Crafty Happenings - Week 5

 

Look at that - a blue sky and no rain - we've had a couple of days like that this week, it makes me feel so much better :)

 

 

Well, given these Crafty updates are all I'm posting at the moment I'm ridiculously late with last week's but I have an excuse - it was P's birthday, My Boy was home from Uni with his Girlfriend for a visit and My Girl moved out into a flat for the first time.  Frankly, it's been manic and, despite having a few days off I am totally knackered!

 

I didn't manage much of a crafty nature but everything counts right?

 

Finished Object:

 

No not this, this is donkey's years old

 

 My Girl and her Flatmate need a draught excluder for their front door - yes, I appreciate this is a doorstop but I had found the pattern I'd previously used for this so I just made it longer ...

 

 

Done - and using a curtain remnant I bought only a few weeks ago and the remains of a bag of toy stuffing I've had knocking about for years - I'm calling this £2.00 - bargain!

 

 

 Fabric:

Some fat eighths - they always come in useful - I might have a bit of a thing about polka dots ...

Both of these fabrics were 50% off in the sale  - I have a plan.
Oh, more dots, fancy that.

And these ... with dots, again.

I had the print at the front already - my brother gave me an early Christmas voucher for Britex
when we were in San Francisco at the end of last year.
It was always destined to be napkins for our dining table - I just needed the right backing fabric -
who knew it would have polka dots?
 

And this is the table runner I started last April -
I realised the 'perfect' backing fabric wasn't out there and I actually want to
get it finished and use it so I bought the solid and I'm looking forward to getting it done.
Oh no dots, shame :)
 

I know I haven't finished my quilt but this layer cake was
seriously discounted in the sale and I have a pattern I want to make already planned and in my
'to do' queue.
I absolutely will not start it until my other quilt is finished :)

 

 

Supplies:

No I don't need any more wool but it was ridiculously cheap and
it matches the sofa in our Board Room, in fact you can hardly see it,
I'm inadvertently camouflaging the stuff I bring into the house!

 

I picked this up in the charity shop - I love the patterns and you
trace them onto grided sewing paper. 
I have very strong memories of my mother making patterns this way when I was very small
 - from scratch mind you, she's very talented.
Even the illustrations on this book blend in with the sofa!



 

 

Jacq

x

 

 

 



Crafty Happenings - Week 2

 

Well I didn't actually mean for these weekly progress posts to be the only thing I write but that's how it's turned out.

It's working for me though, having had what I thought was a pretty un-crafty week, looking back there's been much more than I thought.  Still nothing actually finished but I'm not counting!

 

And I've been slowly catching up with the backlog of posts on blogs I follow, I'm under 100 so getting there!

So, Week 2 then:

Fabric:

 

 

1 metre fabric remnant for £5 - perfect for the replacement cushions I'm
planning for our sitting room

 

This is the wallpaper in our sitting room - I think the fabric will work brilliantly with it and there's enough variation in it to mix them up a bit.

I'm looking for fabric for new bedroom curtains - I keep picking up bits of fabric in every shop I go into - this may eventually negate the saving of making the curtains myself, unless we choose the fabric pretty soon!

 

This silver fabric is entirely hideous to work with (and look at!) - £3.50 per metre

 

We're having a fundraiser at work on Tuesday - it involves an Abba dance routine (I am not sure how I got talked into it!) and very dodgy costumes.  I'm having to make alterations to 3 of the tops.  This silver fabric is part of my attempt to cover our modesty - the overlocker has been an absolute godsend with this awful unravelly fabric - on the plus side you now can't see our underwear through the costume!

We are going to be hopeless, I'm hoping the sparkly fabric temporarily blinds the audience!

 

Supplies:





800g of 4ply baby yarn and a 2.5mm hook -
order arrived in the post this week





This is the shawl pattern I'm planning on making

 

Our friends J&C (whose wedding stationery I made here) are expecting their first baby in June - lovely news :)

 



2 magazines I picked up for a song in the market

I'm a total cheapskate - I do love crafty magazines but they're so expensive and I often only like 1 or perhaps 2 projects so I don't buy them regularly.  These are a couple of months old - doesn't bother me in the slightest for 75p each!



Cross-stitch:

 

Tiny bit of progress made on P's Batman picture

 

 

Quilting:

 

These are the fabrics I've chosen for my setting triangles & borders -
the quilt is 'on point', not that I realised that's what I was doing

I took a trip to Hometown in Rochester on Wednesday - it's a wonderful quilting supplies shop.  I even managed to have a coffee with Rachel so it was a lovely crafty day.  Oh and my purchases mean I've got enough stamps on my card for a 'free' metre of fabric on my next visit - P and I apparently have a different understanding of what 'free' means!

 

They were so helpful in the shop -
none of the fabrics were in the jelly roll but they are from the same range
so work beautifully together



 

I've managed to cut and attach all the setting & corner triangles -these are the first 4 rows sewn together, only another 7 to go to finish the centre of the quilt.



I also signed up for this Craftsy course this week -
I think I'm going to need to some figuring out how to quilt a king-sized
project on my machine!


 



And whilst I was about it I signed up for this free mini-course too -
I like to have a better understanding of using colour
in a quilt






So that's it - I apparently fit crafty moments into my week and even I don't notice.

 

Jacq

x