I've spent a lot of this week making clothes for etsy, for my grandchildren and for my new great nephew.  I do enjoy making small clothes :)

But I really need to get back to my quilts, my Liberty quilt needs handquilting and my eldest son has asked for a  new quilt and so I plan on getting it done by his birthday at the end of August...that's the plan!

                         

                         

The twins love to wear skirts but can be fussy with their fabric choice. The right hand skirt below is made of vintage Laura Ashley fabric, it looks red in the photo but is actually deep pink. My daughter reminded me that I made her a skirt with wide elastic at the waist from the same fabric (I've had it years) and would I make the same for the girls. I only had enough for one skirt and so used a Liberty fabric for the other one. I had some denim and made the bottom two skirts from that...let's see if they are happy with them ;)

My daughter in SA still has baby Lilhe living with them...they are really hoping to adopt him. She asked if I would make some trousers for him, I lined these with some lovely soft vintage winsiette that I had in my stash. The weather is chilly over there at the moment. I also knitted hi. His little jacket and hat and can't wait to see him wearing them all :)

Wales visit

We have just come back from two days at our cottage in Wales, the weather was beautiful and the drive over there never ceases to take my breath away when I see the views and countryside

Hang gliders enjoying the sunshine....don't think I will be trying this activity

This is taken from the new by-pass running parallel to our road which used to be busy until the new road was built

This is our road, the cottage is down around that bend

                

I got some more painting done in the main bedroom, the whole cottage was painted in two colours, creamy pink walls and mushroomy pink woodwork. We are painting the whole place in white but it is taking a while to cover those old colours, this ceiling was already painted which made it a bit easier than painting over the pine tongue and groove that was there originally. The windows took a bit of time but look good now they are white

                   

                             

This is the bathroom window that looks out of the side of the cottage, there was pine tongue and groove on two walls and ceiling which I painted white and now looks so much better

                             

A local carpenter came and fitted the new stable door which opens into the boot room, he also delivered a trailer full of logs for the log burner..... 

                             

And then helped my hubby fit this oak mantle over the fire place...it was far too heavy for me to hold up!

                          M

Hubby put up some more wall cupboards and shelves in the kitchen, plumbed in the washing machine and put up a few tiles to see what they will look like

                             

He also put down some oak flooring in the back bedroom, we bought a single bed with another one underneath so plenty of beds for guests to visit 

                                  

We then hung up our ladders and headed back home for hubby to finish his sermon prep for church today...very tired but also very satisfied that we managed to get so much work done :)

pretty skirts for little girls

We took a day trip to Marlow last week. I hadn't gone planning to buy fabric ;) but pooped into www.ladysewandsew.co.uk and bought some fabric to make a couple of little skirts for my etsy shop. I haven't put skirts in the shop before so we will see if they sell or not. 

Both of these fabrics are by Lewis & Irene, the red is called Timsbury Lane and the blue is Dulce Brasil. Both were lovely to sew with and  I will probably  buy some more from the lady sew and sew website.

 I made the red skirt first and had bought some elastic which is wider than I usually use and what a pain it was, kept folding in half as I threaded it through the waist band so I reverted to the slightly narrower one for the blue skirt which threaded and stayed flat.

Live and learn!

table runners

I bought these beautiful pieces of vintage French linen some time ago, the patterned pieces are rectangular in shape and the plane piece was square. I thought how lovely they would look made up as table runners with the plain piece on the back but I knew that the coloured piece wouldn't go with the decor in our home. Back then we didn't have any idea that we would be able to buy our cottage in Wales and that they would look perfect in that setting and on the lovely Ercol table and chairs that we have bought to use there. 

The table and chairs were finished I a dark varnish, my husband has sanded the table top and painted it in grey like the one in the bottom photo, two chairs are also painted and we have two more chairs like these and two with arms to paint before the set is finished. 

I have made up the runners, the plain piece was exactly the right size to back them both and I think they will look great against the beautiful beech table top.

                                   

                                  

                                  

                                  

Twins Dresses

When the twins were younger my daughter bought a little dress from a charity shop which had a two layered skirt. They loved this dress and wore it until they could no longer squeeze into it. So my daughter asked if I could make them bigger dresses in the same style. 

I had found this pattern some time back in a charity shop and had used part of it to make their princess dresses for Christmas. I knew the pattern was a little too big for them and as I said in my last post,  I often find it hard to make them clothes being so far away and not being able to try them for size as I go along. The beauty of making two identical items is that second time round You can learn from the mistakes of the first!

So I used this pattern and added extra layers of skirts as requested. The girls are very precise about what colours and style fabrics they would like, Primrose wanted narrow pink stripes going vertically down the dress, Maggie wanted wider pink stripes going horizontal across the dress! 

I decided that horizontal stripes just wouldn't look right and so made them both vertical. 

I completed them and mailed them down to Devon, apparently the girls love them...phew :) I think they probably could do with some darts being put in them and so maybe on my next trip down to see them I could add these to make them fit better around the top. 

                              

                                      

                                       

Knitting for the grandchildren

I have been busy with making items of clothing for some of my grandchildren. I bought beautiful Debbie Bliss cashmerino Aran yarn and made the twins a cardigan each. One in jade and the other cowslip yellow. The yarn is lovely to knit with and the cardigans turned out really soft and snugly 

For some reason the jade cardigan turned out bigger, it's not easy to make clothes with them being so far away that I can't check on the fit throughout. 

I have been sewing for them too and I will post on that later.

                        

                       

                        

                        

Cushions

I've been getting on with some sewing the last couple of weeks. We had taken the cushions from our Ercol sofa, over to our cottage as they are made from vintage woollen blankets and I though they were more suited to a cottage. I bought some lovely big cushion Inners and looked through my fabric stash to see what I had that would suit our ercol furniture. The fabric I chose was  a curtain sample made of green Sanderson fabric. This was already made up into a rectangular, lined curtain just the right size to fold over and make a simple cover with no fastening just an envelope style fold over at the back.

                                     

For the second cushion I used a couple of pieces of Daisy Chain by Jonelle Duracolour which I made into the same style cover as the other. The quality of both these fabrics is lovely and great to sew with and all the better as I had picked up both pieces in charity shops :)