Little things

Still waiting on my sewing machine to come back from the shop. There is a 4-6 week waitlist where I live. Which is a bit crazy but not much you can do about it. I have often thought about training as a sewing machine mechanic for a second career as there is obviously a shortage but I can’t imagine the stress of looking after other people’s sewing machines.

I have been at a bit of a loose end while waiting so I decided to pull an inspiration pack out of my cupboard and have a play. For those not familiar with an inspiration pack it is a small selection of bits and bobs (ribbon, thread, buttons, embellishments), usually with a colour theme. The pack I used was black.

I did initially think about doing black on black but eventually settled on red with the idea of making something small I could hand stitch. This was the finished product. It’s three layers, mounted over a piece of art board. Not sure what it is for, but I quite like it. Though I am tempted to take the sequins off the corner at the top left.

Button bowl

I’ve been a bit obsessed of late with the excessive amount of craft supplies I have. I have drawing supplies, painting supplies, knitting wool, fabric, kits. I’m still fairly young but do wonder if I am leaving a burden for someone to have to figure out what to do with it all when I die.

My sewing machine is currently in for service so, along with making 8 point stars by hand, I decided to see if I could do something with some random, excessive piece of my stash.

I chose buttons. I have an old chocolate tin full of them. I know that may not sound excessive but it is a 1 kg tin (2.2 pounds for you non metric folks), and as a quilter I don’t use a lot of buttons. Maybe if I sewed clothes a stash of buttons might be more useful, but for quilting I’m limited.

I googled and came across the idea of a button bowl. I saw that all I would need was buttons, glue and a balloon and then stopped reading the instructions, cos how hard could it possibly be.

That probably wasn’t the best move. I ended up with glue everywhere and buttons sliding down my balloon on rivers of glue. I kind of got everything to stop moving and thought it didn’t look too bad.

Then, when it had dried a bit, I popped the balloon, and it was a complete disaster. It kind of curled up on itself. I tried to straighten it out a bit because it was still a bit malleable. I think the problem is, I probably should have waited a day or two to pop the balloon, to give the glue the chance to dry all the way out. I went to take a final photo a few minutes a go and it has gone completely hard now.

Also not sure I used the right glue.

As much of a failure as this was, I don’t think the photo below does it justice. The colours are actually quite pretty and it might make a nice desk caddy or the like for putting pins or stray threads in.

Definitely something worth trying again and seeing if I can perfect. Of course I barely made a dent in the buttons.

Quilt group activities?

Not sure how I got talked into it, but I agreed to be my quilt group’s night meeting coordinator. I can’t complain too much, I figure I have been going long enough it’s probably my turn.

The only problem is now I have to figure out what I am going to do with a bunch of ladies for the next year. A lot of time we just turn up and sew, knit and chat, but we like to scatter in activities through the year to give people the opportunity to learn something new.

Any one have any suggestions for some activities for a group of crafty ladies? Anything we could make by hand in a couple of hours would be perfect.

Sewing wise, I haven’t been up to much. Still working on eight point stars. Up to 29 out of 80. I feel like I am starting to master making them by machine though.

Eight point stars

I’m working my way through the seamstress quilt. The quilt has 80, eight-point stars and they are some what of a pain. I decided to machine sew them. That might have worked out okay if they were a bit bigger, but the finished size is 5 inches. Lots of tiny stretchy pieces. Even starching doesn’t seem to help that much. So far I have 10. Some I have done on the machine, and some I have done with English Paper Piecing. The English Paper Piecing ones are definitely tidier, but I don’t know that I want to hand sew 70 more stars.

I think I just need to practice some patience, put some music on and get on with it.

It’s finished

I posted last week about a bag I was feeling a bit stuck on. I finally got round to finishing up this evening and am quite pleased with it.

It does feel a bit weird cutting over all the stitching you have done, but the wrinkling round the edge of the stitched panel that I was worried about is barely noticeable. The pattern didn’t have top stitching round the top of the bag but I decided to put some anyway and glad I did.

Little progress

It feels like I am not making much progress. In reality I am actually getting a lot done. I spent almost half a day yesterday in the garden getting a start on trying to tame the mess brought about by all the rain we have been having. Today, I spent most of the day baking, and restocking my cupboards and freezer with some home made treats.

Here’s a small sampling of my stash, a date caramel slice and a double chocolate chip cookie. There is also a fruit cake and a loaf of home made bread.

My crafting has stalled a little though, mostly because I am at a technically challenging bit and I am avoiding it.

I started making a bag which has a sashiko panel. I have finished the panel but the next steps are to cut it to size and then zig zag all around the edges. Any time I have to cut through stitching freaks me out a little anyway but with this, the tension in my stitches is probably a little tight, which means the fabric is a little wrinkled. I know its going to be hard to get a really accurate cut. Might have to just give it a decent iron and accept that if I completely mess it up I can throw the whole thing in the bin.

It is a very pretty sashiko pattern though, with 3 different colours of thread.

Small projects

It has been really hot here lately, so I have been looking for small projects I can do while staying cool in front of the air conditioner.

I just finished this bookmark. I got the kit for it on my recent travels so it was a pleasant reminder of the trip and am enjoying using it on the book I am reading on the train.

Next project is going to be this Sashiko pouch. It’s slightly more complicated and may require me to break out the machine.

Finally finished

I’ve been working on this one for a while. I started hand quilting it years ago and then went through a period where I stopped hand quilting. I realised a few weeks back I only had a little bit left to go. After a few solid days of quilting and binding, it is finally finished.

Its over 2 metres wide so hard to get a good photo.

Now I need a new project.

Happy New Year

Hope you are all having a fantastic holiday period.

My work place closes over Christmas and New Year so I have had the last week off work. Weather wise we have been fluctuating between extreme heat and big storms so aside from Christmas day with family most of the last week has been spent indoors.

I pulled a quilt off my UFO pile, that I started hand quilting many years ago, and decided its time to finish it. So, a lot of quilting, napping and watching tv has happened. Probably more napping than anything else.

I’ve also made some good progress on my quilt group challenge. At my last quilt group meeting of the year we had a slightly different gift exchange. At a previous meeting everyone was given an identical box and a list of what to include (things like a piece of fabric and some thread). The boxes were then exchanged and the challenge is to make something with the contents of the box you received before our first meeting of 2024.

This is what I received and it’s definitely a challenge. I couldn’t think of anything that could have used all of it in one item.

This is what I came up with so far…

I used the Christmas buttons to make a button tree wall hanging.

I put the fabric I received on the back, as the buttons would have disappeared if I had used it on the front.

Then with the elastic I made a pencil roll with the elastic and the pink thread.

I still have the butterfly charms, crochet angel and the blue thread but not sure what to do with them. I might just consider the challenge complete at this point.

Disappearing hourglass medallion

I finally finished the disappearing hourglass. I was struggling with how to quilt it and decided in the end to just straight line in a bigger grid because I didn’t want the quilting to distract from the pattern.

Now I just need a new project.