Finished projects, "Me Made" items and future plans

The first piece to be finished this week was mum's quilt. I returned it to her on Friday and her first action was to put in on her chair ready to settle down cosily. An old friend returning home.

She found it hard to see exactly where the repairs had been done. Just as I had hoped. It was lovely to see that the quilt was welcomed so enthusiastically.

My cardigan was finished on Saturday. I replaced the orange ribbing strip with this beige shade. It seems to work so much better. I was lucky to find these buttons during the week. They are shell buttons with a printed motif.

The final item to be finished this week was completed only today, Sunday. My blue denim trousers just need a good final pressing before I can wear them. Hot Patterns 1217 Weekender Utility Cargo Pants. These are the third pair I have made.

I have challenged myself to wear a minimum of two "Me Made" items each day as a way of finding out which clothing items I really enjoy wearing. This is based on "Me Made May", an online event which encourages dressmakers to take photographs of them selves wearing clothing which they have made as well as making more projects. One particular collection could see me wearing both my newly completed items. For the moment, Aggie is modelling the clothes for me.

I think the only problem with making this idea public is that I ought to take photographs as a record. Hopefully, I will be able to remember.

The fabric shown here is a two metre length of navy Ponte Roma. During the Moulton Sewing Group meeting on Wednesday, I heard about a shop I had never heard of. Weaverdee is an online site with a base in Middlewich, which is opening as a shop. Travelling to visit mum on Friday, I took a minor detour to see if I could find this shop. It was well worth the visit. The shop sells sewing machines, does repairs and also sells haberdashery and fabric. The ponte roma above came home with me in company with a collection of sewing machine needles. I really enjoyed looking round.

The ponte is destined for one of these tops - shirt 121 from the September edition of Burda Style. I also have the blue floral jersey fabric waiting to be made up into another top. The plan is to get around to making these very soon. Well, as soon as I can get a couple of projects finished. One of these, the MEG block has to be finished by Friday ready for the next meeting. 

September 2018 edition of Burda Style

I have three toiles to complete within the next two weeks. The first is an amended toile for the fitting course whilst the others will be trial runs for the Vogue fitting shells. We have decided to try these as well as working on the pattern supplied with the "Sew the perfect fit" course. The course is really demanding and I find myself learning a lot. It will be interesting to see how these patterns relate to the course.

So many things to do

Well, it has been rather busy here since I last posted. My brown jumper is now complete, although it is still too warm to wear it just yet. At least it will be ready and waiting for me when the cold weather does arrive.

There has been a lot of work done knitting the scrappy cardigan. I have completed the left sleeve , both fronts and am now working my way across the right shoulder. This will be a really cosy cardigan once it is complete.

I found these three stamps going very cheaply in a local charity shop a few days ago. I don't usually do any paper crafts, but these will be interesting to work with. I'm going to experiment and see if they will print on my collection of dyecatchers since are very similar in texture to paper.

These three pieces were completed at a recent NWCQ workshop where we were making postcard sized landscapes using scraps of fabric. These have been free machine embroidered using variegated threads. I am not sure exactly what I will use these for just yet, but will not be sending them through the post since I feel they are rather too dull. I will probably add to these to make larger pieces.

Walking into Aldi a few days ago, I discovered a series of these packs. There are five different dyes contained in applicator bottles ready to be filled with water and used. I couldn't resist, picking up this pack. It contains yellow, lime green, leaf green, brown and black. An interesting combination of colours.

Yesterday, I prepared 3m of calico. After washing the calico I tied rubber bands around sections of the fabric pleated other areas using bulldog clips. I had a lot of fun applying the dyes. This morning the fabric was ready for the next stage - rinsing out the excess dye and then a gentle washing and a final rinse. The fabric is now drying on my indoor washing rack.

The colours may well have been rather more intense had I added less water to each bottle, but I am rather pleased with the results.

I worried myself the other day by listing all the projects I would like to complete in the next week or so. There were fifteen in all. One needs to be completed by Wednesday so I really must get on with that first.