Sunday, June 5, 2016

I blinked and it was suddenly June!

...and with June came our fist taste of wintery weather....perfect for being in the sewing room listening to the rain and prepping some stitching for a couple of days off later in the week.

My walking partner has been away and I am running out of excuses (to myself) for not getting up and walking in the mornings....it is pretty dark at a little after 6am....so that's an excuse I have been using a bit...the cold is another one but that is wearing a bit thin so I have taken to walking in my lunch break at work......some days.......



I caught up with a friend a couple of weeks ago and we visited a local shop and bought some of the Tula Pink hardware......the snips are amazing - they live on the sewing machine and are incredibly handy...the shears are also wonderful but to be honest I am just a little bit afraid of the blade on the Surgical Seam Ripper - to be used with caution I think - and not to be left lying about when little people are around.....I removed the cover for the photo, but believe me it stays firmly on at all other times (except of course when it's being used to reverse sew!) 



The next thing on my "to do" list is to make a scissor caddy for the shears......Svetlana at Sotak Handmade has a tutorial on her blog for one which looks like it would do the job very well.  

Emma at Treehouse Textiles has a lovely pattern - Sweet Sunday Quilt - which I have been seeing a bit of on Instragram of late.....so that has now come to stay with me along with the templates and fabric pack to get me started...


....... it also prompted a visit to a local antique shop which sells doilies and other embroidered articles - you can spend quite a bit of time sorting through the piles of finished and some unfinished pieces - watched over at all times by the owner of the shop who has quite a sharp tongue and polices the signs which let you know to keep the piles neat and tidy and not to mix them up....she is pretty formidable really and I am always conscious of her eyes on me!  Still, I came away with a few pieces which could be useful in the quilt.....always an experience!!


Last weekend I machine quilted this little Gail Pan table runner which has been sitting there just waiting for it's turn to be finished for quite a while.....I was sure I had the binding already cut and waiting with it....but no...can't find it anywhere so it needs to wait a little longer to be completely finished.....


on the occasions when I feel like stitching in the evenings (and to keep myself awake after about 7.30pm!) I have been working on this piece also from Gail which is lovely to stitch with it's happy little gingerbread man, reindeer and one of Gail's trademark birds......and Christmas will be here before we know it!!


Also finished and yet to be gifted is this book pillow for Lenny.....it is made with some left over fabrics from his quilt and I am looking for the perfect book to put with it before I give it to him. The pattern is from the book Growing Up Modern by Allison Harris (aka Cluck Cluck Sew


So that is about it for now......not a lot happening on the stitching front....work has been busy and the weekends fly by so fast there are some weekends I don't even get into the sewing room!   

but......I have had, for the first time since I have lived in this house (6 years...) rodents in the cupboard under the sink....eeeeeeuuuuuww!  I think the wet/cold has driven them to find warmer lodgings......Stinky little critters!  So to the hardware to buy some baits to put in the back of the cupboard.....the baits had the "one feed kills" slogan ....pffffttt.....I am not believing that for a minute - or I had a squillion meeces visiting my cupboard!! ...because the baits were being eaten a little bit more every day......with me peering into the cupboard at intervals, rubbing my hands together and in my best witchy voice urging them to "eat up my pretties"....and so eventually the eating and pooping stopped and the cupboard has been cleaned and disinfected (again) - perhaps it was the disinfectant that drove them away!! Hopefully they stay away!

Yesterday was Saturday.....and I usually stay in bed a little longer on Saturdays.....but yesterday the neighbourhood dogs were going nuts and there was the loud ....very loud.....sound of a hot air balloon 'firing" up....on investigation I saw that the house across the road appeared to have a balloon growing from it's roof.....


...which after much "swooshing" became this......I hope they enjoyed the ride ...with a ground temp of about 2C it would have been pretty chilly up there!


Well, that was a longer post than I thought.....and not much done with regard to prepping some stitching for the end of the week.....but I will get back to that later tonight.

'til next time......Lorraine

3 comments:

Chookyblue...... said...

nice to see you pop in.........nice shopping goodies there........the blade looks dangerous............
shove steel wool in any gaps and they don't like it.........

AnnieO said...

Lovely stitching going on as usual! I adore those old-fashioned linens and had to chuckle at the school marm policewoman in the antique shop! My goodness. Love Lenny's pillow. Hope your rodents have been eradicated. Yuck indeed! We are enjoying some warm days and cool foggy mornings typical for early summer and crossing our fingers the hot hot heat that plagued our coast for months and months last year will be brief.

flossypatchedbritches said...

I loved reading your new post, thanks. Your pix & tales often mimic mine as I live just down the road. However, my stitching can't compare to yours. Lenny's pillow is nice & bright. He is a lucky boy. I have a nickname for said antique store proprietor. I reckon others might too. Always brace myself before entering but still can't resist the treasure trove. Excellent doyley stash you collected. Thanks for sharing - your posts are always a pleasure.