I'm a Winner!

Well hello everyone, long time no hear (ahem!). We are still hanging on in there with the summer holidays - almost over now - that means almost back to my nice little routines, such as blogging, sewing, knitting, creating - you know, all that stuff that I would really, really like to do instead of playing Buzz Lightyear, or Lightening McQueen ... I know, I know, I shouldn't complain but really - 7 weeks? SEVEN weeks? Please don't get me started on the subject of 'Teachers - how easy do they have it?' ...

Okay. And breathe out. I HAVE WON SOMETHING! Hurrah! Am very excited to be the lucky winner over on I'm a Ginger Monkey's blog, in association with Celtic Fusions Fabrics of a fabulous bundle of fat quarters! They look scrummy, I must say. If you haven't been to Celtic Fusions website then get yourself over there now - it's full of the most inspiring and wonderful fabrics that will get your creative juices flowing straight away. Can't wait for the postie now :)

Unfortunately, the only sewing I've been doing this week is attaching name labels to the new school uniform. Yawn. I've learnt from experience that, even in a school with only 9 pupils in the class (46 in whole school!), you still need to label absolutely everything. 5 year olds can't read, you see, and when the item arrives in some other mum's laundry basket, how does she know whose it is? Precisely.

Ooh, ooh. Tell a lie. I did manage to sew this last week - it's a book cover. My attempt at some Poppy Treffry 'freestyle' machine sewing. This is where you drop the feed dog, put your fabric into an embroidery hoop to keep it nice and flat and then basically you can stitch in any direction you wish, using the hoop to move the fabric around. It takes a bit of practise, but it's very effect, although I admit that I only seem to have done straight lines here - doh!

This is the book I have which shows you how to do it. You may have seen some of her teacosies and things in the shops - they are very expensive because she does them all herself, but she has a unique style which I like. Not sure if I'm going to do too much of this myself though - it was really very fiddly and, unless you practise like a demon, you never know until you're actually stitching whether it's going to come out as you want it to. Plus, every time you put the hoop under the machine you have to take off your presser foot and ... it's just fiddly, believe me. But effective.

Righto - am off to loose myself in the fabric department at Dunelm Mill now. Sans child. Avec purse. Hee.