Burning the midnight oil

The last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind of activity, I've been flat out making cushions and make up bags for a stall at a coffee morning held by a friend last Friday. I have a real obsession with sewing cushions that I just thought I'd ramp up production to see if they might sell.

I've been burning the midnight oil in my little sewing room and I've really enjoyed it!

Here's a few photos of what I've been producing...

And my first ever stall - I sold lots and raised money for a good cause...

Next step an Etsy shop?

Log cabin patchwork

In the past I've dabbled in patchwork. Nothing too complicated, I've sewn a few squares together every now and again, screwed my face up when I saw that they were not perfectly aligned and resigned myself to the fact I was never going to be a great fan of patchwork.

Only recently I guffawed in agreement when a fellow crocheter said "Patchwork??? UGH! What's the point of THAT?? Cutting up fabric and stitching it back together - what a waste of time!!"

But then it happened...... I CAUGHT THE PATCHWORK BUG!!

It all started back in the summer when  I met up with a friend who does a lot of garment sewing - she's REALLY good, I'm serious - she make men's suits and jackets and most of her own clothes, she's super talented and I am in awe of her skills. Anyway she told me about a great shop in the centre of Edinburgh called MyBearPaw run by another super talented gal called Jo Avery who designs and makes the most amazing quilts (and she's also a dab hand at crochet). Never one to miss the chance to go shopping for fabric I tootled along there tout suite and fell in love instantly with the amazing selection of goodies at her emporium of loveliness!

I bought a fab selection of fat quarters and drooled over the amazing workshop space and list of classes available at the shop. Despite the fact the workshop I wanted to attend was slap bang in the middle of Edinburgh Festival time when I am usually over-dosing on comedy shows and culture I knew I had to book myself a place on the Beginners Patchwork & Quilting class.

So one Saturday morning in August armed with my trusty new Bernina I set off for the workshop, I was super excited just take a look at this great space.....

We learned how to make log cabin patchwork for  a cushion, here's work in progress....

I chose to hand quilt the top using Perle cotton, it's very meditative once you get the hang of it...

And finally I had a finished cushion to show for my hard work...

I must admit I have now become a little bit addicted to making cushions, I've lots more in the pipeline. I just love the bright colours, most of the fabrics you can see are from Jo's shop - she's a great tutor I learned LOT and had an amazing day. I have to admit that I can now see the point of cutting up fabric and stitching it back together - I am a definite convert!!

Chevron Blanket - CrochetObjet

I'm totally in love with the work of Mo Malron an Israeli based crochet teacher. Her blog is so colourful .

She has the most gorgeous Etsy shop full of great patterns and her yarn which is available in a huge array of colours.

I bought her lovely Chevron Blanket pattern and here's my progress so far,

I'm using Drops Safran and a 3mm hook. 

It's slow progress as I'm doing a LOT of sewing at the moment but I love the pattern, check out a close up....

As the nights are 'fair drawing in' I'm sure I'll be hooking away a lot more over the coming months.

A Poncho

Good grief I just remembered I had a blog and I am so ashamed at how I have neglected it, so here's a post!

A couple of weeks ago I started the poncho pattern from Simply Crochet issue 25. It started with some weird stitch, I'd never heard of before, treble crochet round the back post and front - eh? This put me off initially but good old YouTube came up trumps with a tutorial and it's really quite straightforward.

The result is a lovely ribbed pattern, almost more knitting than crochet, this forms the neck part of the pattern. I became so fond of the pattern I almost ditched the whole poncho idea in favour of creating a cowl. I'll keep this in mind for the future.

I'm using Drops Nepal and I've changed the colours around a bit, the colours are lovely and it's a great chunky yarn to work with.  like Lucy from Attic 24 I'm not keen on the whole fringed look so I think I will follow her pattern for the edging

It's a simple pattern to follow so I urge you to have a go, you should be able to download a digital copy from the internet using the Simply Crochet app.

Hopefully I will have this finished soon....