long time no see - err read - or something

In case anyone actually reads this blog - my apologies for not having anything to read for the past 10 months.  No excuses, just never got around to writing anything.

I currently have the urge to give my bedroom a make over.  Last time I tried that I got the window coverings sorted - painted the original terracotta vertical blinds a lovely shade of mottled green - and sponged more green paint onto 3/4 of the walls.  The last wall was never done as there is a lot of big furniture and 'stuff' along it - the whole length of it.

Now I am tired of green and want to go white.  So far I have made covers for the blinds and put them on.  They don't sit very well at all.  The fabric - a thick white cotton damask which I quite like - wants to buckle the blades of the blinds.  So of a night we get light in.  Not so bad most nights, but when the back neighbours leave their back light on - well let's just say I may as well have the blinds completely open.

Our bed is a mattress and base.  I have just now this minute come up with a simple idea to cover the base without having a loose valance over it.  Get a fitted sheet in the required colour/pattern, take off the mattress and put said fitted sheet on the base.  Brilliant isn't it?  Why I never thought of that before I'll never know.  All this talk about making / buying a gathered valance, making sure it stays put is now redundant.  I just have to make sure I get one that has a deep enough side wall.  Manchester Department here I come.

In the middle of some sewing

I have managed to do 2 paintings.

They are Christmas themed and copies of ones I have seen on the web.  But I still consider them originals - cause I made them.

This one I did first - starting out with the easiest - sorry about the glare in the pic.  It's not very large - only approx. 10" x 8".  It's companion piece is the same size.

Again more glare...  That's what I get for using gloss varnish.

This guy's face took me a couple of goes to get right, but I am really happy with the way he turned out.

They are both being donated to the cali clubs my girls are associated with as part of their concert raffle hampers.  With a bit of luck they won't be buried underneath a pile of other stuff.

On the sewing front - I have been making more Angel Gowns. 

The current wedding dress has revealed 30 angel gowns!  I am nearly finished with this lot.  I only have 10 more to sew up and then 14 pairs of bootees to knit.  Once that is all done, all that is left is to photograph each gown by itself and then as a group and send it all off back to the organisers.

I will be glad to see the end of this dress....

I have also managed to do a bit of crochet - a few butterflies as angel keepsakes as well as an angel done with 2 granny squares and some pipe cleaners (chenille sticks).

Angel Gowns

You may remember from my last post that I was making some Angel Gowns out of a wedding dress.  Well I have finished all the gowns from that dress - 15 in all.  Some are quite basic and others are not. 

 

The one below is not so basic...

 

This one below is a basic one...

 

This one below is my favourite.  It nearly didn't get sent back to the organisation to be sent out...

I think the lace on this one is too wide - oh well, live and learn as they say...

 

That one was from the front of the wedding dress.  All I had to do was cut it out at the right spot.  Some family is going to be very happy to dress their little Angel in this gown.

 

I also made up bootees for each gown in matching colours.  Some of the bootees are only 1 inch - 2.5cm - long.  Sooo tiny!

 

Now that these have been handed over I am now onto another wedding dress.  This dress had a really long train with small buttons all down it - from waist to hem.  Can you guess what some Angel Gowns will look like??

Sewing, sewing and some more sewing....

I got a request from a friend to make her 8yo daughter a colonial type dress for an olden days dress up at school.  Once I told her the cost to own it, I thought she was going to say that it was too expensive.  But she didn't and so I made this.....

They wanted a bonnet too, so she got this.....

 

This is her wearing it ready to go to school.

 

She was very excited when I dropped it off to her the night before she got to wear it. 

We decided on a hire fee due the cost to own it.  The mum has even let other mums know that I make this sort of thing to hire.  It will be interesting to see how far that goes.

I also made these the last 2 days....

A boy's burial gown and a girls....

The fabric for them came from this wedding dress....

The satin is a lot finer than I originally thought so they are bit of a pain to make.  I have yet to use any of the chiffon from the dress - that will be in some more angel gowns that I will be making.  As you can see from the watermark in the last pic these are Angel Gowns for Australian Angel Babies.

I have also recently made 2 table runners for a local elderly lady.  She is going through her stash and projects and getting me to make family heirlooms. 

They are the same pattern using different fabrics.  One set of fabrics she chose, the other I chose.  I think I like the bottom one better colourwise.

I also made a costume bag for another friend - didn't take a pic of that.  That's just too boring.....

I got the urge to Paint

again recently.  I have done some internet searches for ideas and inspiration.  Went thru my stock of canvases to see what I had - mostly large ones.  Even found my watercolour supplies (that I had yet to crack open).

There are many paintings with sayings on them around these days.  I like the idea.  It seems to be quick and fairly easy to do.  So I came up with m own.  I was a bit unsure about the underpainting at first.  I used different blues, some purples a couple of oranges and some white.  Then I added in some iridescent purple.  Whilst mixing the paints all over the canvas I did make 'mud' - oops.  That's what I get for combining orange and purple.  Oh well.  I was also unsure if the letters I had would a) stick to the painted canvas, and b) not pull of any paint when I took them off.  Luckily they didn't.  They didn't stick down very well at the edges, so there is some bleed under.  Must remember that for the next one I do. 

This is what I came up with......

  It kind of reminds me of winters first storm - snow and all.  The phrase is from a book I have been reading lately - or rather a series of books (I'm onto #2) - you can probably guess which one.

The canvas is 61cm square - a good size for this.  Now I want to do 'you are my sunshine' with a yellow top coat, 'love is in the air' with maybe a pink top coat.

Still not having satisfied my paint urge I got out the watercolours and had a play with them.  I think I like them - the paints that is not necessarily what I did with them, though the red flower is not too bad.

I have since outlined the green splotch on the petal and given it legs - now it's a bug.

I have packed all my paints away for the time being, but they will come back out soon.  I would love to be able to run paint classes from home - ones where everyone is given the same pattern and uses the same paint colours.  We'll see about this venture......

two more finishes

Last week I finally pulled the proverbial finger out and finished off a small quilt that I started last year.  It was a Small Quilt Talk Challenge quilt - forget which month.  all I had to do was finish off appliqueing the bottom leaves on and then quilt it.  But now it is all done. 

See.....

 

 

I outlined around the border and the pot as well as around the flower.  Then I fmq'd a stipple in the white area and in the bottom pink floral area beside the pot.  I also did a couple of rows echoing the shape of the pot on the inside of it.

 

It's a bit hard to see, but here's a close up.....

 

I think it turned out ok.  Ok enough for me to then try the same fmq'ing on a larger quilt.

 



Here's a closer look at this one......

I did a medium stipple in all the white areas and then finished it off with a line around the inside of the black border, 2 lines down the middle of it, plus the binding turn over.  I took the excess baking and just folded it over to the front to make the 'binding'.

I must say I am really happy with the way this turned out.  Ok, I can pick fault with the quilting.  My machine didn't want to have nice tension and I broke a needle and then it kept coming unthreaded.  But I think for a first go at something like this I didn't too bad of a job.

It is being donated to Camberwell Showtime for them raffle off - either separately or as part of their silent auction night, so I hope they like it.  I used 2 different colours of grey - a light, a medium and a satin (that's the shiny stars in the pics).

The success of this gets me all inspired to drag out one of the many quilts-in-waiting and have a go on them.

Recent Craft Endeavours

Lately I have been bitten by the knitting bug.  In order to get over it quickly I have been knitting little things.  Things like these.....

and these.....

I have also been doing a bit of dress making.  Not for me or anyone I know, but baby burial items.  I found some moire taffeta and some satin in my stash of fabrics and I made these two dresses.....

The funny looking thing at the top of the above pic is a small bonnet.  The bootees can be seen better in the first pic.

I have about 8 flannelette  burial gowns too and I am knitting bonnets and bootees to go with them.  I also need to make some bloomers - luckily I also found some silk lining fabric that will suffice.

There is an Australian chapter of Angel Baby Gowns and I intend the satin items to go to them - if they ever answer my numerous emails.  If they don't that's their loss as I know a midwife who would take them.