Hottie

FINISHED!!!!  At last!
These little guys are now preparing for their (hopefully quick) postal journey to Cam's at CurlyPops so they can participate in the Hottie Challenge next week.

Now for some shots of this hottie's process.....

planning and designing

more of the same

Thank goodness for linings

Ollie - boo, my little helper..

sleeping on/in (almost literally) the job

Lulu...not real mice?...........not interested!!!

getting there

lined and waiting...

New and exciting discovery.

 These photos below are OLD photos (I nearly fainted when I saw the year - 1990 printed in the corner of a couple of them - oh how time does fly!!!) that I dragged out of an album to see what I used to do in the 'dabbling with sewing' era of my life...which I must say was a fairly short era at the time.

I made this for a friend's little girl (who would be grown up now!) and when I look at it now I think 'how did I do that?'  The little dress lifted up and there were little undies and a tummy underneath and her hat was all puffy and 3 dimensional, and her plaits were made out of wool.

During the making of the last apron with the Koala and Cockatoo, and the trouble I had doing the applique stitch around curves and corners etc,  I had an urge to 'drop the feed dogs' and have a go at free motion machine embroidery...I didn't know anything about it or even know what it was called until a couple of weeks ago and when I tried it I couldn't work out exactly how to do it, or if I needed a special foot for it or none at all etc etc etc.

Next time I was in town and near our Sewing Machine Centre, I went in and inquired about machine embroidery and whether I needed a special foot etc and the very helpful lady there sold me a foot for the job and mentioned that it takes about 100 hours of practice to master the technique.  Undeterred, I couldn't wait until I was home so I could try it out for myself...(thinking 'no way' to the 100 hours). Sadly at that point, I couldn't even work out how to attach the foot ... let alone give the stitch a go!!!   At that time my machine was being very naughty during the making of the Cockatoo apron, so I had to go back to get my machine checked out and while I was there I asked to be shown how to put the foot on correctly.   
Yay, now I could play!!!   And OH what fun it is....like drawing with a sewing machine! 

 

finally finished!

Yay, finally I have finished this apron for my friend who wanted something Australian to take to her friends in England.

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They (my friend and her husband, and their English pals) are 4 friends who, when they occasionally are able to get together, love sharing laughs  and a bottle of wine...hence the wine glasses....

Bon voyage Koala and Cockie, hope you enjoy your trip to England and hope your new English owners enjoy you!!!

Work in progress

I am working on this apron at the moment - I have ironed on my design and now need to sew around it all. 

Old and New

 I haven't had much of a chance to paint or indulge in anything overly creative lately due to other things needing attention at home, but I found a couple of 'old muck-arounds' so thought I would post them here for fun...mixed with a recent piece of work or two.