My first attempts at embroidery...

During my blog surfing I came across this great website Sublime Stitching which has loads of modern embroidery patterns. When I was a kid I did some cross stitching but I've never had a go at embroidery. I suppose it has a rather old-fashioned reputation but after seeing some modern stuff on other blogs and the quirky designs at Sublime Stitching I was inspired to give it a go.


Sublime Stitching is a small independent company based in Austin, Texas USA with a great slogan 'This ain't your gramma's embroidery!'. This pretty much sums up their ethos with patterns that feature everything from sushi, tattoos and beach babes to work by upcoming illustrators and designers. The founder Jenny Hart writes her own blog and it really is great to feel that you are supporting a small independent business. Hopefully people will feel the same about my stuff if I ever start selling things!




I chose some cute designs by artist Julie West and my starter kit arrived packaged up with threads, a hoop, the all important stitching instructions and a great pair of cute pink embroidery scissors. And a tea towel to get started on. It really is as easy as Jenny promises in the instructions. All I had to do was cut out the designs that I wanted and arrange them on the tea towel and iron on the transfers. The special ink means that it only takes a few seconds to leave an imprint and you can use the transfers more than once. Genius!



So once I'd ironed on my design, I started with the chain stitch and it really was very easy and addictive. I really like the fact that you just follow the outline, like a sewing version of paint-by-numbers, which means it's a relaxing thing to do while watching telly or listening to music. I'm already thinking of ways to incorporate my own designs into future projects. This could be the start of something very exciting....I'm hooked.

Material Girl

So now I've made one pair of curtains (one down, one to go) I'm allowing myself to start thinking of other fun sewing projects. For a while now I've had my eye on some cute material in Beyond Fabric, a lovely little shop on Columbia Road. I've just been trying t owork out what to do with it and as I have two friends expecting little ones I've been thinking about making bibs and applique baby grows.

This gave me the perfect excuse to buy this at the weekend.

It's so sweet that I definitely want to make something like a purse for myself as well as baby gifts. Incidentally I've got my eye on the metal snap frame purse course at the Make Lounge but I'm just waiting until I have some money to go on it. 

There are quite a few lovely material websites that I've been lusting over recently and now I've decided what I'm going to make I think I can justify buying some more fabric. Yay!

Just check out these adorable fabrics that designer Jilly P has been working on with Hoffman fabrics. I'll post some of the finished baby stuff once I get around to making it. (Images from Jilly P's blog)

I've finally made some curtains!

Well it has only taken a year and a 3 months since I bought the material and I finally got round to making the lined curtains for our bedroom. After going on about how I was going to start sewing again my boyfriend very kindly bought me a lovely sewing machine last Christmas. And on a trip to visit my parents (who live in the Middle East in Oman) I came back with a suitcase stuffed with incense-scented fabric for a fraction of the price it would have cost in the UK. Apart from making a table cloth quite soon after we got back I never really got going on my sewing machine and I confess it has been gathering dust for a while. But I told myself that I needed to overcome my reservations and just get stuck in...otherwise I wasn't allowed to start any other craft projects. 

So I did eventually manage to make the curtains in a weekend and I wish I had lots of lovely photos but one of the main reasons I haven't been blogging recently is that I seem to have lost my camera.  I've been hoping it will turn up but as it's been almost a month now I might have to accept that the camera is gone (possibly left it in a bar/on a bus!) So anyway I thought I'd better start blogging again in the hope that it will turn up and I can add some great photos later.

So I do have some images from my iphone but as it only handles well-lit compositions I haven't been able to get a good shot of our bedroom. So I'll post the photos of the finished curtains when I get them sorted.

It was my first attempt at curtains and although it was time consuming it was actually fairly easy. The worst part was measuring and calculating the amount of material I needed. I've never been very good at maths and I was terrified of making a mistake and ruining the material. I used a wonderful book by Catherine Merrick and Rebecca Day which I found really useful. Even when I made a mistake with my hem allowances, I still managed to salvage the situation and so I was super proud when I got to hang them. It instantly made the bedroom cosy and we could finally take down the bits of material we had put up as a temporary measure when we first moved in.

So even though buying in some curtains wouldn't have been very expensive and would clearly have been much quicker, I now get a warm glow every time I look at mine. It's great to know that I made them and I'm now much more confident with the sewing machine.  And it's given me the confidence to start planning many more sewing projects. More details to come...