Archie The Wonder Dog

Alfie: 2002 - 2016 Last night Mam and I took Alfie to the vet for the final time.  He'd been diagnosed with kidney disease late last year but this week he took a turn for the worse and, a couple of days ago, he stopped eating.  He had a brief hurrah yesterday afternoon when he ran through the house after the sound of the doorbell signalled my arrival to pick him up and bring him to my house for a bit while Mam went out, but he was never going to get better and was going downhill fast.  Within two minutes of going in the consulting room, the vet told us that it was time and he was right: Mam and I looked at each other and nodded our agreement, she signed the forms, said goodbye and took Archie out to the waiting room (we'd left my house in a hurry and so had to bring Archie with us), while I waited with Alfie and kept him company while he left us. Alfie, you were a right s*d when you first came into our lives: around nine months in the rescue centre combined wit...

In an attempt to catch up with blogging about my embroidered Summersville squares without having one immensely long er than usual post, I'm blogging four blocks/squares a week in the order in which I embroidered them.  If you're interested, you can find out more about the project here . Block nine: Chain stitch for  the roof on the far right and the house, roof, chimney and smoke of the house fourth from the left; satin stitch for the orange windows (second from the right); cross stitches in some of the windows, whipped back stitch for the house third from the left; back stitch for everything else. Block ten: Seed stitch for the foliage and blossom on the tree, back stitch for everything else. Block eleven: Coral stitch for the walls, roof and base of the houses, colonial knots for the door handles, back stitch for everything else. Block twelve: Coral stitch for the walls and roof of the 'bay tree' cottage, satin stitch for the bay trees a...

I listed a three-in-one proposed finish in my  Q4 2015 FAL list  - these three tea towels needed to be turned into bags, and they needed to be finished this quarter as they're Christmas presents! I have to confess that these were a really quick finish - two afternoons and I was all done, including ironing and wrapping!  I can't take credit for the idea, that was my very talented friend B - thanks, B! All I had to do was stitch the long sides together (they were already hemmed so no seams to finish!), add handles, box the corners and zigzag the two resulting seams to stop them fraying.  I also added a bit of Fray Check to them, just to be safe.  I also used Fray Check for the raw ends of the handles (cotton twill tape) because, although they were enclosed, I thought the bags might get washed quite a lot and I didn't want the handles fraying out. They don't look like much with nothing in them (which bag does?!), but look much better once they've be...

One of the (many) items on my Q3 FAL list was this tidy trug, which I started at a workshop in July of this year but was languishing on the 'it doesn't need much doing to it for it to be finished' pile in my sewing room.  Adding it to my FAL list was just the impetus I needed to get it finished, it's just a pity that I didn't manage to keep the impetus going and blog about it.  Or finish much else on the list... This is how it looked at the start of the quarter: I think the thing which slowed me down was, quite disgracefully, buying some fray check for the buttonholes on the handle!  The original pattern had an attached handle of quite a different (and stylish) shape but I decided that I wanted my handle to swivel down so that it would be easy to get things in and out of the trug. After some stitching (closing the gap in the lining, top stitching round the trug and again in the ditch between the lining and the outer fabric), some fabric ripping (the bu...

Ever the optimist, I've decided to put quite a few things on my list for this quarter of the FAL - many of them are small things which somehow seem to get missed in the 'spare' time I have left once I've made the month's bee blocks (once they are finished I allow myself to machine sew things other than bee blocks but until that point, I try very hard to stick to the 'if you're using the machine, you should be using it to make bee blocks' rule that I've imposed on myself.  It (mostly) works!) and get passed over for other things.  I think that most of my list this quarter involves machine piecing so I'm going to have to make bee blocks in the first fortnight of the month to give myself even a fighting chance!!  Oh well, here goes nothing!! 1.  First up (but not necessarily the first thing I'll tackle!) is the sewing machine embroidery I completed last quarter.  (Or maybe it was the quarter before that!)  I'm going to tu...