A spot of emergency sewing

Well, another blind finished.

I'd had the top of this completed before christmas, just was delaying the actual putting together of it all, but when we came back from holidays, our neighbour had trimmed the tree adjoining our fences (which I was totally happy for him to do) and we discovered that our bedroom, which has the only window facing that direction, actually does get a lot of sun - it was just the tree making it dark and gloomy.

But dark and gloomy were perfect for settling a baby, so I needed to do something about it quick smart.

The fabric is cottons that my mother in law brought back for me from China (since I couldn't fit any in my luggage). The cotton is a really nice weight, not quite as heavy as a drill, but just nice and sturdy and soft to boot. The shop assistants thought it was pretty funny that we were interested in it, because apparently it's the standard material and patterns for waitress' and shop uniforms.

Yay! It's up!

Here is the roman blind/window blanket that I finished during the sewing day with darkcloud - only a little delay and it's up and usable! yay! Another project finished that got started oh so long ago!

It's funny, you'd think it'd be overwhelming and make your eyes hurt with the optical nature of the stripes mismatched into squares, but it kinda just blends in with the rest of the decor (which says something about our house)

Here it is half up, showing the lovely view of the lane between our house and our neighbours. We have been encouraging ivy to grow along the fence line, it's just not up to that point yet.

A backlit view, the internal work isn't as bad as I thought it'd be..............lucky!

saturday sewing (another view)

Darkcloud got this up first, but then she's all about the organisation :)

This was such a fun day - I hadn't had a sewing day with her since November (way too long ago) and I really needed the company to have the strength to finish this project!

I was putting together an insulated roman blind for the living room window. I had the top finished earlier in this year, but I actually started it.....in 2003. I feel pretty sheepish about that. It was originally going to be a doona cover, so was going to be queen sized. A couple of things hampered the project, one, I cut all the triangles out without adding seam allowance on them, so instead of the three different sized squares forming perfect bigger rectangles....it was a hodge podge. I didn't realise this until I had cut hundreds of triangles and sewn together most of them into squares. That disheartened me enough to put it away for a couple of years. In my defence, it was quite a while ago, and I definitely put seam allowance on everything now!

It was from a Kaffe Fasset pattern, I can't remember which book, but mine actually is louder than his - if that's possible (if you know his work, you'll be amazed).

Another thing that stopped the project from finishing, is that I realised, well, it's fabric that has a white background, and if it's a doona cover, it will basically get really dirty and muddy looking really fast (on account of sootcovered glassblowing husband). So I needed to find a place for it where it wouldn't get feet on it - a window!

Hopefully it'll be up by next weekend *fingers crossed*.

Oh, and the insulation is a pure wool blanket I picked up from an op shop for $1!

well here goes.....

I've been thinking about doing this for sometime, and have blatantly copied my friend, and friend's friends with regards to using this space as a way to talk about projects, share with other people, and in my case, use it as a motivating tool to finish said projects!

Also, it was my birthday yesterday, and I feel that birthdays are a second chance at starting the year anew, because often NYE comes around and there's not enough time to write that big list (which I love doing) of all the things you're going to do/change in the following year.  Often because you're on holidays/have relatives staying, ate too much, or are preparing crazily for two exhibitions and being morning sick (like I  was at the start of the year).

So, that's the intro, now for some projects!   I have been making this Charles Rennie Mackintosh inspired patchwork for quite a while now....(at least three years, possibly more).  I had the top and central structure designed right from the start, but ran into a snag when I didn't have enough pink to do what I wanted to do with the remaining bits.  So I put it away to stew for a goodly amount of time, and pulled it out last year to finish it, as it was designed to be a roman blind for my sewing studio, and in it's place was a wool blanket curtain that wasn't wide enough and wasn't very pretty to look at or insulated.

I finished it last year, but needed help putting it up, so it sat for another couple of months until my parents came a visiting with a burning desire to be helpful.  So thanks Dad (and Mum for distracting me from what my dad and husband were brainstorming (we went and played cards)). 

So here it is:  chocolate, carmel, cream and four types of pink corduroy, playing around with grainlines and nap.  I'm still not sure of the ricrac, but my roses needed stems, and well, I think it's kind of funny having this type of work with lurid green zigzag braid.

And here's what it (kind of) looks like backlit, I like window pane patchwork, the seams make lovely lines.

I'm happy with finally having the blind up and finished, and am planning the next two - hopefully they won't take as long!