Archie The Wonder Dog

Another item on my FAL Q3 list  was to turn these fabrics (half a metre of each) and this trim (all brought back from France by a friend) into a simple tote bag: I used this as another distraction activity while Archie was poorly but again I couldn't be away from him for long as the whines were really quite mournful and he kept getting distressed.  I'd like to blame this for a certain 'design feature' inside the bag...you'll see what I mean in a moment! I decided to keep the bag as simple as possible, just a straightforward tote bag for carrying parcels to the post office, etc. and so I kept nipping upstairs to cut fabric or sew a seam, in between sitting in front of Archie's cage and reassuring him that everything was okay.  After an afternoon of nipping, stitching and unpicking (that sounds like a sewing class in an infant class, doesn't it?!) I had a bag! And now it's time to reveal my 'design feature'.  I made the outsi...

Last November, I went to the Knit and Stitch Show in Harrogate and found this lovely pattern on a stall (sorry, I have no idea what the stall was called!).  I knew I wanted to change the look and that I didn't want to make an embroidery for framing so I decided to make a cushion.  (You'll notice that the title of this post doesn't match this intention!) My lovely friend Beryl gave me a piece of 28 count evenweave and a quick introduction to stitching on it (I've only ever used Aida and canvas for counted work) and I got to work. I changed the spellings of some words to their British English versions and added touches of colour as I went.  For future reference, the threads I used were: Anchor 399 (grey), Anchor 55 (pink), DMC 211 (lilac), DMC 3846 (turquoise), DMC 703 (green) and Metz 0295 (yellow) (I don't think this brand exists, but I have a collection  of stranded cotton going back to the 1980s and some of the shades are perfect and don'...

I'm breaking one of my blogging rules by writing this post (I don't have many blogging rules, apart from 'be yourself' and the one I'm breaking 'reply to most if not all of the comments from the previous post before you write another one') but I'm aiming to write a short post every day until I've shown you all of my finishes from my  FAL Q3 list  and linked them up with Katy and her linky party, I do hope you'll forgive me! At the start of the quarter I had two balls of yarn, a pattern and a set of needles and no idea when I was going to finish: Gorgeous lace weight yarn by Manos Over the next couple of months it grew steadily and I took photos at not-very-regular intervals (i.e. when I remembered and the weather was fine) so I could track progress: Getting started Three repeats Seven (I think!) repeats No idea how many repeats but this was taken the day before Archie's dramatic adventures on Bank Holi...

I may not have made much progress with this blog in the last few weeks months but I have managed quite a bit of sewing, in between resting (I was completely exhausted after the Oakshott project and it took me quite a few weeks of sleeping for fourteen hours a day to get back to anything like my usual normal.  M.E. does that to you but I'm lucky that, with lots of rest, I can gradually bounce back.  Lots of people don't...) and Archie-related emergencies (I'll explain more below but don't panic, he's feeling much more like himself, thank goodness!) and I thought it was about time I popped my head in here to let you know what I've been up to. In July, I made these blocks for Charlotte : In August, I made this snowflake for Nicky : There are 239 pieces in this 9.5" x 9.5" (finished) block (each red square finishes at 0.5" x 0.5") and I love the back almost as much as the front!  I must tell you that Nicky didn't ask for ...

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...