Sewing Into The Weekend

This is how my family sees me most evenings at the moment; hunched in the corner with my 'daylight' lamp, sewing the night away. As you can see, I have set up a little sewing bar stool 'station' of my essentials.

The nights are getting cooler and usually at this time of year, I think about my yearly winter knitting or crochet project. This year I won't be making anything up with wonderfully warm wool as I am having one of my busiest years yet - volunteering, teaching and a revival in stencil workshops has seen me so busy that I simply don't even have my evenings free anymore to think about crochet.

Luckily, I have a sidebar full of bloggers who are knitting or hooking away and I am living my yearly project ideas through their talent and creativity. Sometimes when I am sewing away here in the evenings, I think about how far I've come, internet wise. I would never have believed 20 years ago that I would have quilting friends throughout the world and be part of an online blogging quilting group either. Its really wonderful to see how small our creative worlds are and how easily connected they are these days. What a great time to be creative in...

WOW: LE2 Progress

WOW = WIPs On Wednesdays 

When I designed my AQC Love Entwined workshop, LE2, I thought I'd have plenty of time to get all that hand sewing done and down. And I suppose I don't have to tell you what happened next? That's right, time ran away with all my good intentions and planning! Somehow I am still hand sewing my top in all the spare time I have. I don't think I have ever done so much hand sewing ever! It's intense. Any yet, as with anything associated with Love Entwined, its somehow also addictive and I just keep on going.

I've made a lot of progress and the end is finally in sight. I have about 100 hours left of hand sewing on this top to go.

As you can see from the picture above, I am working on a whole cloth which I created by joining several pieces of fabric together as I couldn't find a whole cloth big enough in the fabric I wanted. You can barely see the join in real life with the eye, but somehow the camera really picks it up in this image. And here is the back, all my neat small hand sewn stitched. I have a renewed enthusiasm for everything Love Entwined at the moment and have already heard from a few of my AQC students. I'm really looking forward to our workshop together and know that it will be 'time' in no time.

Can you believe it's already March? Almost Easter? The year is marching on! As for me, today I will be hand sewing and hopefully I'll get in a good 10 hours before my fingers demand I stop.

What's Your WOW ?

An InLinkz Link-up

My Tinkering Bag

Earlier this year I started volunteering in a young women's sewing group. They're interested in basics like hemming, using different sewing machines and decor projects like cushions and curtains. I've had a lot of fun teaching them what I know and although I haven't made quilters of them yet - I've got the rest of the year to accomplish that!

What I've found most interesting so far has been seeing how they purchase fabrics (and what influences them to do so) and learning about what captivates their interests. I'm a quilter and am in somewhat of a quilting 'loop' so I'm fascinated to see first hand how new sewers are approaching 'sewing'. All of them are taking their sewing cues from Pinterest which I find really interesting. And through Pinterest they came across Craftsy and through Craftsy they each purchased a pattern for making a kind of utility bag. I've been teaching them how to follow patterns and make up these bags, but don't have a pattern myself. So, when making LE gets too much for my fingers, I've been playing around with my own version. I've been tinkering around with it for a few weeks now and am almost finished.

I'm working by eye, so mine isn't exactly 'right' but its perfect for me and I'm adjusting it to suit my 'portable' sewing needs as I've never found a carry along bag that does. Thinking about it, I don't know what took me so long to come up with the motivation to make my own! Finally I can make compartments with zips - plenty of zips!

Any opportunity to raid my stash is a good opportunity!

My tinkering bag needs a collapsible 'bin' that can safely hold threads and broken needles ( I am finding that many needles are breaking mid use and I really wonder what that is about? dropping quality?) before I can dispose of them safely. And of course, my lid is an impromptu pin cushion! You can never have too many pins when you're hand sewing!

Afterwards, it twists down nice and small for packing away.

Now I just have to create my outer cover and add some handles and probably a top zip too.Until now I've been using smaller bags kept in a larger bag and rummaging through them whenever I need to take my teaching tools anywhere - it's too messy. As for this new style, I hope to get it done today. I'm finding that I need to take me sewing around with me more and more and it's about time I had a tinkering bag all of my own!

FREE Pattern: Oma's Easter is launched

This year I've been thinking about Oma's Blues a lot. I have my blue stash at the ready and although I haven't started my own Oma yet, I'm getting such a kick from seeing everyone else makes theirs - its always on my mind!

Thanks so much to everyone who is sharing their progress and images over in the Yahoo Group, I really love seeing what you do and its almost as good as making my own - I get all the eye candy without any of the hard work. For the time being, anyway :)

You know I love to release an Easter project each year and this year is no different. I've designed an 18 x 14 inch wall hanging (mine will go on our kitchen door, its the perfect size) and I've styled it in Oma style to fit right in with Oma's Blues (when I eventually have my own hanging in our dining room). I love these two bunnies. There's a boy and a girl here meeting up over a delft inspired egg nestled beneath a folk heart. The cornices are a styled return to Oma and I like the delft-ish feel so much that I feel a cushion coming on....perhaps an early Christmas project? Time will tell...

I'm really happy to share my own Easter project with you again this year and can't wait to see how you make and style your own. 

I opted for blue and white as this is the stash I'm busting in 2015, but I couldn't help going wild with colour and here's my bright spring version:

This pattern is available for free over in my Facebook Bom Group and suits all applique styles. To be really fast, I'm thinking of making mine with fusible and will blog it during the week when I do, so stay tuned...

Oma's Blues is my current free BOM. You can download it for free over in the files area of my Facebook Oma's Blues BOM Group. Oma's Easter is the Oma's Blues Easter project for 2015 and will be available for free until Easter.