This week's Sewing

 Hello everyone I thought I would share a bit of sewing this week, none of it is seasonal because it is work sewing but sharing here in case you are planning next years summer holiday wardrobe in advance.  I know people do that don't they, book the sunny holidays and look ahead during the cold dark months.  We will be looking for campsites for the new year soon, but as we are in the UK for our holidays  and we always take the dogs, it will be about April before we get off anywhere.  I want the  weather to have warmed up a bit first!

This is the Style ARC Teddy top made up in a size 18, now this was made up in this size but I could not resist trying on and have now decided I like it so much I am going to do a lot of grading and make it my size.

The colour is a really nice red although it looks more coral on this photo and the fabric is a ramie linen.

Next up we have a summer dress, and this one has a cross over front.  Personally I don't always seem to do very well wearing a crossover as they do seem to gape on me, even with adjustments.  This one though comes higher up in the style so I do like the fit of this pattern.

Many of my days start off filming in the daylight and end up in the dark, I have three lights going while I sew late afternoon.  Trying not to think too much about the energy this uses, we are doing our best to keep the heating to a low level but  what with this weeks freeezing temperatures and snow, I feel we have not kept to that resolve either.   

I made  and filmed another dress yesterday but have not put the photographs on here yet just the film clips, I will share another day.  More frills on that one and a full wrap style.

Today we have been out for a long walk with family, the sun is shining so that looked really pretty with the snow.  It is really sticking around the snow at the moment when normally it melts after a few days, where we live the road is just ice.  After weeks of listening to the weather forecast telling us how mild it is, is this payback?  How dare we have such a mild Autumn.

Did I mention I have a new sewing book?  I thought I would treat myself to this one as there has been a lot of people raving about it.  It wasn't cheap but it is a reference book and I used my birthday money so that is ok.  It is The Palmer / Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting, now I have been fitting clothes for years and mainly I have  to say doing it my own way, but it is full of interesting tips, advice and bits of history.  I am enjoying it so far.  Let me know below if you have this book and how you find it.  One of the most eye opening things for me has been the information about measuring for bust size and then choosing your pattern size using your high bust measurement.  On standard dress patterns I am sure there are people the world over who have been using their full bust measurement, I did!

Yesterday my son rescued three small coffee tables that were going in a skip at work that his boss was throwing out.  He contacted me as he knows I love to recycle furniture  they are now here so I will be sanding and painting those in the new year.  The smallest one is going at the side of younger son's bed and the other two? who knows, but I could not see them just thrown in the rubbish and they are wood too.

Right,  I am off  to try out some almond and cranberry biscuits,  I have a  basis of a recipe but it is not gluten free and I will change it a bit as I always do.  This time I will try to remember to take some photos before eating them all.

Keep warm everyone and have a relaxing weekend. 

Festive Dog coats

 Hello everyone and first of all can I say thank you for all your kind comments on my last post, it is so nice to know people are still reading and blogging is still a form that people want. To be more structured in the new year I was thinking of using 'the morning pages' from The Artists Way book. I did not finish the course last time, just read through in the end! 

 Now when I did part of that course earlier this year I did find the morning pages really hard going and I did not continue with it.  This was mainly because you were not to have a purpose for them but just to a brain emptying session every morning and also not read back through it.  I found that very time consuming and also rather pointless at times, three whole pages even if it means writing down I can't think what to write.  However I am now thinking if I adapt it to suit my needs better it could be useful, I will read through, sort ideas and plan from them.  Not what Julia had in mind but better for me I think, so hopefully this will help contibute towards blog posts, projects and plans for things I want to make and do.

On the subject of making I have whizzed off three festive dog coats this afternoon using more of that ever dwindling Christmas fabric.  I really do use all of my fabric and there are only small amounts left of the original bits now.  This did mean sewing strips together down the middle to make pieces big enough for the coats and I did want all three dogs matching but there was just not enough.  So as it is Bonnie and Clyde match and Little Marvin has his own design.  I am very happy with them, there is a waterproof layer (shopping bag) between the festive fabric and sweater fabric  so if it does rain they will not have wet backs at least.  They are not big on rain anyway so we usually wait for it to stop but we sometimes get caught in it.   Here they are and they would not stand still!...

                                                            Trying to hide behind dad's leg.

My two Jack Russels are Thirteen now so they do feel the cold more, layering fabric in these coats is a good way to make use of all the odd bits too.

There is the argument that these will not look like this for long based on the state the dogs are in when we get home, but things wash  and at least all the fabric was what I had.  It is just velcro for the fasteners and the little collar parts are cord fabric leftovers.

Over the last few evenings we have been watching a  drama series called flesh and Bone (very raunchy) this will nbot be everyones cup of tea and did think of not continuing half way through but  stuck with it as I really enjoy the ballet side of it.  It was just a shame that there wasn't more of the dancing and less of the pointless nudity, not being a prude it was just a bit much.  A brilliant dance scene at the end though. 

We have had a very long cold walk earlier today, and tommorow I am out for brunch for my Christmas meet up with friends so I hope it isn't too frosty as I don't  like driving in those conditions.  Have a lovely time whatever you are up to.  Bye for now. 

A December Start

 Hello to anyone who is still dropping by, I have been pretty much tied to my laptop or sewing machine but still not managed to get on here to post although I have to say it doesn't look like there is much activity anyway recently!  Have people stopped reading blogs? Please let me know if this is the case, I am very old fashioned and still like to read them myself. 

I have made a fabric wreath using up lots of oddments of Christmas fabric, the base is card wrapped in packaging then covered with fabric and all the leaves, cones, bow etc are handmade.  I did buy the three little bells but the rest is all handstitched.  I really love it when you can make something you want from recycled bits and not have to buy any special crafty bits.  It can be expensive to buy all the specialist equipment like wreath hoops and things like that, I much prefer to have my Blue  Peter moments (for those of you that watched that).  The cones were  result of a bit of experimentation, I am happy with their shapes and it has inspired me to create more things like this.  I seem to remember seeing a book in Waterstones about paper flowers that was very gorgeous, I have birthday money so I am thinking a trip to the shop may be in order to purchase that book.  Fabric and paper flowers coming up!  Anyway enough of the waffling, here is my wreath...

There have been lots of images floating around of very full wreaths covered in all sorts and of course you can make them as full as you desire but I got to this point and thought any more would just spoil the effect so I stopped.  What do you think?

I have a few more ideas of Christmas things I want to make, don't you always find you get to this stage of the year and one minute it is the 1st of December and the next you are running out of time for all the things you wanted to make.  Well one thing is some festive dog coats and I think if I plan on the dogs getting to wear these planned coats I had better get a move on.

Card making too, I am usually pretty good at getting this done as I tend to set aside a couple of chunks of time and get them all done.  That is going to have to start this week as we are seeing out of town relatives this Thursday so I can hand some over then.

I have had another few bad books in the reading department, one that was quite good was 'The Maidens' a little bit over done in places but it kept me turning the pages.  I have just started 'The Women of Troy' so we will see about that one.  My husband has bought me four Anthony Horrowitz books as a gift so I hope they will be good reads, not my usual  style but I did request some as I am trying new genres.

We had a lovely walk around Lagsett reservoire  on Friday morning before people were all aound.  We got there for eight fifteen so it was lovely if somewhat foggy .

Well I hope you are all having a lovely start to the festive season, let me know if you are still out there by leaving a comment, I do love to read them.  Bye for now.