Princesses Anna

Emma and Olivia both asked for Princess Anna (Frozen) dresses for Christmas but for various reasons (mainly my sewing machine being in the shop for repairs for 3 weeks) I didn't finish them until April.

The decoration also caused some problems. I was going to use the applique design that came with the pattern (McCall's 7000) but it was a bit a bit too big and clunky so I bought a machine embroidery design from My Sewing Art (through Etsy I think) and it stitched out beautifully. 

And, finally, here they are in their dresses - still waiting for their cloaks:

Cushion with a message

I made this cushion as a gift for someone with a quirky sense of humour. It was much appreciated.

What do you mean, Easter is almost here?

It feels like Christmas was just a few weeks ago. In any event, here are the outfits I made for my granddaughters for Christmas.

Olivia was delighted with the Elsa dress I made for her:

But Emma was not impressed with her outfit. "It's pants! What were you thinking, Grandma?" I even had to bribe her to try it on for a photograph.

So, while she was enjoying a holiday by the beach, I made a skirt to go with the outfit. And she was much happier with my second attempt.

Turquoise dress with a peacock

I was surprised when Emma asked me to make her a turquoise dress with a peacock - because her favourite colour is purple. When I asked her why she wanted this particular dress, she replied, "Because I think it would look good!"

I could't argue with that logic, so here's the turquoise dress with a peacock, plus a hat and bag:

Catching up - turtles

It's a long time since I blogged - for all the usual reasons of being busy - but I have been making things over that time. The theme for Olivia's birthday party was turtles and her favourite colour is green, so I was very pleased with the fabric I found for her birthday outfit - if you enlarge the photo, you will see that the dress and bag are covered with turtles.

This photo gives a better view of the dress:

Is this the perfect gift for the person who knows everything?

A few years ago, I made cushions with machine-embroidered words. The words were drawn from the sadly now-defunct Save the Words website, which was dedicated to preserving words in danger of disappearing from the English language.

A friend saw a photo of those cushions and declared them "the perfect gift for the person who knows everything". I'd been thinking of re-visiting the idea but having the words in a crossword/scrabble-like grid format. So this version is hand-stitched with white thread on black Aida.

My friend was delighted to receive the piece and now has it hanging in his office - appropriately in the Communication school at a university.

Exhibition Gift Shop

The embroidery exhibition is on next weekend and I've made some things for the gift shop: