Hoops, bags and bees.... WIP Wednesday on a Saturday

One of the hazards of this time of year is that sewing in the evenings after the kids are gone to bed means that the light is rubbish for photos. So today, I took advantage of the lovely bright sunny day to take some pictures of my work in progress.

I have a few different projects that I'm working on at the moment, which is nice, because only having one or two projects on the go at any time is not good for my sewing energy, I've realised. The busier I am, in terms of the number of sewing projects and the deadlines, the more inspired I am.  So this week my plan is to get moving again on another few quilt WIPs that totally stalled over this summer. But for now, this is my WIP list.

First up - Project Rachel's room. I've been slowly but surely decluttering the stuff stored in Miss Rachel's room (the peril of being the 3rd child and occupying the "spare room") to turn into a more girlie, fun space for her now that she is old enough to toddle round and play on the floor in there with her toys.

The head of her cot (and in future her bed) is placed in a shallow alcove, and its a perfect space for a  display of hoops to decorate it.I had some hoops, and filled them with lovely fabric prints I had - the unicorn is my favourite. I have lots more to do - I'm waiting on more hoops to arrive, and then, I couldn't resist ordering the princess print from FFA for one of them (although given the time its taking to arrive I suspect that the lovely people in customs may have snaffled it as it arrived in the country from the USA along with some lovely other bits I ordered.)

I'm also working on an embroidery hoop for her too. I got this as a custom design from Lilipopo, isn't it lovely? Can't wait to get it finished. I was short a few colours, in particular reds and blues, so now have restocked ready to tackle that toadstool!

I'm also working on 2 other embroidery projects, both intended as Christmas decorations this year. One is the Lilipopo stitchalong, which uses a lovely free download pattern of a winter girl. I decided to follow one of the suggested colour schemes for this one, so that it would be nice and relaxing with no decisions to be made, and so glad I did. I'm close enough to keeping up with the stitchalong, but you'd easily catch up with it if you still wanted to join in.

The other is the carol singers embroidery I started last year but had to abandon after my eyes started to protest. Hoping to get this moving again and finished will in time for Christmas.

My sidekick tote is moving along well. I didn't have woven interfacing so I used the regular fusible stuff and forgot how it creases up a bit after sewing. Need to go over that pocket with a very hot iron and try and sort out those creases. I'm also waiting for more of theWallflowers fabric to arrive for the strap for this (in the same package as the FFA). Sigh. Think I will get the zipper and lining done tomorrow and then its just a waiting game before I can finish it.

I am shamefully behind with my Modern Irish Bee blocks. I finally managed one for Anna, but I need to get my ass in gear and get the rest done. I do love her crazy scrapy block though - I think the idea to place the fussy-cut "centre" off centre was a bit inspired really.

Lastly, I have my charms cut for another baby boy quilt, this one for my sister in law's brand new nephew. I'm a bit behind with this one, as he arrived a few weeks ago but its ok, because being a newlywed, she is off on honeymoon :-) and I will have it done before she gets back.

Little Pearl Dress

Thank you everyone for your lovely comments on my last post. It was nice to hear that other people struggle with the same issues. I think that Lynz hit the nail on the head when she mentioned the whole "blogging mojo" issue - because sometimes, I am sewing, just not blogging, or reading blogs. I blame Instagram and the temptation to just post a picture without the effort of writing a blog post. And also, if I manage to create a half hour window for myself and its a choice between sewing or blogging, I'll always pick sewing.

But to move on, I realised during the week that I hadn't shared the Little Pearl dress finish on here, although I did post some pics on Instgram at the time. So in case you haven't seen it, I did finally finish the Little Pearl dress for Miss Rachel. I used the pattern in the "Liberty Love" book which was easy to follow, and I used beautiful lawn from Seamstar to make it.

I was really please with how it turned out. I added the ruffle on the front after much deliberation and auditioning of contrast fabrics for it. In the end, I stuck to the same lavender solid that I used for the lining and this was definitely the right choice. I didn't anticipate how much the ruffle would add to the finished look - it really brings the dress up a notch I think. I had a nice matching ribbon and some small pearlised type buttons that worked well.


And I managed to do the buttonholes with only one minor mishap. It took me ages to space them right, and then after practising on scraps a few times I tackled them. All but one went well, and I managed to fix the problem one without too much swearing.  I really like the buttons I picked for the back.

I tried it on Miss Rachel wondering if it would still fit, as it had been a while since I cut it. But thankfully it did. I did notice she has shot up a couple of inches over the summer because originally this dress was good bit longer on her than it now is, but that's ok.  You can see the length best in the bottom photo.

It hangs nicely on the back too, I'm happy about that because I had to do a little adjusting to get the ends meeting up properly and wondered if it would affect how it hung.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this, I just need to find some shoes that go with it for Miss Rachel to start modelling it properly (red shoes SO do not go).

This was one of my list of finishes in the FAL, so I'll happily add it to my  (small) list of finishes for the quarter.

Hauling my sewing mojo back from the brink

So. It's been a while. (A long while.)

That thing...my sewing mojo (what's that I hear you ask) appears to have deserted me. Well, ok, maybe not quite so dramatic as that, because that other thing (REAL LIFE) has been interfering, but still. It's been a month since I blogged (bad Sarah).  The summary is like this: family wedding in Poland in late August, meaning that mid August taken over by school prep, then travelling to Warsaw and eastern Poland for my baby brother's wedding (wonderful and so much fun, and totally different from an Irish wedding!) then returning home and straight into back-to-schoool and after-school activities (music, tin whistle, cello, Irish Dancing, hurling, athletics...yes, you get the idea) plus work, baby stuff, blah blah blah. Oh yeah, and as usual back to school = children bringing home bugs and infecting the rest of us (i.e. me and miss Rachel with their sore throat/runny nose etc) To summarise: its been busy. (understatement of the year)


Anyway.

I signed up for the Instagram mini quilt swap. I'm pretty excited by this. I got my partner details and saw her inspiration mosaic and its right up my street. But somehow, between sorting out the kids, and getting back on top of my workload and getting up in the middle of the night with the poor congested baba, and taking every over-the-counter medication known to mankind to cure my own sore throat/flu, I managed to forget to sort out my own inspiration mosaic. So here it is.

It appears that my latest "thing" is low volume + rainbow. Who knew? Funnily enough, making myself do this mosaic turned into a "Good. Thing." I was happily liking photos on Flick and found myself wanting to, you know, sew. More than once. Possibily I might break out the rotary cutter tomorrow (and, hold the headlines, I might even do it before all the housework is done!!) Result. The sewing mojo is finding its way back.

 Anyways, I love the look of these and if my partner is anywhere close to any of these I will be a happy bunny.  But if anyone wants to volunteer to, you know, drive my kids to after school activities, or turn up at my desk and pretend to be me for a week or so, that would be awesome. No takers? Really? And I thought you all loved me so much....