May Stitching Progress

It is time to have a look at all that I achieved on the crafting front during May.  You can pop back here to see what my grand wish list consisted of.

Firstly, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks were made.  Easy Peasy.

My Chookshed Challenge was completed.  Yay!

I have now joined in with Betty’s Rainbow Quilters and completed the nominated block for the month.  You received some feature fabric, in this case the batik centre piece and the small teal squares, and make the block following the pattern provided, in the colours requested and return it to Betty to be put into a quilt.  A bit of fun, but not too onerous.  This block is very effective and I look forward to seeing how the quilt comes together in the future.

During my short time at the sewing machine, I have managed to piece a further ten pairs towards the Bonnie Lass leader and ender quilt.  Only a squillion more to go.

I have made good progress on the crochet rug.  This is the first time I have seen it laid out.  As soon as I finish this ball of yarn, I will stop making it any longer and do the decrease rows to fill in the corner.  That will take a further two balls of yarn.  Following that, I will do a few rows of something around it as a simple border.  Watch this space.  I’m eager to get it finished, so Mick can use it and I can work on something else.  

I didn’t make a start on the hexagon panel and I have made no progress on any of the projects that I took to Scrub Stitchin’, and that doesn’t matter in the least. This is supposed to be fun. 

I managed to complete 15 minutes of crafting on 27/31 days.

119/151 days = 78.81%

I only managed to empty one thread spool. That is better than nothing.  I may have something to do with spending very little time at the sewing machine.  Who’d have thought.

Now to think about what to do in June.

Chookshed Challenge #8 Is Complete

Can you believe it.  I actually completed a Chookshed Challenge project within the month!

I did not expect to get this project completed in May, but we did not expect to be back home after only about a week away.  Let’s recap.  You can read my initial post here. 

So, this was the kit I was working with.

As I explained at the time, I replaced the embroidered centre hexagons with vintage doiley pieces.  Despite saying I would include a yellow fabric, it was too strong.  In the end I made the three EPP motifs the same.

The kit used two different background fabrics for the blocks.  They were from fabric that was cut at ten inches square.  I felt that an extra half inch would give the motifs just a smidge more room to breathe, so would use something else.  I have a box of fabric labeled “Pretty”, so I was hoping to find something suitable in there, and I did.

This super soft green on cream was ideal.

I also wasn’t too fussed on the border fabric.  It was a bit too lolly pink I felt.  Therefore I auditioned a few options, all with the striped binding fabric that came in the kit.  

This is what came with the kit.  When I look at it now, it would have been fine.

This fabric was one of the fabrics that came with the kit and was to be the background for one of the blocks.  I liked it, but then realised that it was directional and that wouldn’t work.

I found this one in the Pretty box.  Mmm, that’s OK.  Still a bit too pink.

Let’s try something else from the Pretty box.  Maybe a bit to green.

Now, what if you refold the fabric, which has large florals?  That’s better.  

Next to look for some batting.  I knew I didn’t have sufficient iron on batting, but maybe I could make some frankenbatting that would work, and also use up of some of those small bits.  

It worked….just.  Mum would be proud of my frugality.  She was always careful with fabric usage.  If ever she used a commercial pattern, she would lay it out at home before purchasing fabric and inevitably found that you didn’t need as much as the pattern recommended.

I found a backing fabric in the Pretty box that would work but I’m not that fussed on.  You won’t see it, so a great way to use it up.

So, here it is.  All finished on the 29th of May.  

And the back.

I am so very pleased to tick this one off the list.  It is very “pretty”.  In the end, the only fabrics I used from the kit are the pink and blue in the EPP and the binding, but I am happy with the fabric choices I ended up making.  The other fabrics from the kit have now been added to the “Pretty” box for use in the future.

I am linking up with Deana.  Pop over to see what the other girls achieved.

Now, we just need to have a nice afternoon tea with pretty cups and saucers.

Musings While Sewing on a Button

What!  Two mending/adjusting activities in a week!

A few days ago a button mysteriously appeared on my sewing machine.  I didn’t know what the story was behind it, so I just sat it to the side to investigate later.

Today it became apparent where it had come from, when we were doing the groceries this morning.  Mick was wearing some work trousers, minus button, just held in position by his belt!  Oh, Mick!  I suppose that is one way to get me to replace a button……and that explains the button on the sewing machine.

As it was a button that needed to be sewn on with a shank, I had to get out my old original pin tin (well it is actually plastic).  This is the one that Mum bought for me when we started to do craft at school in 3rd class.  It is a Dorcas and originally had a yellow foam pincushion on top.  

The reason that I needed this particular pin tin is that is where the essential button sewing on tool is kept.

A match.  Not just any match, but the one I have been using for I reckon for about 45 years when sewing on buttons.  Surprisingly, it even still had the phosphorus head intact.

Anyway, the button was duly attached and I won’t be embarrassed when Mick wears these trousers next time.  Oh, and the match has been put back where it belongs, in the pin tin.

Musings While Hemming Trousers

I needed to buy some new “good” trousers, ie: not jeans.  While walking up the street towards the shopping centre I had to pass the Red Cross shop and decided to pop in and see if there was anything there.  I don’t often think to visit an op shop when looking for clothes, but maybe I could be lucky.

Well, this time I was definitely in luck.  I came away with a pair of charcoal Sportscraft woollen trousers that looked like they had never been worn for  the princely sum of $12.00.  You have to be very happy with that.  They fit like a glove, other than being way too long, which is the usual story for this shorty.

Taking up hems is not one of my favourite jobs, but needs must.  

While I was doing the hand stitching, I remembered how much I like stitching with woollen fabrics.  When I used to make my own clothes in my teens and early 20s, wool was my favourite fabric to work with.  It has a lovely hand and drape.  These trousers are from a nice fine woollen suiting.  They will be lovely to wear.

I also got to thinking about how I used to take up hems commercially…….. Well, as a teenager in the early 1980s,  I used to get paid $5.00 to take trouser hems up for the fellow next door.  When I think about it, that wasn’t too bad for back then.

I also had a paid job of hand stitching down the waist bands on wrap around skirts that a friend’s mother used to make out of calico and hand paint with designs.  They were quite the fashion item around here back then.  The waist band and long ties were finished, but the hem was just zig zagged for the purchaser to hem themselves.  I was paid $5.00 per waist band.

These days I will just stick to taking up hems for myself, Mum and Mick, if necessary.  That’s far more than enough.

A Walk Through the Garden

Someone has just celebrated his birthday.  I baked a lemon drizzle cake for him, using our own lemons.

The weather has been kind of crazy here lately.  We are towards the end of May and we still haven’t had a frost.  We were very close, right at the start of April, but not really even close since then.  It has also been rather dry.  We have had bits and pieces of rain, but not a lot, so quite a bit of watering has still been happening.  With the latest weather event that has caused serious flooding all down the east coast of NSW, we have received just 12mm.  That was rather lovely, as it was nice and gentle, so all soaked in.

Anyway, let’s see what is happening at the moment.

Firstly, our lemon tree in a pot has had its first decent crop of lemons, with fifteen.  The last couple of years we have only had a couple.

We are starting to see some of the winter flowers emerge.

I love the faded colour of the hydrangea blooms as they fade. In addition to these, the daphne is budding up nicely.

There are quite a few summer flowers that are still hanging in there.  Some frosts will put paid to them.

We also have some colour in the pots on the back verandah.  Inside, the zygocactus are budding up.  They will be a hot pink.

Not much is happening in the vege patch.  The rainbow chard is still going strong and surprisingly, the strawberries are still putting out the occasional flower and berry.  That won’t last for much longer.

We have done a tiny bit of planting.  We have put in a lot of onions and planted out a bulb worth of garlic cloves.  If you look closely, you can see a few of our weedy little onions and at the bottom of the photo you can see the garlic sticking its head out.  These were only planted a week before the photo was taken, so we were a little surprised to see how quickly the garlic have emerged.  The rain we received over the last day or so will have done them the world of good.

So, that’s where things are at present.  Most things will now go into hibernation until the ground warms up in September.