Sewing Class

Hello. How are you?

During the week I took a day off work to attend a class run by the amazingly talented Lara Sparks at the Eclectic Maker, a fabric shop (and online shop) in my home town. I've attended one of Lara's classes previously, a couple of years ago now, where I made a 'Things we Love' cushion. This time I'm making a bird textile picture. The class is run over two separate days, the second one is next week.

This week we were given a ready prepared panel to practice our free motion machine embroidery on before we started on our main project, I didn't want to miss the opportunity of having a Lara Sparks design to keep so I wanted mine to be as good as I could possibly make it! There wasn't enough time to finish it in class so I had a go at it when I got home too.

Above is the panel after I'd done the machine embroidery, I was pleased with it but felt the bird needed some colour, I remembered I had some fabric paints and pens so had a go at it with them.

Then I sewed a border on and, because I think everything looks better with a button or two (and I didn't like the sewing on the year), I added three vintage mother of pearl buttons.

Here is the finished panel, bit rustic but I'm feeling very inspired and have lots of ideas running through my head !

Thanks for visiting

xXx

Pictures from My Craft Room

I thought I would show you some pictures of where I do my crafting as it's the title of the blog!  This room used to be the dining room but we eat in the kitchen now, then it became a computer room but then we bought laptops, so now it has the grand title of Craft Room. I do seem to have taken it over but it is supposed to be for everyone to use. Lucky as I am to have it, I'm still not 100% happy as it's a room that we have to walk through to get to the kitchen so it needs to be kept fairly tidy.

This is where I sit to do my crafting. There is the door to the kitchen on the right and a window on the left. It is a north facing room with a window tucked into the corner so it is fairly dark. As I've not got a view I've filled the wall with things to inspire me.

The house shelves and the unit to the left in the top picture are thimble shelves that I bought on ebay about a year ago, I painted them and backed each cubby hole with some decorative paper. The keep calm poster was bought several years ago from Barter Books who found the original in a box of books and had it copied. Now of course it's everywhere and I have considered taking it down but then decided that I do still like it a lot even if the design is everywhere you look at the moment! The box frame with the hooks was made for me by my husband as a christmas present and I think it's so lovely that I've struggled to fill it as I don't want to cover it up too much. The letter E above it is a MDF blank decoupaged with an old map by my youngest son for his dad for christmas. My husband loves maps and can often be found studying them for no obvious reason, I'm sure his favourite part of long journeys is studying the map beforehand (sometimes while we are all in the car waiting to set off - grrr!)

This corner holds a lot of my books. The chair is there for quiet reading or hand sewing. Unfortunately, there is usually a dog or cat or pile of 'stuff' on it. Sometimes there's a dog or cat and a pile of 'stuff'. I made the cushion at a class I did with the amazingly talented Lara Sparks. Take a look at her website, you'll be inspired for sure.

This isn't the greatest picture of my supplies cupboard but it shows a lot of my sewing bits. I have a lot more fabric in the attic and our bedroom. The shelves on the door are spice racks, I think but are the perfect size for little jars of buttons etc.

 This is my bargain poster that cost 10 times more than I bought it for to have framed! I've learn't now to only buy standard sizes, for a long time I couldn't look at it without thinking what a ridiculous amount it cost to have framed. Now though I'm back to just loving it!

I've saved the best 'til last...

Just in case you think I live in a perfectly tidy house this is the messy corner of the room.

Thanks for stopping by, I'd love to see and hear about where you craft.