Yep, I embroidered

I felt like a bit of soothing hand stitching and I wanted to try out some beautiful embroidery thread we ordered in for the shop. So yes, I decided to embellish my Linen Esme Top with a little crossed embroidery stitch.

The thread actually has a lovely subtle variation in colour as it goes along (I hesitate to use the 'ombre' word which is everywhere but I don't even know how to pronounce... omber? ombray? ombra? ormb?). It's hard to see here but because I did the bottom of the cross stitches in one go and then went back the other way over the top, sometimes the top and bottom of the cross have a pretty contrast.

I realised one of the things I love about the Esme Top so much is that the sleeved are bias cut, which gives them a lovely drape. Such a nice detail.

In case you are wondering about the necklace, it's this adorable happy sloth I got from Etsy here. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling majorly stressed and, you know, pulled in a thousand directions at once and not on top of any of it, so naturally, I was hit by a primal urge to buy something pretty for me! I'm fairly good at containing that urge lately but oh, sometimes, I give in....

We've had a heap of short weeks lately which have been a killer, what with Easter and a long weekend and a 'pupil free day' on Monday of the last week of term so it has been so hard to cram in all the work I've needed to get done. Plus Andy is deep in rehearsals for the biggest new show his company has ever done so he's hardly home. And, um, we're trying to get the shop open, and now it's two weeks of school holidays and, ack... so on that pupil free day I took the boys to my favourite haven of the Botanic Gardens and we had some welcome fresh air and sunshine, which I invite you to share. Breathe ..... :)

- Jane x

the kitteh love the quilt

Charlie's quilt is more-or-less finished, except that it's a continuing work in progress as I add some hand-quilting detail with perle cotton. That is, when I can find the quilt unoccupied by boy and/or feline.

Elodie was rather suspicious of me hanging it on the line for a photo.

No really, I'm not looking at it, this is not bothering me at all.

The fabric is Tula Pink's Prince Charming, for my boy who loves frogs and green. Plus a couple of linens: one from the stash (Japanese I think) and some chocolate linen from the shop-around-the-corner.

There's a reasonable amount of wonkiness, which I don't mind since the original rows of patterned fabrics were bothering me a bit with their... straightness. The stretchiness of the linens and the wanderings of Charlie's sewing together of all the rows have given it that handmade look I prefer. (Even if I have had to patch up a few seam holes.)

It's rather jolly vast - longer than my washing line will wind up off the ground - and wasn't the easiest thing to manipulate under the machine to quilt along each row.

And I think I'll keep going with the perle cotton stitching for quite a while. The more I do the more I like it (and the more it distracts from the imperfect machine quilting). And wow, I've never used perle cotton before. It's so much lovelier than standard embroidery thread to use. And isn't hand stitching soothing? Hand quilting by the fire is something I can see myself doing for many winters to come.

- Jane x

another hoodie 'n' stuff

I'm excited by the success of Clem's purple hoodie... so excited I have a bit more velour on its way in the post soon for the other boys. In the meantime, I hunted around for old clothes to try my hand at re-purposing. I see a lot of lovely creative use of old t-shirts and sweatshirts around the bloggy world and I really admire the ethic.
I dug out an old grey hoodie of Andy's that I'd started embroidering aeons ago, but it was old and ragged and not worth continuing with. And I found another that had a great print but Andy had never really liked the fit (online purchase). And another Spoonflower scrap.
Chop, chop.
Sew, sew.

Clem was delighted by the idea of another hoodie with 'this music thing' on it. (Pattern from Sublime Stitching.)
But it's been too warm here to wear it and he was not in the mood for photos.

Pattern was Farbenmix Yorik again. I lengthened the arms and body a little this time. I'm sure it will be worn in due course.

I've actually been sewing like mad lately and have also churned out some new PJ pants for the almost-11-year-old:

totally Franken-patterned, not worth crediting but the fabric is flannelette 'Boabab by 2 Mod Moms'

and a teeny tiny version of the Envelope Neck Tee from Growing Up Sew Liberated, for my brother's soon-to-be-born little boy.

Wow, baby clothes use up such a tiny amount of fabric! I would never have thought I could get an entire garment out of that little scrap I had left of these toadstools. There was a lot of frustration and unpicking over sewing the neck binding. Not the pattern's fault, it's just I was trying to get all clever with my coverstitch machine. I ended up using the single needle 'chain stitch' feature for the first time. The manual rather unhelpfully suggests this stitch is useful for wovens or other fabrics with little stretch.  Uh, isn't that what you use a regular sewing machine for? So I turned to the good old internet and found this reference to my machine, which shows the chain stitch used on stretch fabric. And yeah, it works. It looks like a regular straight stitch on top, but on the bottom is kind of loopy which allows it to stretch. It's fairly simple to swap from cover stitch to chain stitch and back so I can see myself using it a bit. Now I know what the heck it's for.

And you know what? I really really really should be doing some work that's urgently needed for first thing tomorrow but instead I've been watching Home & Away and blogging and reading Harry Potter to the big boys and having a cup of tea and I can put it off no longer.

See ya round like a rissole!

- Jane x

most convincing reason for an iPhone yet

I've never really been able to justify an iPhone and I'm not sure that I want to be that permanently connected anyway. Besides, the kids would non-stop pester me for 'a go on it'.
But if I could cross-stitch it a sweet cover?
So tempting!

(from The Purl Bee)

- Jane x

I made a lemon, so I reached for the gin

It was a Stuff Up, but became Something Better.
I was doing some more pants lengthening for Clem, calculated the width of my add-ons wrongly, and they were too narrow.
Ditch and start again? No! Seize the opportunity to experiment!

I set my machine to zigzag, turned the pants inside out and narrowed the legs down. Chopped off the excess. Added the cuffs. Success - and slimmer pants, just how I like them on my boys!

By the time I convinced him to pose for these photos, the pants were sporting a few stains.

Hard to see, but it's a cute Kokka fabric with bees holding teapots and things.

I liked them so much I did the next pair slim, too.

The t-shirt was a super-quick embellishment project.
My sister-in-law gave me some lovely fabric remnants from Sprout Design. I cut out a picture, stuck it on with iron-on adhesive and stitched some embroidery thread around it. Done.
This week it's been husband away, kids sick, unable to go in to work or be social. These kind of simple but constructive projects help keep me sane. Look, I did something other than wipe snot!

- Jane x

Nothing says Happy Birthday like....

Inspired by Steph's hilarious posting of her unfinished cross-stitch, here's a pic of the gift I lovingly crafted for my husband's recent 39th birthday.

Design credit goes to Sublime Stitching, whose guts I also love. I love their daschunds, little houses, electric guitars and hundreds of other funky designs, too. This was actually a free pdf download for Valentine's day.