embroidered linen tablecloth

photographed in my mum's laundry room (it got covered in bits from the trees as she had it outside on the patio). my granny had it in her 'bottom drawer' so she most likely embroidered it herself, it would have been in the 30s or 40s as she got married in the late fourties

baby gifts

some rather late presents for two friends who had baby girls!
i used some of these thrifted napkins(?) to appliquee babygrows and to make bibs (pattern from bend the rules sewing). I especially like the babygrows, the embroidery looks great, something elaborate looking that only took 10 minutes to make! i also like the way the white thin cotton weave looks on the cotton knit.

The bibs gave me some trouble with the snap buttons, they are from a set from LIDL and i destroyed twice as many as i finally attached to the bibs... i wonder if i can get matching better quality snap buttons for the pliers or if i should just go back to using the sew on ones... also, i only had cream flannel for the back so they look a bit darker

more gifts

i finally bought some bondaweb and tried the appliqué, with westfalen fabric, it's really much easier. i handstitched around the edges as i didn't fancy getting sewing machine oil on this one (like i did on the apple babygrow). the bondaweb makes the appliquéd fabric quite stiff but i hope it'll get softer when it's being washed repeatedly. in the background you see my 'grannysquare' i stuck to making just the one and it's nearly big enough to be a baby blanket, i have nearly 250 of 'supersoft baby aran' crocheted into the one square. it's very relaxing work!


here a close up, aren't those ducks cute? this one's for noah, a friend of ours' new baby,


and tonight i embroidered this one, the design is ogham writing, in irish (gaelic). this one's for my colleague, who announced her news today. this baby is also due in october, like my friend b.'s who i haven't made a present for yet... i'm finding it hard to keep up with presents for all these babies, there must be something in the water!


and finally, i got this set of i don't know what it is in the charity shop, the square ones seem to be hankies, but the rectangular ones, no idea! they are all hand embroidered with these cute stars (flowers?) does anybody know if there are rectangular hankies? or if there is a tradition of table linen made from thin hankie type cotton?

time for bed now...

last minute gifts

yesterday afternoon i got a short notice invite to my neighbour's baby shower the same day! good job i had some babygrows that i bought to embellish for my friend bridget, so i could make some last minute gifts. i attempted some freehand mashine appliquee, and wasn't too happy with the result, so i also did two freehand running stitch embroidered ones. the appliquee also got some oil from the sewing mashine on it so i had to wash it and iron it dry! in the end i decided to hand over all three, two apples and a pear.

do you ever go into the garden just to have a look around

and end up with hands like this?

i find it very hard to stop once i'm out there pulling at this weed, deciding to move that little plant to a better spot... i ended up raking over all the bald patches in the lawn and spreading compost and organic fertiliser and grass seeds. then p raked it all in and watered the whole thing. it's lucky we have such a small garden!



cup of tea and some sunflower seed bread with mirabell jam, and the last bit of comte cheese



and this evening, while p was next door to play our neighbour's nephew's playstation 3 i made a glasses case for my workmate Ger, from a piece of her donated wooly jumper, that i felted a few weeks ago. the wool, a deep purpley navy, has orange specks, so i used orange stranded cotton to assemble the outer pieces and the lining (recycled T-shirt, nice and soft, won't scratch the glasses) with blanket stitch, then i added the orange
design on the front. i really should learn some basic embroidery stitches, this is just the normal sewing stitch.

a monkey for my nephew

This little monkey is made from those soft fluffy socks that you can get in Penneys, Dunnes, anywhere. I used children's socks, i prefer these monkeys in a smaller size. They are easily made in an evening, I handsew them because my sewing machine doesn't seem to like the thick stretchy fluffy material, and it also means i can watch TV with my fiance at the same time.

things i've made lately

This is my latest creation, a pincushion for an aspiring designer friend who was getting a lot of hassle - from a ginger person...


A soft and cuddly elephant, made from westphalian fabrics (Westfalenstoffe) that I bought in Germany. The traditional cotton fabrics from this area are mostly blue or navy with white printed patterns, or woven stripes and squares with white, red and green. In the seventies and eighties my sister and I had matching dresses made with their printed fabrics, white with red or blue, must dig up some photos! My granny's aprons were mostly made of their weaves. These days they do most of the traditional and many new prints and weaves, and I think they ship abroad as well.


These two are for P's niece, the clothes are made from 'recycled clothes'.


This 'grab ball' was a lot of fiddly work, 36 separate parts to make into 12 segments, and then those are stuffed, sewn closed and finally all sewn together (very very securely, because it's for a baby). The fabrics are 8 different Westfalen prints and some plain cotton.


This was my first patchwork project, it was supposed to be a cushion cover at first, but then i realised babies don't need cushions, and bought more fabric and made it into a small light blanket (a little on the small side), using flannel for batting and thrifted pillowcases in the softest 1000times washed checked cotton for the back.

october 05

this is one of the umbrella bags i made, which started me sewing again. when this umbrella broke i wanted to make something with the lovely red fabric, and a shopping bag was the obvious choice. Lightweight, foldable to fit into the tiniest handbag, and quite sturdy. My friends liked it and gave me the fabric of their broken umbrellas (it's windy and rainy over here) to make them bags too. It's really easy, you sew four triangles of the umbrella to a tube, sew one side shut and make a neat hem on the other. cut handles from a 5th triangle or use ribbon. you can fold and sew along the bottom edges to shape the bottom of the bag



and some small purses