Card or Frame

that was the question that I was asking about the mouse with daisy

answer

frame 

I found this frame in my stash of frames.

it just looked right 

so

here it is framed.

Mouse and flower

quite pleased hope the same can be said of the recipient. 

And then there were three

mice that is, from the same series of Get Well Soon card designs.

Well four actually, mice not designs that is as there are two mice in the first one,

 sending-hugs., just the one in Lots of Love .

This one is

 Hope you feel better.

Cup a Mouse

there are four more to go, I may well stitch the whole set if the pattern holds up.

Patchwork Rabbit....update

All finished and gifted.

I almost had an issue with this finish.  I worked out the lettering for the name using my normal go to alphabet.  It was too small. So I set to with a different slightly larger alphabet. 

So what was the problem?

Not sure if it was something on the TV in the background, but the second set of names in the new alphabet was not the name the parents had chosen!  Still a girls name and starting with the same first letter.  Good job I noticed before I finished the stitching.  Never done that before, almost missed double letters out yes but a completely different name...oh dear.  

So the IOU from the baby shower is redeemed.

I am quite pleased with the finished piece.

Thankfully so were the parents and had a chuckle over the almost renaming to Edith.

Another mouse

I do appear to be drawn to mice. Not Tom this time but still one from a designer that has appeared before  .

I had started this as a Sunday stitch, I did not get around to sharing it as such and then at work I heard that another of my managers was leaving.  So the sewing speeded up to a finish.

I am not sure if I will look for a little frame for it or use it for a card.  I need to make my mind up soon.

Patchwork Rabbit

For the first time I have made the birth sampler before the birth, with the spaces ready for the name and other details when the baby arrives.  Also, with the issues in mind from the last birth sampler / announcement the design has been modified to fit the frame.

Patchwork rabbit

I also changed the colours from the original.  My pallet is a bit less pastel and a bit brighter.

I added a lot more patches making a full boarder around the central rabbit.

The original design as you can see below also has a stripe of colour, mimicking a dado rail, behind the rabbit's head.

I did not think that fitted in with the change to the shape from square to rectangle required to fit the frame I have chosen to work with.

This is a picture of the original design as featured in Cross Stitch Card Shop issue 47.  It is one of six pastel patchwork nursery baby cards designed by Lucie Heaton.

Of the six, having found this pleasant to stitch I can see I might also do the patchwork teddy and rocking horse. I find the Rocking chair, bassinet and mobile less appealing.

From Aunties' tin

I have mentioned my Aunt before in a post about a quilt I made for her. and in posts for quilts I made for my uncle after her death.

I was given some of her sewing notions and unfinished projects. My Aunt liked to embroider table cloths till it became difficult for her to see and painful to sew.

I had sorted out much of the bits and bobs and all of the thread but I had still a few things left in an old biscuit tin to relocate to my own various bits and bobs containers.

Buttons to my button tin (itself inherited from my grandmother and holding almost as many memories as buttons) snaps and hooks and eye popped in there too. A little transfer book of flowers off to live with my patterns.

Rusting pins and empty button cards into the bin, I may be a hoarder at heart but at least for now I have my limits on what to keep and what can be used.

That left this little collection of stuff.  

The brown screwdrivers say singer. The orange red has no makers name. I am sure I can make use of the little brush.  I have never used the tool with the little wheel before, although I have a general idea what to do with it.

Then there are the somewhat more interesting bits.

a sewing machine foot. it also says singer

It is tiny, well compared to the feet I am used to handling for my machine.  I don't have a singer, although I do recall with fondness the singer treadle machine my grandfather had and used .  Sadly there was no room for that in my parents home after his death and it journeyed on, I hope as a sewing machine being used to make things and not getting "up-cycled" to something else. Any way I digress, what to do with it. Keep it in case I ever do get a machine it fits?  Well yes for now at least.

And what about the green metal thing resembling an airplane propeller? 

Well it spreads out to this.

Not seen one of these before either. Any one know for sure what it is?  My thoughts are it is some sort of template either for quilting or for embroidery.  Of course that might never have been its original purpose and it is for something else completely unrelated to sewing and just made its way into the sewing tin because my Aunt used it for that.

This next item, well it is a bit of shaped plastic with a magnet in it for picking up pins and needles.  But what form has the plastic taken?

I think it looks like a serpent with a hint of the Aztec about it.

My mother takes a different view.

In more ways than one and thinks it is a perching owl.

Cutting the mount.

I recently re-shared King-arthur-and-guinevere on Facebook and was asked what I had used to cut the mount. So as I was getting my cutters out to adjust a purchased mount, here it is, or rather they are as I used two cutters. 

For the long straight edges I used this cutter.

It attaches to grooves on the ruler that came with it.

But for the smaller fiddly bits I used this cutter made by the same manufacturer.

This is also the tool I used to cut the mounts for small-owls  and to adjust the mount for the teddies' toes in birth-announcement.

As for the project I pulled the ruler and cutters out for? Well that is the funny thing, The aperture looked too small and I was sure it needed to be made bigger.  However once I took it out of the frame it was just right and I did not need the cutters at all. Typical.  I can't share that project just yet as it is a gift not yet given.  It will make its appearance at a later date. 

Project more progress

Sometimes when a project comes out for a little work then a little more and and before you know it quite a bit gets done.

I even know which bit I will stitch next...I call that progress. Still a long way to go....

Project update

This is a few sessions worth of update on this project.  I have been mostly working with whole shades and full stitches.  Although I did do a small section of tweeding. 

Doggy Bag

Now this is not a bag for taking leftovers home.

Although it is a bag of leftovers.

Some of my own and some of Nikita's

Another bag of random bits leftover from Nikita's past projects made their way to me.  Now this is a double win.  Guilt free de-scrap and de-stashing for Nikita and a bag of inspiration for me,well and some shared inspiration fro my BFF who got the purple bits, hey a triple win.

So last time the fist inspiration was two bits of material with -cat-and-mouse. This time it was two bits of material with dogs on.  The style of dog put me in mind of a famous brand for purses and bags.  I mention  no names, you either will know or you won't.

So a bag I thought. Hmm sure I have some of that dark shade of pink.  Checking required a trip into the loft.  I did indeed have some of that pink, in a box, in the loft. However the some was more like tiny bitty.

Fortunately there was also some paler pink that matched the spots and of that there was quite enough to do the job.

Doggy Bag

I could perhaps have gone with blue or green or even grey.

If I had found any of those colours during my expedition to the loft perhaps I would.

However pink is what I recalled and what I found.

As for the itty bitty of dark pink.

Well I used that too, in the handles of the bag in a slight reflection of the style previously used in my dragon-batik bag not quite as successfully but then this time round was on a smaller scale, both the handel size and the bit of enfolded material.

This is how they looked before the sewing and end folding.

As you can see there was not a lot of dark pink to play with.

I did wonder if it was worth attempting this way of incorporating a second shade. 

Whilst I was sewing it I was thinking nah! Should not have bothered.

Once done I am glad I did it pulls it together rather nicely.

Previously buttons have been a feature of attaching the handles to the bags I have made.  Decorative buttons not functional ones.

On this bag having already braved a loft search I did not feel like instigating a button hunt.

Normally delving into the button jar is fun.  It is a trip into my childhood.  I could play for hours with the buttons.  There are actually in my jar some of the buttons that I once played with...wow.  Today the prospect of looking for just the right size, colour, shade and shape did not appeal to me.  Then I recalled some little embellishments to hand (yes that is another pun) previously used on a subject related item  a toy dog. In that instance on the collar, this time four would replace the buttons.

A little hand stating hand made.

Also the idea of a hand tag on a bag with dogs rather then the dog tag from that famous unnamed brand amused me, still does. 

What can I say I have an odd sense of humour.

Now what is this bag for, or for whom? Well I am trying to decide if the finish is good enough to donate it at work for an up coming charity day in aid of tinylives, a local charity that supports the families of premature and sick newborns. A former colleague and his wife received a lot of support from this charity for their son. It has remained a charity close to our hearts.

The handles are not quite as I would have wished so I am giving it some thought.  Perhaps I will buy something to donate to the raffle and keep this bag till it becomes a suitable gift. 

I will let you know when I have made my mind up.

Oh I almost forgot, there was enough of the lighter pink to make the lining too and so that fabric is all used up bar the bits heading off into my bits-a-quilt number 3.

(PS, the bag did go to work for a Charity raffle and I understand the winner of the bag intends to use it as a lunch bag)