All Dressed Up but Not Many Places to Go

Hello friends,

Before any hint of lockdown I had decided I needed some new summer clothes.  I have lost some weight recently (deliberately) and a lot of clothes were now too big, or a bit worn out!  Then we became confined to home, and I felt happy and comfortable in a tee shirt and my collection of Miette skirts and dressmaking fell by the wayside.  My cupboard of delicious Liberty Lawn fabrics kept calling me though so I decided to make a couple of dresses for the odd occasions I do anything more glamorous than food shopping at the moment!

I used one of my favourite patterns, New Look 6224, but a view I hadn't used before, the one with flutter sleeves.  I decided to make both dresses in the same style as the fabric was different enough to get away with it.  This also meant I could cut both out at the same time.  Clever, eh? 

I'm really pleased with how they turned out.  The sleeves are so light and fluttery, but provide a bit of coverage from either the sun (Thursday) or the wind (Saturday).  At the moment we are experiencing four seasons of weather in the space of week!

It was nice to do some dressmaking as recently I have done mostly quilting.  I have three on the go!  The quilt for our bed, the wedding quilt for my daughter and her fiance, and a quilted wallhanging.  As the wallhanging is by far the smallest, (the other two are King Size quilts) I decided to make this my project-to-finish-during-lockdown and I'm happy to say I have finished all the blocks and have started stitching them together.  It is a raw-edge applique quilt, and each block was quite labour intensive so took a while.  I'm not going to give away anything else but wait until it's completely finished and then reveal it!  

Oh, I did also make a quick project - a new peg bag!  Ours was literally hanging by a thread so I made a new one from a lovely piece of sturdy calico, which I also used for the lining. I embroidered the front with Sunbonnet Sue, which was a pattern by Anita Goodesign.  The photo isn't great as it's hanging on a white door after I'd given it a final press, but here it is anyway!

Back to joining quilt blocks now!

Take best care,

Donna x 

A Long Overdue Taa-Daa!

Hello my friends,

I hope all is well with you, wherever you are in the world, in these extraordinary times.

The beautiful weather has continued here in the UK, only breaking yesterday with some rain and cooler temperatures  I have spent much of my time in the garden, pottering, planting, keeping on top of tidying bulbs and perennials as they come and go, and making sure to take time to enjoy just sitting in the garden.  We have eaten many meals outside and drunk lots of pots of tea!

I'm not really great at sitting doing nothing so I decided to use the time in the outdoors, in the daylight, to finish hand stitching the set of placemats I started months ago.  I had actually finished four, but you may remember the project grew and grew and I found myself making ten!  If I am making a quilted project that is going to be seen from both sides I like to hand stitch the binding down on the back, rather than machine stitch it, which I often do for a wallhanging quilt.  You may also remember that I loathe and detest hand sewing! Consequently I had parked the remaining six placemats, with bindings full of pins, like so many Very Cross Hedgehogs, for 'another day'.  That day - many days in fact - arrived and lots of tiny stitches later I have a full set of placemats. Here they are...

I am so pleased with them!  The fabrics are all from the 'Hedgerow' range, by Lewis and Irene, and the embroidery patterns are by Anita Goodesign. 

I used the Quilt as you Go method to make the blocks, with an 80/20 wadding (batting) and then quilted them with a layer of heat resistant 'Insul-Brite', purchased from the good people at Empress Mills, Lancashire. 

I make things to be used, so these are in use every single day, and I try to be philosophical about the odd gravy or sauce spot, but I am glad my family are being extra specially careful with them so far!

All good wishes,  

Donna x