Sewing room and blankets

A couple of weeks ago I moved into my new sewing room – or should I rather say sewing/craft/netflix/reading room 🙂 I absolutely love it. I positioned my sewing machines so that I could see the amazing view (and of course I took the photo in the dark, typical me). I also have a tv to watch netflix or videos, and a couch to relax on (it is not normally covered with completed projects, but that was the original aim of the photos). My favourite books are there, as well as my photography, smocking and craft magazines. Everything I love in one room.

My daughter and her partner are visiting from Canada and when her dad and partner watched rugby  the other day the two of us cuddled up for movies in my sewing room. Her comment? I need a girl room like this

But I actually took the photos to have a record of the quilts, cross stitched baby blankets, crochet fusion quilts and the crocheted blanket I completed the past two years. My daughter will be taking two quilt back to Canada with her, so I quickly snapped a photo

I completed:

• Three cross-stitched baby afghan blankets, done on Anne cloth and backed with lovely soft fabric. One of these will be gifted to a lovely young couple who are expecting a baby girl in November. I still have one piece of Anne cloth which I hope to start at some stage this year (I just noticed this photo was taken before I add the backing and binding to the third one – but it has been completed since then)

  

  The three cross-stitched baby blankets

• Two Crochet Fusion quilts – the first one to learn how to crochet and the second because I loved making the first one and I wanted to do one in blues. I am itching to make a third now in lovely shades of green. Hopefully next year or when I find the perfect fabric, whichever comes first 🙂
  
  

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• One Bee-utiful quilt. I embroidered the blocks and added ‘bee’ fabric as sashing, borders and backing. This quilt was quilted by a long-arm quilter and this is one of the two going to Canada. It was designed by Pamela Morgan and I am hoping she will design another one very soon

  

  Bee-utiful quilt

• The Splendid Sampler quilt (I only made 50, instead of the 100 blocks). This one is also going to Canada as a present for a good friend of my daughter and her partner. This friend has a 3-year old granddaughter who will apparently ‘love’ this quilt. Who am I to say no

  

  Splendid Sampler quilt

• My blue ‘redwork’ embroidered quilt – it was also quilted by a long arm quilter

  

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  Sunbonnet Sue quilt

• And the crocheted green/blue/white blanket which I backed with supersoft fabric and which is perfect for watching movies on a cold night. It lives on my couch and my cats love it as much as I do
  

Funny how I tend to start with one project and then make another and another and another – this was my ‘blanket’ period. This year I am very much into knitting and crocheting. I don’t really plan what I want to do, it just seems to happen. But I really want to do another cross-stitch baby afghan blanket, as I have a piece of Anne cloth waiting. I also want to make another Crochet Fusion quilt as I have enough white yarn left for one more and I want it in greens. I also plan to make a ‘cat quilt‘, using jelly rolls – I have ordered the jelly rolls and it should arrive in the next couple of weeks and I bought the fabric for the cats. It is going to be black, with one coloured ball as a contrast – very similar to the quilt below – this is not my work or photo or original idea, but I can’t acknowledge the designer of this quilt as there was no name attached to the photo

And one day I would love to make a rag-quilt, using denim

Am I crazy or am I crazy?

Started two new projects since yesterday – yes, two in two days! What on earth is wrong with me?

After finishing the lovely little cardigan the other day I was tempted to try another one. But I suppose………who can blame me? Both are so pretty

The one I finished last week:

The one I started yesterday:

Isn’t it just delightful? I also found this cross stitch in the Homespun magazine (May issue) and couldn’t resist:

So during a break from knitting today I gathered everything I needed and made a start 🙂

In love with my latest project

The past couple of weeks I have been knitting and I absolutely love the end-result 🙂 I still do not enjoy knitting, but I am starting to enjoy it a bit more

Not a happy ‘chappy’

By lack of a female word rhyming with ‘happy’ I will just call myself ‘chappy’ today. This was not a good week – I developed an infection in my belly button 😦 I knew this was going to happen, I had a gut feeling and luckily (because of this gut feeling) I have been keeping a close eye on my belly button

It all happened when the nurse removed my stitches a week after surgery. She did great and it was a painless procedure. But the next day I noticed she didn’t see the second stitch in my belly button. I went back the next day and asked them to remove it. But I was seen by someone else who told me the stitch will dissolve and not to worry about it. I questioned this as the surgeon told me to get the stitches removed. Was told that permanent stitches are blue and the dissolvable ones brownish (like the one I had). I decided to take her word for it and let it go.

But of course I came home and googled ‘stitches’ and according to what I read stitches can be lots of different colours. And that is when my gut feeling told me we are going to have a potential problem. And yes, it happened. It was stressful when I noticed the infection, because I immediately worried that a bug could get in and cause the infection to spread. So back to the nurse I went two days ago

She managed to remove the stitch and clean up the infection, took a swab to be analysed just in case I needed antibiotics. But I am grateful to say the infection cleared and it seems as if it is under control. I was tempted to take photos of my belly button but decided that could be a bit creepy 🙂

I am seeing my surgeon next week for a follow-up after the surgery and I hope to have a very healthy and healed belly button by then. But this just reminded me again to trust that gut feeling we all have. Say something if you think it needs to be said, stand up for yourself, look after yourself!!!!!

Oh……….and I am knitting again. Saw this lovely little cardigan and just had to give it a try. Downloaded the pattern to my laptop, bought the wool and buttons and ribbon today and started immediately. I have said before that I really don’t like knitting. I still feel the same, but I do it again and again and again. It will be worth the effort though…….it looks so pretty on the pattern

Crochet Fusion Quilt

All done and I love the blues!

24 blocks done

Great progress with the Crochet Fusion quilt – 24 blocks done and dusted, 12 to go

New sewing room

Between my health issues and the catio we have been painting  the house. My bedroom and one of the spare bedrooms were done in a rush, to be ready after my surgery as I was in another room, but not close to the shower and up the stairs. I thought it would be easier to be downstairs and close to the shower after surgery. The carpet layer did us a huge favour and sorted the carpet out for these two rooms on his ‘off’ day and I moved in before surgery. Since then we have been working on the room I want to use for needlework/sewing/netflix. Today we finished the painting off the room and the carpet man will be here on Wednesday. And then I have a sewing room!!!!!!

I cannot wait. It has an amazing view over the sea and the beautiful West Coast sunsets. When I took a break today during painting I started looking at the layout and where I’ll put my sewing machines. Originally I thought in a corner, but realised today that it will mean I am not facing the beautiful view. The best might be to turn the sewing table the other way around and sit with my back to the wall, facing the window. I can see a lot of moving of furniture happening before the room will be to my satisfaction 🙂

Something I definitely want in this room is a place to hang/display the little smocked dresses I make, instead of hanging them in a wardrobe somewhere. I love looking at these little dresses. I also want something to display the few quilts I’ve made

As I don’t want to spend money and use what is available in the house I thought I’ll use two student desks (the children used these to study when they still lived at home) pushed together to create one big cutting table. And I can store all the cutting tools in the drawers

Exciting! I can’t wait to move in

In the meantime I have made good progress with my Crochet Fusion quilt by finishing 12 of the 36 blocks. I blocked it and joined the blocks already. This week I’ll try and finish at least 6 more. I do love working on this quilt. (I should really hang it to get a proper photo, instead of on the table which makes all the blocks look distorted)

With all the painting and needlework I was too busy (lazy?) to fold the clean towels and dishcloths and simply popped them on the table to be folded later (on top of my crochet fusion quilt blocks). Mollie thought I did it especially for her and she didn’t move from her bed of towels the whole day

Progress

With a lot of time on my hands I have made great progress with the Crochet Fusion Quilt blocks. All have been stitched and I am doing the blanket stitching as I go. Blocked the first eight finished blocks today and I am actually considering stitching the first six together – there will be six blocks in a row. I enjoy working on this project