It's coming along well and I love snuggling up in it as I stitch in another square. Like a woolly hug from my dear friends, even though we can't physically meet up at this time.
If there's been one consolation during our enforced time at home it's that the weather has been glorious here and we have been able to sit outside in the garden in the sunshine most days. My husband and son moved the stone bench up on to the patio so I can take my cup of tea outside without getting the cushions for the 'big furniture' out. Also, I am not overlooked by anyone, meaning I am OK for early cups of tea in my dressing gown!
It's just been announced we are in for at least another three weeks of lockdown, so with all this time at home I hope to have some blocks to show you soon!!
I sincerely hope wherever you are in the world you are coping OK and that those you love are safe. Keep well, well safe and take care of one another.
With all good wishes,
Donna x
EDIT: Goodness knows what happened to my photos after I uploaded this post! Hopefully I have managed to fix it now. x
