T - 12 days!

All of a sudden,  it's July and FQR os very nearly here. I'm totally unprepared (I can't even remember what classes I've signed up for,  never mind getting materials ready!) However,  I have a few free evenings this week which I've put aside for prep, starting with this post.

If you've not been here before,  hello! My name's Sarah but I will respond to Sarah Lou or Little Sarah (because a. it's my full name and b. I'm 5 foot nothing.)

I'll be wearing this rather snazzy name tag from molsig and losing my balance because of this bump. I'm blaming baby brain for a lot of my forgetfulness and general uselessness,   but the truth is I'm really quite scatty anyway!

You'll also probably see me working on a bit of crochet - I went to a great class at Love 13 and I am hooked (not a deliberate pun, honest!)

Please come say hi if you see me,  I am wavering between v excited and v nervous!

PS - hope the photos come out ok, am trialling the Blogger App as the computer's been on the blink.

New to Me in 2013

2013 has been a year of huge changes for me, and my ever-expanding bump has been the biggest of these!

As I'm 5 foot 0, I'm finding it hard to get my hands on decent maternity clothes that fit around Bump and don't absolutely drown me (H&M, I'm looking at you and the 6 inches that I had to take off the bottom of my new trousers!) So I decided that I've give dress alterations a go.

So, in terms of firsts, this was the first time that I'd done any alterations apart from hemming, the first time shirring and the first time sewing with knit fabric. Armed with my new ballpoint needles and the handbook for my machine (yay to stretch stitches!), off I went.

I started off with a dress like this from Dorothy Perkins (except in the sale and two sizes too big...)

And cut the top off it - scary moment! 

After folding down about 2 1/2" at the top, I made a casing and threaded in some thick elastic, and somehow managed to keep the ties in the back. I topstitched, cut off about 5" and hemmed the bottom. Easily said but it took about 2 hours, but I guess that's not bad for a first attempt!  This tutorial was really useful for inspiration.

The final product:

Please excuse the dodgy photos, Hubs is impatient! I wore this to a friend's wedding last weekend with a dark t shirt underneath, and the photographer took lots of photos of me (an abnormal amount if you ask me - wonder who she thought I was!), so hopefully I'll have some better pics to show when the happy couple get their prints back.

I also altered another dress into a skirt, just by cutting off the top, adding thin elastic and then 4 rows of shirring. I couldn't get any decent photos of this dress though, so I'll hold off sharing until we get a sunny weekend!

Linking up to Fiona at Celtic Thistles:

Paper piecing and pluses

I've been catching up on my paper-pieced stars this month, having not touched them for the last 3 months!

I'm using my Simply Solids Stash Crew fabrics, and random charm squares or pieces from my stash to fill in the fourth segment of the star.

Here's my progress so far.....

 PS - check out the geeky colour co-ordinated pegs!

The pink and yellow are nearly finished, I've been trying to be methodical and do two blocks at once to cut down on the number of times that I have to pause/trim/press. Their other halves are still on the table needing the last trims and piecing of the quarters. It does seem to be speeding these blocks up, but they still take absolutely AGES!

Linking these up to the Paper Piecing Party at Quiet Play

I've also been working on a quilt with my Lotta Jansdotter fabric:

Unfortunately, I really don't love it, although I really want to - I can't put my finger on why either....

So, the current plan is to do some straight line quilting and hopefully get it finished in time to donate to the Siblings Togther project, although I'm now wondering if it's too babyish?

To end on a nice note - we went to see Eddie Izzard last night at the O2 - twas fab!!

Posy Geranium Dress

Thanks for all your kind wishes on my last post!  I am regaining some of my energy to sew again - unfortunately sewing is quite painful!


Anyway, if your memory is good enough, you might remember that I was working on a Geranium dress over Easter for my friend's little girl on her 4th birthday.

I did manage to finish the dress whilst we were in Cornwall (weather was horrendous!) but I didn't manage to summon the energy to blog about it, so here goes.

Had some slight mishaps in the making, despite having made one before - I sewed the bodice and skirt together inside out - twice!

The notched neckline wasn't quite as notched as I intended - perhaps because I forgot to take the interfacing to Cornwall so had to use an extra layer of fabric as emergency- interfacing!

 

Here's the little lady in her birthday dress, far too busy to stand still for photos

 

She liked the "flutterby" sleeves!

 And no, I didn't add an underlayer, she just decided that she wanted to wear two pink dresses :-)

And the last thing about this dress that made me go "squeee!":

Introducing...

...the thing that's made me totally exhausted and unproductive and incredibly sleepy for the last 5 months!

Friends have suggested that we rethink the name "of no diagnostic value" though!

As we don't know the gender, and I can't buy lots of clothes, I've been fabric shopping instead. Got a bit of a woodland theme going on so far, and Fabric Rehab has now has very little woodland-themed fabric that I don't own already.

First buy was "Fox in the Woods", not sure of the maker but it's a nice heavy duty upholstery fabric, so I'm thinking of using it to cover some cushions for the big chair in what is currently the spare room (the "N" word is still a little scary!)

Then a bundle of different FQ:

Timeless Treasures Mini Hedgehogs; Woodland Pals Fawns; Twit Twoo Owl (maker unknown - only annoying thing about Fabric Rehab)

Timeless Treasures Mini Foxes; Woodland Pals Forest; Timber and Leaf - Tree Rings Gold

I've also bought the last half metre of Fox Hollow "A is for Apple" that Seamstar had in stock

(photo from http://www.monaluna.com/ because I can't find my camera)

And, in a very geeky moment, bought this from the Village Haberdashery in the sale:

  Flock, photo from http://www.thomasknauersews.com/

mainly because I found a little craft shop near home that runs occasional courses, including a lampshade making course. Who wouldn't want a bird covered lampshade in their room! (Hubs just shook his head at this one....)

Any other thoughts on how to use all of fabric this would be gratefully appreciated - baby seems to have borrowed all my creativity as well as all my energy!

Works in Progress

Easter holidays have finally arrived, and brought some sunshine too! As we're off to Cornwall soon (taking both my machine and a tiny bit of work - dislike!) I thought I'm make a list to hold myself to account to! This was supposed to be a WIP Wednesday post - but then life happened.

So, here's what I'm hoping to accomplish, unless the weather is too nice to stay inside!

1. Coursework marking. Nuff said.

2. Finish off Hub's t shirt quilt - no more update shots at the minute, but here's one from the other week (it's looking a bit too messy and unfinished to see the light of day at the minute!)

 

3.  Finish off a Geranium dress for my friend's little girl as a 4th birthday present - I got some of this:

from Annie at Village Haberdashery

4. I'm aiming to complete a few more of my paper pieced blocks - I'm currently three blocks behind, as I've had three more deliveries of fabric from the Simply Solids Stash Club. Hoping that these will be complete before December so that we can have them in the baby's nursery by Christmas when our visitors will all descend.

5. I've also started a little something for le challenge - hopefully I'll have at the quilt top done by the 15th so that I can link up!

6. There's another big WIP ready in October - I'll tell you more about that later ;-)

Mosaics...

... of the last two three weeks, as I really am being a slow blogger!

Some gardening - loving the colours, might have to save this for inspiration:

Purchases and baking:

Big girl knickers time for my first efforts at FMQ.....

And the beginning of Hubs' birthday present:

And if you can't tell, I've succumbed to Instagram - @sarahlousews, although I'm not being very successful at getting the photos off my phone! (Who says my generation is supposed to be computer literate?!)

Linking up with the Slow Bloggers....

and getting out the tissues ready for Red Nose Day - it's nearly as old as me!