Wordless Wednesday

Really, really needed my coffee this morning!

Two that make me smile...

and Damascus, just because...

Wordless Wednesday

 

I was helped, as always, by my little green friend. 

The start of something new.

I fell in love with a pile of vintage chenille pieces recently at Alora's Adorables on Etsy. I was madly impatient waiting for them to arrive, but arrive they did and as soon as I saw them I suddenly know what they were waiting to be made into.

The only thing was, I needed plain fabrics to go with them. Time for my first trip to find The Village Haberdashery - not easy when you discover there's no tubes running due to engineering works, but it was even worth getting there the long way round. That and the amazing farmer's market just round the corner from the shop. 

The ladies were really helpful, especially to this total novice who had no idea what see needed other than the colours. Thank you both!

Home again now and don't the fabrics just look edible? They remind me of ice cream sundaes in Italy when I was little. 

Legacy jeans quilt

It's been the most glorious weekend, weather-wise and life-wise. It seems England has actually decided to have a summer - and on Wimbledon weekend too. The gods are definitely feeling extra kind this year.

I spent my weekend alternating between the garden and my sewing. The garden is starting to look like a garden. My pots are filling with plants donated from my mum's beautiful, exuberant garden, from my old garden by the boat and from the unfortunately irresistible plant stall just outside the tube station (not that those ones are donated). All this has been helped along by a huge number of pots that the goth-girl's bf found for me insanely cheaply.

As for the sewing, my Nan's ancient Singer is working again and I re-taught myself how to thread it. Why do I forget that so quickly and so repeatedly?

I've been dabbling with making a quilt from old jeans for weeks now and haven't really got anywhere with it. When I drag my knitted blankets out into the garden to sprawl on they seem to magically cling on to dried grass bits for weeks afterwards, so something more obliging was definitely needed. Then I saw this and loved it!

So I asked the hoards if any of them had old jeans they didn't wear anymore and ended up with two pairs of blue denim, two black pairs and an egg yolk yellow pair. Perfect! 

I cut seven inch squares from the denim jeans, included pockets and seams and everything for texture, and hand sewed them together. The black and yellow make a great contrast and I love the contrast from the little bit of vintage shirt fabric that I grabbed when I ran out of yellow.

I plan to add two more rows of denim squares around the outside which will bring the final size to 5' square. Any larger and I wont be able to stretch my arms far enough to fold it easily.

This is where I've got to so far.

I'm going to add the names of all the lovely people who donated their cast-off jeans to one of their squares too.