I told you they were quick!

Look what we have here...

A lovely soft, squidgy, delight-filled package from 

(trumpet fanfare please!)

'The Village Haberdashery'

Ordered a little before 9am yesterday, after much dressmakey-dithering and dreaming from the comfort of my own chair, this arrived with Mr Postie this very morning!

The Family Reunion dress can be made this weekend, as planned.

(Ooops...You may have spotted that the red fabric and pattern for those are not all that I purchased.  A certain little something slipped in the online basket for me, that lovely Palos Verde 'Miraleste' I've been hankering after.  Well, it'd be silly to waste the £2.75 flat rate postage on just two items...)

So that's me sorted for the weekend!

Recent days and weekend plans

Still struggling with those post titles...

Anyway, life has been doing that thing, rolling along merrily, so time for an update.

I had another go at my beach hut block, this time after purchasing a little stack of Liberty fat quarters specifically for that purpose.

I changed the block a bit as I was seeing 'shed' more than 'beach hut'.  I am still seeing shed, and have realised that the steepness of my roof is at least partly to blame.  Design number three required!

Clare and Emily for the sand
Rosy Blue for the sky
Betsy for the shed hut walls
Petal and bud for the door

I started a new blog!  I needed somewhere to put details of my workshops and suppliers that I use, maybe even a few tutorials.  You can find it here if you fancy a look!

Last Friday was a momentous day for Miss U-t-B, as she received her first 'proper' pay packet!  She has actually been working since late November as a tutor in an 'Explore Learning' centre.  She loves the work, almost always coming out from her shifts cheerful and full of what she enjoyed (even the ones that start straight after college and continue till 8pm). But due to some administrative problems, she hadn't yet received any pay... A few tears had been shed, mainly when the sales were on - she refused to borrow any money to allow herself to buy a few treats so missed out on the bargains.

On Friday morning before college, there was a whoop of joy as she looked at her bank balance to find she had finally been paid!  She said it was a fairly painless way of having saved up nearly £500, and later treated Mr U-t-B and I to a fish and chip supper to celebrate!  Bless!

Sunday was Mr U-t-B's birthday.  I normally do a big family meal, but with all sorts going on on Saturday, decided to treat him (and me, in that I wouldn't be doing the cooking...) to a pub lunch.  Instead of the lunch, we had a little tea party - I did some baking whilst Miss U-t-B took him to the cinema to see 'Non-Stop' which they both really enjoyed.  He then had the company of his two eldest, their partners and his two grandchildren, with tea and sweet treats thrown in. 

I made these ginger cookies to use up the stem ginger that was in the fridge.  The recipe is Chris Evans' wife Tash's and I can heartily recommend it.  Just don't overcook them, because they are gorgeous when still a bit soft.

(They're still very good when they've had a couple of minutes more in the oven, just watch out for your teeth!)

I also made a nice Genoese-type sponge, which I filled with cream and some blueberries from the freezer.  

This weekend I plan to be making this...

The Family Reunion Dress
Picture courtesy of Oliver and S

I have loved this pattern for a considerable while but have, it is true, always baulked at the price.  But with certain little misses in the family at the age when this dress would be irresistibly cute, I could hold off no longer, and I also came up with a dressmaking challenge which I'd like to do once a month.  My plan is to choose a pattern and fabric early on a Thursday morning, order it before nine from some unwitting online supplier and see if they can deliver in time for a weekend of stitching!  Quite a tall order, but I know some suppliers turn orders round really quickly, and I want to know who they are!

This is the fabric I have chosen for the Family Reunion dress...

'Pretty Floral' from the Yay Day collection by Emily Isabella
Picture courtesy of BirchFabrics

I have chosen a supplier who has given me fast delivery before, so my fingers are crossed, my pins are ready and the sewing machine is warming up!  

Hope you have something good planned for the weekend - I hear it might be time to crack out the barbecues on Sunday!

How to get other people to pay for your clothes

I did another bit of dressmaking last week, following on from the Valori Wells tunic I made a few weeks back.

This time, I bought some fabric on ebay from 'Favourite Fabrics'.  I have used them several times before and have always received my fabrics quickly, which luckily was the case once again this time.  I'd chosen this fabric...

...which now seems to have sold out, maybe as it was only £5.99 a metre.  I hadn't yet decided what pattern I was going to use, but ordered two metres knowing that would be about right.

In the end I chose to use a different pattern to last time - New Look 6010.

Picture courtesy of SewEssential.co.uk

I have quite a few blouses of this sort of style and find them comfortable and easy to wear, but recently have found it harder to track down ones I like in the shops, especially at anything like a sensible price.  So making some myself seemed like a good option.  I decided to make view D, but I intended customising the sleeves, which in this pattern have elasticated cuffs, where I wanted a button closure, like on the tunic I made previously.

I was surprised to find that once pinned the blouse out that I had LOADS of fabric left over.  The pattern was a fairly easy one to make, certainly a little more straightforward than the tunic one I used previously, which was this one... 

Picture courtesy of SewingPatternReview.com

I created a new sleeve pattern by combining the top part of the New Look sleeve with the bottom part of the Simplicity one.  

And here's the finished article!

I had this idea that with 'The Great British Sewing Bee' back on our TVs, I'd try to do one of task from each episode.  In the end though, I only managed the buttonloops from programme one!   I'm tempted to make Mr U-t-B some dashing striped and piped pyjamas from programme 2, but I think I'm already running too far behind!

I found some sweet little flower buttons in my local haberdashery...

And it fits...

So what about the left over fabric?

There was enough to make another of my oh-so-frequently-made Japanese smock tops...

Now if I just sell this little smock for £12, I make that a free blouse for me!

I have one more blouse pattern to try out and with pay day tomorrow I am considering these fabrics...

Palos Verde Abalone Cove

Palos Verde Miraleste

Palos Verde Lunada Bay

A little bit of this and that...

The Happy Little Stitchery had its first stitchers on Saturday, and they seemed to have a happy time!

In the morning I got into the swing of things with a select group of two, one of whom I had met at The Maltings Market, along with her friend.  I taught them a bit of simple embroidery so that they could either take home an embroidered hoop picture or a needlecase.  

It was good see which stitches different stitchers found easier and which they found harder, especially as I was having a group of six in the afternoon, and it allowed me to slightly alter the order in which I taught the stitches.

I did, of course, forget to get my camera out until the very end of the day, when two of my afternoon stitchers had already left, but at least I did remember in the end!

And here's some of the work produced!  I have already had two of my friends pop by for a little help getting started on their next, independent projects - one to get a water-soluble line drawn on her fabric (the local shop had run out of pens) and one for a suggestion of what to do next!  

Next came a bit of bunny making.  The sleeves from a beautifully soft but somewhat shrunken cashmere jumper, four 'Sarah Moore Home' bunny outlines, a bit of sewing, snipping and stuffing (plus a wee bit of embroidery, but that doesn't fit my alliterative theme)...

Et voila!

Spring bunnies..

Next, I decided to have a go at designing my own simple patchwork block.  I wanted something fairly straightforward that would be good for teaching to those who want to learn to use a sewing machine.  I used some scrap-booking papers and fiddled around till I got what I wanted...

Then selected some scraps of (mostly) vintage fabric and stitched away...

A bit of further embellishment and this is what I had...

Although it was originally intended as a cushion cover, I found an empty frame, not quite the right size, but rather like this framed!  Another one for my somewhat over-burdened walls!

Today I had an exciting little package in the post.  My Mum had this book when I was a child and I used to try hard to learn stitches from it.  

The one I could NEVER make work was the French Knot.  Try as I might, it always disappeared!  And so it would still be, were it not for the wonders of stitch demonstrations on YouTube!  I think YouTube justifies its presence in the world simply on account of being the place where I finally found out how to  get these little devils to work!  

I am pleased to say that all my stitchers on Saturday mastered No. 21!

Last night, me, Miss U-t-B and her cousin (who is staying with us this half-term week)  went to see 'Cuban Fury'.  It was a great laugh and I came away with the salsa beat so firmly embedded in my head, feet and hips that I had to have a cocoa to calm down before bed!  If you like a bit of fun (and don't mind a bit of fruity language!) do go and see it!

Lastly, I just finished reading this...

A sweet book, I really enjoyed it!

Baby bootees grow large

You may remember these from last year...

Made as part of my challenge to see how many items I could make from one shrunken jumper, they are based on Heather Bailey's Bitty Booties, which you can find out all about here.

Well, one of the girls in the charity shop wondered if it would be possible to make some to fit her.  I'm always up for a challenge!

The perfect opportunity came when a whole heap of woollies came into the shop recently.  They were well worn - picture threadbare elbows and grubby cuffs - as well as unwashed, and therefore most definitely not suitable for the shops.  I couldn't bear to see them head into the rag bag (all 100% wool, mostly hand wash or dry-clean only) so some came home with me and found themselves given the indignity of a hot wash tied into a pillowcase with a tennis ball or two! 

I found a slipper pattern in a Tilda book I have and used the sole pattern as a guide, then scaled up the shape of the upper from Heather Bailey's pattern.  I decided that one layer of the felt I had created would not have been warm enough, nor indeed hard-wearing enough, so used two different jumper backs to cut linings and outers for the slippers.  

Some embroidery was required to jazz up the slippers. I was hoping the rain would give way to snow if I stitched enough snowflakes so off I went!

In the end, not one flake of the pretty fluffy stuff has fallen on us here in Hampshire, but I did finish the slippers...

The sole and the uppers were stitched by machine first (on triple stretch stitch) then finished with blanket stitch.

I hope the recipient will like them when I take them in for her on Wednesday!