Sewing a birthday presents....

It's my brother's birthday on the 7th April and every year I struggle with what to buy him.  I always say that he has more clothes than Marks and Spencers and because he has learning difficulties, he is unable to read or use a computer.  He loves the Carry On films but has all those, and a person can only have so many pairs of slippers, can't they!!!  So I generally send vouchers for the local theatre and he and my mum go and see a show as John particularly likes musicals.

However, this year I thought I'd do something completely different.  John has a nautical themed bedroom so I thought I'd make a small 'quilt' for him.  I had some ideas in my head and went to the local haberdashers to get some supplies. I bought some thick beige linen, some natural thick undyed cotton (I think there is a name for this but I can't think what it is) and some fabric for the back.  And I also bought something which I think is called 'batting' a sort of thick stuff for in between the two outside fabrics.

I bought a set of ten 'nautical' themed embroidery patterns on line, downloaded them and made a start.  I didn't use the suggested colours for each design as they were all a little bit dull, instead choosing various colours that I thought would work well.  

When I got to this point, I wasn't quite sure where I should go from here, having never made anything remotely like a quilt before!!!  And it took me ages to realise that I had to use a damp cloth to make the batting stuff 'fuse' to the fabric!!!!  I wondered what on earth was going wrong when I'd stood for more than half an hour ironing it only to find each time that it hadn't fused!

And then I just winged it.  I made all the embroidered 'motifs' into the same size and then I sewed them by hand onto the linen using running stitches.....now please don't laugh, my hand stitching is not very good but I thought the running stitches looked quite effective!!!  After that I started just sewing straight lines all over the place!  And then I attached everything together and this is the end result. 

If you click on the photos they will enlarge and you can see the details better.

This is the fabric I chose for the back, I thought, being of old maps, it suited the theme quite well.

I really really wanted to mitre the corners but I just couldn't do it so in the end I just made them overlap.  I sewed on this tiny metal 'made with love' tag on to one corner....

Hanging on the fence to dry after all the steam ironing!

The finished size is 112cm wide by 56cm deep.  And it's quite heavy.  I cannot imagine how someone could sew a full sized quilt on a home sewing machine, but know that lots of people do it and I really admire them!

I'm not sure I will do another too soon but might consider doing something for my mum for her 80th birthday later this year.  But this time I hope to start sooner and not try to make it all in 3 days. 

It's not perfect, but I'm very happy with how it came out and hope my brother will love it too!

Thanks for visiting.  I hope everyone has had a lovely Easter weekend and that the week ahead is great for each of you!

Sewing and embroidery...

I've been very busy sewing and embroidering this past week and so thought I'd share some finished items on here.

The first two outfits are a commission and are off to live with a nice lady in the UK.  One Toddler and one Sasha outfit:  The lady didn't want any appliques so tops are plain.

As you can see, Teddy is once again in touch with his 'feminine side' as he models this outfit for me!

 Whilst Nuria as usual looks gorgeous in any colour!

Then between commissions, yesterday I 'played' again with my embroidery hoop on my lovely (I cannot say it enough times how 'lovely' this machine is!!!) new machine.....

The first design is some simple flowers in red and blue which is being modelled by Meredith, a Journey Girl from Toys R Us.  You might remember that when I was in the UK last October I went with my friend Dee to buy a Journey Girl from her local Toys R Us.  At that time they were not available on the Iberian Peninsular apparently.  However, the other day I visited Toys R Us in Malaga and there they were!  It seems that they are now available again in Spain and Portugal, so I decided to buy two....just in case they stop stocking them again! ;)  And the great thing is they are much cheaper here too!  They are £30 each in the UK, €29,99 each in places like France, Germany and Belgium (plus the postage of course) but here in Spain they are ONLY €24,99!!!  Which at today's exchange rate is about £19!!!!  Don't you just love a bargain!

Anyway, I digress, here is the top, I also made the circle skirt and socks to go with it.  These photos were taken today on our usual Sunday morning 'jaunt'. 

Close up of the simple design.  I embroidered it onto sweatshirt fabric.

And the second design which I've made up into a similar sized sweatshirt is of four cute and colourful owls sitting in a row on a tree branch.  This one is being modelled by Claudia from Bonnie & Pearl:

I have also embroidered a Sasha sized sweatshirt which is not made up yet....I am thinking of making it into a full outfit and putting it up for sale here on my blog, so if you're interested, please watch this space!!!

Thanks so much for looking, I hope you've enjoyed seeing my weeks' sewing photos.

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend so far and that the week ahead is a good one for you!!!  We are off home to Sevilla on Tuesday, after more than 10 months at the coast!  I think I'm going to be doing a bit of dusting before I can start any more sewing, wouldn't you agree?!!!

All the best laid plans....

When I knew I was getting my lovely new sewing/embroidery machine, I had great intentions.  I would make little felt pictures and turn them into cards and send one to each of my friends in time for Christmas.  Well that was the intention!

Unfortunately, because I was working so hard on my latest commission, I only got as far as making two pictures and because the first one I did took me about two hours (I still hadn't received my machine manual in English at that point) I decided that maybe next year, if I start about Easter, I can get them done in time.  On top of that, I couldn't get my hands on any of those cards with a little window in them for adding your own picture!!!

So instead, I will show you what I did manage to get done and wish everyone a wonderful Christmas filled with love and warmth and hope Santa brings you something nice from your Christmas list!!!

These are my two finished 'projects'.  I think I was a little over ambitious with my first attempt as I had to change the colours back and forth 20 times!!!  Both pictures are done on wool felt and are approx 10 x 10 centimetres in size!  (there is a mistake in the first picture where my sewing needle got bent but carried on going.....but I'll not point it out to you!!)

I showed this one to my friend who said "I love the birds!"  I thought "Birds? What birds?" and then I saw them!!!  

Thank you for visiting!  

Oh Brother! A lovely new embroidery machine!

My wonderful, kind and generous hubby, recently bought me a lovely new sewing machine that also does embroidery!  I had been telling him about it, having seen it in a sewing shop in the UK whilst I was over there.  He suggested that I might like it for a combined 10th wedding anniversary/Christmas present!  I gave it quite a bit of thought because it was expensive and I wasn't sure how much use I'd get out of it.  However, because this particular model can also be used as a regular sewing machine, I decided that I would love to have it and so it arrived last week!

It's a Brother Innov-is 955 sewing/embroidery machine and came with:

• LCD touch screen
• Automatic needle threading
• Extension table
• 296 embroidery designs
• 129 utility and decorative stitches

You can also download designs from the net, I have so many ideas!!!

Brilliant eh!  I did a bit of research on how to buy the machine because Brother no longer has a distributor on the Iberian peninsular, however they do have an agent based in Valencia who was really helpful and they got the machine to me in record time.  Because I'm in the middle of a big commission I wanted to wait until I'd finished it before getting involved in trying out the embroidery function of the machine, I've not tried that facility yet....but I'm gathering all the necessities so that very soon I can have a go!  I'm very excited about it and I'm hoping it will be the perfect machine for making doll clothing with embroidered designs on!

So watch this space!

And so that this is not a completely non dolly post, I thought I'd share a couple of photos of Emily, my Gotz Happy Kidz, who wanted to have her photo taken with this monster truck on Sunday as there was a car show locally:

And because she looks so small in that photo, she wanted me to take a close up of her in another location so that you could see her cute outfit that I bought last month from My Doll Best Friend, it has the cutest Pug wearing earphones on the front and came with the printed leggings!  I bought the knitted hat locally, it was actually made for a premature baby!  And the boots were already hers!

Thank you for stopping by my blog, I hope you all have a great week!