The last remnants of Christmas

I've finally finished the last of the sewing I started before Christmas - and Emma now has lots of these little body suits.

I managed to make every possible mistake while making these. I realised I could get the two patterned ones out of the piece of fabric I'd bought, instead of just one, if I was careful cutting it out but then cut one sleeve out using the wrong size pattern piece. Despite that mistake, I managed to cut out the two garments and then sewed the two fronts together and the two backs together. Having corrected that mistake, I then sewed the pink terry toweling garment together so that the front overlapped the back at the neck, instead of the other way around. But they are together in the right order now.

Emma's Christmas present

I've finally finished Emma's Christmas present - 2 weeks late but better late than never. The pattern is McCall's 2213 and it's a nice cool outfit for our current heat wave.


Here's a back view, which I think is cuter than the front view.

Tyvek adventures

Tyvek + Lumiere paint + heat = a lot of fun.

I've been hearing about the wonders of Tyvek for years and finally got hold of some - and had some time to play around with it. I free machine stitched these pieces before painting and heat-shrinking them to see if the stitching would have any effect - it didn't.

This one is painted with Lumiere Halo Blue Gold.


This one is Halo Pink Gold.


And this one is Halo Violet Gold.


I will probably just put the pieces away for now until I decide what to do with them but I can see possibilities for hand and machine embroidery.

A tracksuit for Emma

I found a remnant of pink terry toweling while shopping at Spotlight about a month ago and immediately saw its potential (I think it cost $2.30). I started the tracksuit before Christmas, along with several other things, but this is the only one I've finished so far.

Happy New Year

I'm looking forward to textile adventures aplenty in 2010. When I started this blog about 18 months ago, I was recovering from an operation on my left wrist and had very little use of either hand. In April last year, I had an operation on my right wrist. Both operations were very successful and I have slowly been getting back into the wonderful world of textiles. I currently have sewing, knitting, embroidery and quilting projects on the go (it didn't take me long to start lots of new UFOs).

I made this quilt for Luke James, who was arrived just 2 weeks ago on 18 December. His mother is very fond of cats and appreciated the cat theme in the quilt.

Visual diaries

In early December, I did a course on visual diaries. I thought the course would be about keeping a visual diary and was very surprised when I received the materials list to find that we were going to make a book. I nearly pulled out of the course but then decided to give it a go. Barbara Jackson, a local art teacher, was a good teacher and I was pleasantly surprised to find that bookbinding could be fun and easy.

We started by making a simple pamphlet book.


And then moved onto a more complex concertina book.


We did spend a bit of time working on what to put into journals - and Barbara showed us lots of examples of her wonderful journals - but I didn't make much progress with mine. I hope to do Sharon Boggon's Studio Journals course next year to learn more about visual diaries - but I don't think I'll make my own book for the course.

Machine embroidery with Helen Godden

A few weeks ago, I did a beginners' free motion quilting course with Helen Godden. Helen is a very talented quilt artist and a good teacher. For once, I was able to keep up with the class, instead of spending the whole time threading my machine. I really enjoyed the course and hope to do more with Helen next year. Unfortunately, I haven't done much more since, apart from another sample piece.