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.

Laptop Bag - Tutorial

I bought myself a new computer - a MacBook Pro 13" laptop.

Of course a laptop is far more useful if you can carry it around safely - hence a laptop bag is required.

But I didn't really want to spend MORE money - or be the same as everybody else - so I decided to design and make one myself.

It has three internal padded sections, a front pocket,

and a back pocket with flap.

 Want to see how?

Book Cover

At the last meeting of my quilt group one member showed a cover she had made for a note book.
It was really lovely, and very artistic (she does more textile art now than traditional quilting), and inspired me to make one to cover & protect my 2012 Permaculture Diary, which was already getting a bit ratty from being carried around everywhere.
So - here it is.

Front cover (rear is the same) is actually all one fabric

Do you like the Piggy Pocket?

A vertical pocket inside the rear cover, and if you look closely you can see the striped pen loop.

I made one fairly major error - I only measured the diary open and therefore didn't have enough give when I needed to close it.  I had to cut the cover in half and add a different fabric spine (the green & fawn stripe).
It actually improved the aesthetics as well as the function, but I won't make the same mistake again.

Ravs