Not much sewing here

4 Sep

It was the last full week of the holidays and there was little time for sewing.  In fact it’s Sunday night and I can’t really remember what we have done this week!

Anyway I received a lovely parcel in the post on Friday.  It was from my Very Berry Handmade Scrap Swap partner who this time was the lovely lady Jane who writes on her blog Flaming Nora (that is one great name for a blog).  Go on over and have a peek at some of the amazing stuff she gets up to including knitting cars!

Inside my parcel were a lot of delicious things, some gorgeous green buttons, a handmade heart decoration, some ribbon and tape and some most amazing fabrics:

Some of them have been block printed by a friend of hers, others were bits of clothing and other presewn items, (a fabulous linen place-mat).  I’ll be cutting a square from each for scrap vomit and then ‘filing’ the remains in my newly organised boxes of scraps.  See, I now remember that was one of the things I did this week, sorted a large amount of scraps by colour and then found separate boxes for each colour.  It felt like a real achievement.

So thanks very much to Flaming Nora for the brilliant scrap swap (and to Ali for organising it), I love every piece and the girls tried to take pieces for their own ‘projects’, now I’m thinking I should have said ‘yes’.

The sewing I have managed to do this week has all been on the handkerchief quilt (that title makes me think it should be a small quilt, it most definitely is not).  On Wednesday I managed to get the bias binding strips cut and then sewn together and then sewn onto the quilt!  So the last few evenings have been spent hand sewing the other side of the binding on.  I would love to say it has gone well but that would be a lie and a pretence that perfection is easily achieved.  To be honest my backing fabric was probably 1/2 cm too short on a couple of sides, no ones fault but my own, so I’ve had to improvise on finishing off.  This has included unpicking some of the binding, trimming the quilt a little and sewing the binding back on.  Not my idea of fun but I am so nearly finished that I am not going to give up now.  (The quilt is on my knee now as I write waiting patiently for my attention!).

As usual I’ve kept my eye out at the charity shops, this week didn’t bring much until yesterday and I picked up some clothes for the children including a boys lambswool zip up cardigan from Monsoon in perfect condition for 50p!  OK it’s age 4-6yrs and ‘handwash only’ but for 50p it seemed wrong to leave it there!  I’m quite tempted to turn it into a cushion cover but might wait until he’s worn it a few times (he’s almost 2 so only another 2 years before it might fit!).  The only bit of fabric I bought was this:

I hope you can get an idea of the scale of the print, it’s quite large, I’m guessing that it was possibly part of a curtain, but I think it’s great and like most pieces of fabric I buy I’m now wondering what to do with it!  ‘Stop wondering start sewing’ might become my motto.

Today we decided that as we were awake early (no change there) we would go to the car boot.  We wondered around looking at other people’s unwanted toys, baby equipment and clothes hoping to find something other than these.  Eventually I came upon a gentleman selling mostly old vintage linen, sadly there was already another lady there picking up an enormous bundle and purchasing it all, I started to have a little panic that she might pick up more.  I had spotted a set that was identical to this one I bought last month.  It included a very faded duvet cover, sheet and pillowcase.  Bethan noticed that I was holding on to them and said ‘mum that’s the same as the one we’ve got at home’ so I put it down!  I still can’t quite believe my self discipline.  I then found some pillowcases:

This pink pair has a ‘Dorma’ label in and hand embroidered the word ‘Cousins’.  That could have been a surname or it could have been a special pair of pillowcases to be used just by cousins.  They feel brand new so maybe the cousins never visited.

And a stripey sheet:

Car boot sales do make me laugh, shoes with a sign ’50p each’, does that mean £1 per pair?  The pillowcases were labelled as £1 each but he sold me a pair for that price!  I even considered only buying one of each but then realised his pricing policy!

A bit further round there always seems to be a stall that has piles and piles of clothes and bedding on tables and on the ground, I’m not sure if it’s from house clearances or what but I always think there must be gold there somewhere!  Today Tobi pulled out this:

A pillowcase with a St Michaels label in (now Marks and Spencer).

So I felt like I had a successful morning, worth getting up and out of the house for.

School starts back for Bethan on Wednesday, Leah starts for the very first time on Wednesday afternoon for an hour and 45 minutes!  That continues for the rest of the week, next week it swaps to mornings and the following week mornings and lunch!  So I’m really not sure what I’m going to achieve over the next month but I need to do something as I have a number of Christmas fairs to sew for!

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5 Replies to “Not much sewing here

  1. Wow, I had that stripy sheet when I was little! It would make amazing bunting, I’m envious! X

  2. I remember that stripey sheet too – ours were flannelette and lovely and cosy. Those pillowcases are just great – what a lucky find. Car boots can either be brilliant or rubbish – you just need to go often to find ‘gold’! Love them!

  3. Loving all that 70s-esque fabric, my whole childhood was made up from those patterns, I dream of finding some sheets etc like that during my usual charity shop hops but never seem to come up trumps, I shall keep searching!

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