Freestyle

Experimenting again with some freestyle stitching in this wee singlet design.  Straight stitch around Mr Tortoise & then random twirls and circles of different coloured straight stitch over and around 3 fabric dots underneath.  Realise that ribbed material like this is not the best to use, especially as I am a bit lazy & didn't use any sort of fabric support to stop the ribbing from stretching one way & then the next.  But happy enough with the outcome overall.  Just lucky to find some time in the last week to do anything with working 4 days a week, building extensions happening around us and illness plaguing each one of us in turn.

'Bowl'ed over

My dad is a pretty handy man when it comes to turning wood.  These pictures of some of his bowls speak for themselves me thinks.

                                     

p.s. my mum's pretty handy when it comes to turning clay.  I'll show you what I mean sometime soon.....

ideas of wood

My dad does some amazing things with wood.  As a little kid I remember the jigsaw puzzles he used to make for  my brother & I.  Now things he makes are a bit more upmarket.  Mum rolls her eyes & sighs each time he comes home with another piece of wood he has found or scavenged, his eyes bright with the planned bowl he might work from it.  Poor dad, it's not the sort of hobby you can do on the quiet.  After-all,  it is a bit hard to hide a tree stump in the boot!

I must take and upload some pictures soon of some of the pieces he has gifted to me....

Anyhow, the reason I am thinking of dad's wood collection is having come across this clever little rustic pencil holder on another blog tonight.  I might just have to ask dad for a suitable off-cut to make one myself at some point....or maybe he will do it for me??

Nesting?!

Not sure I believe in the 'nesting' theory of expectant mothers.  The closest I came to 'nesting' before Little Imp was born was starting to make a lamp shade and light shade for her room. The lampshade I managed to finish before her birth, the light shade only had its final touches done just before her first birthday. So much for nesting!

I've always liked little creatures, and ladybugs and bees seemed easy enough to make out of felt, so that's where I began. Lots of fiddly snipping of felt and plenty of hand stitching later the bugs and bees were all in place on the calico I had cut to size to fit the shades.  The lamp was easy to finish off - just glued the calico and then lengths of red ribbons onto the shade.  The overhead light shade was a bit trickier, needing some sewing and trimming to get a neat fit, and I really struggled to find the right shade of red tassle trim that I was after.  So that is my excuse for the bare light bulb in Little Imp's room that has probably blinded her with each nappy change until I finally finished the shade a few months ago.