Mother's Day Gifts

I've been doing a little hand stitching making Suffolk Puffs (or yo-yos) and then putting them together into brooches for the school Mother's Day stall in two weeks time.  It is nice to be able to hand sew a bit more as the sensation comes back into my right hand after my spinal surgery.  It's really only the tip of my index finger that is still noticeably numb.
I ended up with 20 brooches, and made little gift boxes for them all.  I'm told the ones I did last year sold really quickly, hopefully the kids will like these too.

Suffolk Puff & Button Brooches for Mother's Day!  Shame the dark grey ones don't show up to well.

And the gift boxes made out of an old calendar and scrap office paper.

I have also purchased a beautiful new (at least to me) sewing machine.

The neat little cabinet.

All in working order.

A closer view

And closer still. With my "Untitled Japonica #2" quilt in the background.

All the original accessories & instruction book

And the original instalment agreement from 1955.

If you want to know why  I bought this gorgeous little thing, you can read about it here.

Now I need to learn how to keep the wheel turning in one direction!

Happy sewing.
Ravs.

Easter Bonnet

Friday 30th March was the Annual Easter Hat Parade at J5 & L7's school.
The boys decorated or made their own hats, then on the Thursday I decided that I needed a new Easter Bonnet too!  So I spent a couple of hours sewing this up.

The band is not sewn on - it is pinned in place by the hand-made Suffolk Puff brooch

A nice big brim to shade my face

The reverse side - unfortunately the join in the brim fabric is more obvious than I would like (my fabric wasn't large enough to cut it in one piece.

I think I will move from iron on interfacing to a heavy, non-woven, sew-in.  It is really hard to get the curves as nice as I would like once the interfacing is ironed on because all the 'give' is lost.  I'm also going to move away from such large contrasts on the two sides, at least on the large brim versions where it is so obvious, and try for different, but complementary, fabrics.

And below are the creative efforts of my two sons, L7 & J5.  I thought they looked pretty cool.  I believe in allowing them to direct their own designs - I just lend a practical hand where asked.

L7 in his 'Easter Rocks' hat.  Using the magic tape to make it look like the words were written directly on the hat was his idea (after I stopped him just in time from writing on it in felt tip!).

J5 Designed & made this himself - I just handed him the bits of sticky tape.