A Liberty Needle Book

Woohoo - I have a TADA moment.  The Liberty needle book I started last week is finished.

• It measures approximately 5.5" x 14" and  folds into three sections.
• The exterior is made up of a piece of vintage embroidery, some scraps of soft denim and some of my favourite Liberty prints.  I especially love that bright ditzy floral on the front.
• The interior is made up of an ivory solid and a dainty floral from Robyn Pandolph's most appropriately named Love and Liberty range, which perfectly matched the lining.  The inner left section is a pocket divided into two and edged with a small binding of one of my favourite Liberty prints. The  middle section is a piece of beautiful coral hand dyed felt, also edged with Liberty binding,  and the right section a small zip up pocket.  
• All folded together and tied up with a matching cerise ribbon.

I am so pleased with how this has turned out.  My mission tomorrow, as long as I am not  called into work is to make the second paper pieced knight chess piece, Who knows, I may even get inspired and finish the cushion.  Housework is over rated after all,

Wednesday WIP

Lately I have been feeling as though I have lost my sewjo.  Whether it has been because of the projects I'm sewing (some colours and fabrics just do not inspire me) or the amount of sewing I have been doing for Christmas and various swaps, I don't know.  Anyhoo, last night while the family were at Scouts, I decided to be brave and cut into my beautiful Liberty fabrics.  Miss B has taken permanent loan of my current needle book, so I am making myself a new one.

Utilising some vintage embroidered  linen that belonged to my Gran, some soft denim scraps and some favoured prints, I started sewing.  I had no real plan as to the design of the exterior, so it is not just QAYG but also design as I go. So far two thirds of the exterior have been completed. I have a busy week  work wise, so this will be a slow selfish sewing project.  Perhaps as a reward for completing some of the items I am procrastinating on.

I survived that heart stopping moment of the first cuts into my Liberty, and am now wondering, if I should be keeping all scraps of it.  How small is too small to be useful?

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Warm Wishes Sent

A little while ago, I was invited to participate in The Warm Wishes Swap via Flickr. Last  week I posted off my package of handmade goodies to Andrea, and amazingly she received them in a week.  Normally postage to the USA take about 15 days to arrive at their destination.  Anyhoo, I am digressing, now that she has received them, I can do the big reveal of what I sent her. I have previously shown some snippets of what I was making on an earlier post so here goes.

First up was an embroidery/sewing folio, inspired by this one and this one.  It measures about 7.5" x 16" opened and 7.5' x 8" closed.
I designed and embroidered the feather, made a QAYG cover from various aqua, lime and linen fabrics, and then appliqued the feather to the front.  The inner is linen, with a firm interfacing.  On the left hand inner,  A piece of wool felt is attached for a needle/pin keep, and there is a pin cushion for when it is in use too.  On the right hand inner I made double layer pockets, one the full size, and the top layer of pockets is divided into two pockets.  In the middle of the folio, I made a page of little PVC pockets for embroidery threads cards. This was my first time sewing this material, and I am really pleased with how it turned out. Probably the hardest thing was sewing a curved zip around the pouch, then attaching my own bias binding to it.  Overall I am really pleased with how it has turned out.

I also made Andrea a decorative embroidery hoop to hang on her sewing room wall. Some DS fabrics, embroidery threads, ribbon and jet plane sweets completed the package.

Now I am eagerly awaiting to find out what she has sent me.

Ideas that Work

Don't you just love it when ideas that pop into your head while you are trying to get to sleep, actually work when you try them the next day.

• Hand stitching and beading - done - now just to figure out what I'm doing with the rest of it.
• QAYG scraps backed with fabric and turned into Christmas trees - just some ribbon, buttons and beads to add.

Linking up to Made by Hand today

Weekending

A quiet weekend with all my family home.  Everyone taking time out to do their own thing this weekend.
My thing was sewing.

• a scrappy quilt as you go (QAYG) block
• a lining cut to match
• finally sewn up into this cute dumpling  (or as Mr J says a small taco) pouch from this tutorial, small enough to keep in my bag, and stop the lipsticks from rolling around.

and when that was finished my sewing space had a big clean up and was re-organised.  Already for my next project and no doubt the mess that will follow.

What did you make this weekend?

Weekending

Lots of reading (see previous post), lots of time in the kitchen and lots of sewing

• playing around with scraps and paper piceing, my triangles are so much more accurate this way
• honey and orange roasted rhubarb from my garden
• making my special  herb coating for slow roasted pork - it contains garlic, fennel seed, chili flakes, salt, oregano and freshly chopped rosemary, rubbed all over then slowly roasted for 3-4 hours
• brown sugar rhubarb brioche for breakfast on Sunday
• some quilt as you go and vintage embroidery for the needlebook I am making my partner in the Simple & Sweet Scrappy Swap

What did you do this weekend?