Tree Fall

Topsy Turvy Does it

When I was a child I had a doll that I absolutely loved. She was given to me by someone that I care for very much. And I dearly wish that I still had her. But I don't. And this has been playing on my mind for a while now. Until I bought a vintage craft book about a month ago.
The pattern for this doll has been brewing in my mind for a few months, but I didn't really have the confidence to get started on it. Then I saw a 'suggestion' of how to make a similar doll in this vintage craft book and thought, what the hell, lets give it a go. I hinted at it in this post and gave you a sneak peak, but didn't actually finish her until today.

This is Julianna. Her dress is made from one of my favourite Paul Smith fabrics and has a collar that ties at the shoulder. I designed the dress based on a real full size pattern of a 1970's dress (minus the shoulder tie) that I was given a while ago. I have no experiance of dressmaking other than the dress I made for my Princess and the Pea doll. But I really enjoyed making this one and I feel that I'm really building in confidence.

She stands 17" (43cm) tall, so she's quite a statuesque young lady. Her hair is made from brown wool and is worn in a jaunty bob, pulled in at the nape of her neck. Her features are embroidered.

Oh and she has a best friend called Sophia.

Sophia is also 17" tall, but wears her hair in a slightly more traditional plait made from the same brown wool as Julianna's.

Sophia wears a green leafy/floral abstract printed dress. It's obviously the same pattern as Julianna's dress but I altered the collar to suit the more traditional look of her dress.

Julianna and Sophia are the best of friends. They love to do everything together. In fact you could say that they're joined at the hip.

Because they actually are joined at the hip!

You see the doll that I had when I was younger was a topsy turvy doll. One end of her wore a beautiful dress and had her hair all done up, whilst the other end wore a night dress and was asleep. And I loved that so much.

I did intend to try and do a more exact copy, but eventually decided to make the doll as two seperate dolls, purely because it was more fun that way.

It's taken me so long to finish Julianna/Sophia because I've struggled with each new step. Amongst other things, I haven't tried to sew 'real'  hair before (the Princesses is embroidered), so I left her sitting on my table for a while whilst I worked up the courage to try it.  And then she had to sit around faceless whilst I worked out how on earth I was going to embroider their faces - most of my toys are asleep for a reason!

Anyway I'm  really pleased with her now that she's finally finished and more than that, I'm really pleased that I got to grips with some new techniques - none of which were nearly as hard as I thought they would be.

Oh and just as a very strange coincidence, if you look over on Whip Up today, you'll see some more Topsy Turvy dolls made by Megan Hanson-Knarhoi.

Julianna/Sophia is now in the shop .

 

A Little of Me

I started quilting about 2 and a half years ago. Before that I had never really done any sewing at all.  I was given my first sewing machine for christmas when I was16 and spent the next couple of weeks making tube skirts.
I didn't use it again until I was 22, when I made a patchwork quilt top. I had no idea what I was doing and knew nothing about 1/4" seams, or batting or actual quilting. So all I did was cut up pieces of fabric (with scissors - did they  have rotary cutters in 1992?) and sew them together, with almost no seam at all. Once it reached the size that I wanted, I declared it finished. Not only did I not put any backing on it or bind it, but I didn't even bother to hem it. Seriously. And you know what? It is still there, with a few holes (that's what happens if you don't use 1/4" seams) and no batting, no quilt back, no quilting and yep, no hem . It hangs over the end of our bed and although I now know that it's not a quilt - it's just a quilt top - I still really like it. And actually I'm amazed that I made it.

When I started my own business as a carpenter/designer at the age of 25, one of my products was a hanging chalkboard. Included with the board was a little bag that held the chalk and a tiny sponge. They were just oblongs sewn together and yet I had to get my mom to make them. Oh, and mom? If you're reading this - I found some of them the other day and you didn't even hem them! What was I paying you for? (did you hear the sound of her exploding at the suggestion that I paid her?!).

A few years ago, after closing my business and giving up banking (my next career), I went back to Art School and studied furniture making and restoration, only to discover that an illness that I had been suffering from for a couple of years meant that I just couldn't work with tools anymore. I have arthritis in all of my joints and my hands just could not cope with being a carpenter any longer. So I stopped.
And I don't think I created anything at all for over a year. And I don't think I knew who I wanted to be anymore, until I decided that I wanted to be a mom.

And at some point after about a year of failing to get pregnant, I suddenly dug out my old sewing machine and made a quilt.
I can't remember at all, why I did that. I know that I've always loved quilts, but you really have to actively seek them out over here. It's not like the US where it seems like everyone knows someone who quilts. I had never met anyone who quilted. But for some reason, I bought a book on quilts and just started sewing.
And I can honestly say that if I hadn't done that then I think I might have gone a little crazy trying to have a baby. Quilting created just enough of a distraction to allow me to keep trying to have a successful pregnancy. It gave me a focus that my life sorely, sorely needed. And good lord, it made me happy during the hardest time of my life.

The first quilt festival that I visited was when I was 5 months pregnant with Bella. It was the first time I'd seen so many real quilts up close. And I was amazed by how talented people were and how varied quilts can be. And more than that, I was astounded to see that you could buy so many different types of fabric! And the books! So many wonderful books!
It was there that I bought my first Japanese quilt book. I had lived in Hong Kong through my teenage years and had spent a large part of my pocket money on Japanese movie magazines. They were so much better than the English ones and even better than my much loved US ones (boy did I love Tigerbeat though!). And although I couldn't read a word of the text, I could pour over the pages and pages of amazing photo's. Can you imagine how upset I was (and still am, 21 years later) when my mom told me that there was no way we could ship 4 years worth of thick, glossy Japanese movie magazines back to the UK? Oh the pain of throwing them all away!
So when I saw my first Japanese quilt book, I knew it (and the rest) just had to come home with me .

These (and about 10 other) cushions were made sometime before last christmas, before I started blogging and before I knew that anyone else had discovered Japanese quilt books. I still don't know anyone else that sews or quilts (in 'real' life) and before blogging I didn't know anyone that would ever buy a book that they can't read, just for the wonderful, colourful pictures. I actually assumed that no one really knew about them. Isn't that funny? Can you imagine how shocked I was when I discovered Maitreya's amazing site ?  It just seems incredible (and so naive) to me now, to think that  6 months ago I had no idea that any of this existed. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think I was original or unique. I just thought I was alone.
All I can say is, phew, I'm so glad that I'm not.

(Forgot to say that these two cushions are in the shop now and so is my colourful cat ) link fixed - thanks Kristy!!

Whip Lash

I decided to be brave this week and actually join in with Whip Lash for once. I've never been much of a joiner, and I've never won anything in my life, but this weeks theme of 'Colour' was just too tempting to resist.

Obviously as a quilter, colour is incredibly important to me, but I have to admit that it's really only been recently that I've started using really vibrant colours in my work. And it's only been in the last few months that I've started using pattern in any way. I'm the opposite of most quilters - I started making quilts using only solids and absolutely, catorgorically avoided any kind of patterned fabric.

It wasn't until I saw some Amy Butler fabric at last years Quilt Festival here in the UK, that I realised that all printed fabrics didn't have to have either brightly coloured cats or dark and dingy flowers on them. And once I started blogging and discovered the wonderful Cia , there really was no stopping me! It's prints all the way now. In fact I have to remember to occasionally use a solid these days and my fabric cupboard has gone from having all three shelves holding solids, with one box of prints, to having a whole new, larger cupboard that holds nothing but prints!

I'm still generally a little cautious about using really bright colours though, (although my recent work doesn't seem to reflect that, and it would appear that I'm getting braver!), and couldn't really think of anything to make for the Whip Lash theme of 'Colour', until I started working on this quilt this morning (didn't have time to finish it last week).

And I realised just how much I've started loving orange. Even though the quilt is predominantly blue, when you're quilting you view the colours and the patterns they make from a whole new angle. And from close up the orange in the quilt just kept jumping out at me. So I had a look and discovered that I already own a ton of orange fabrics, which surprises me because it's not a colour I'm normally drawn to. Or so I thought.

So anyway, to finally get to the point - after picking a number of vintage and new orange and red prints, I came up with this cat. It's a pattern that I've made before, but it's a whole new take. And it totally sums up my changing attitudes to colour.

Unfortunately, the light today is truly awful, so I haven't been able to get a really decent photo. The wool collar isn't the purple that it appears - it's actually a lovely soft heather colour.

So there you go, my bright Colourful cat.

Arggh, the more I see these photo's the more I realise just how wrong they are! The collar just is NOT that colour! I know there are lots of people out there that love purpe and that's cool and I'm sure there are even people that would happily team it with orange. But I'm not really one of those people! In real life it just doesn't look like that, it's such a nice subtle colour. After Whiplash is over I may have to replace these photo's, because they. are. wrong! Oh and I don't have photoshop and wouldn't know what the hell to do with it if I did, so I can't just change the colour that way. - Ok I've replaced a couple of the photo's with some brighter ones.

Books

Who stole my week? I can't believe how fast the last week has gone by. And yet I can't think of a single thing that I've achieved.
I have been crafting, but nothing is actually finished yet. And yet I've had more time to work this week than usual, as Bella went to the childminder's twice instead of just on Monday.
I feel a little like Ray Milland at the moment, but instead of a weekend I've lost a whole week!
Anyway, we all know that the words are just blah blah blah, and that it's the pictures we're really interested in ;)

This beauty arrived through my door today. Which confused me because I didn't order it. How did they know, I wondered. How kind of them to send it to me*

More Coney Rabbits in mid make.

And a peek at something new that I'm quite excited about.

And finally, here's a pile of books that have taken up (permanent) residence on my corner table. I was intending to take a photo for Corners of My Home, but then I thought about it and realised that when I'm looking at (loving!) the photo's on Corners, I always wish that I could see what books people have. 

I was also thinking about this post here  (scroll down to the post about books) and how much it resonated with me. Like Diane, we have books in every room. And I find it really strange when I'm in someone's house and there are no books. I have a couple of friends that have absolutely no books in their homes and no matter what else is there, it always feels empty to me.
And then there are the friends that have mountains of books..

And oh boy, I can spend days in this room. It's so relaxing and so condusive to creating and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's in the home of a long line of artists. It is one of my favourite rooms ever, especially early on a sunday morning before anyone else is up.
So no Corners, this week, just a pile of books.

(and just as an aside, does anyone else get really paranoid about their posts? I am finding it harder and harder to write here, because I'm constantly aware of how dull it all is. I often have ideas for posts but then when I start writing them I just think 'oh no one is going to be interested in this' and delete it all. Maybe I should only post pictures. Or maybe I've just got bad pms.)

They Only Needed 10 Minutes

Here's what you don't do. You don't say to your husband 'can you just pop the tumble drier on', without specifying how long for. Don't assume that he will check how wet the clothes are and set the drier for a time based on that. And don't assume that he'll therefore realise that they only need ten minutes. Not. An. Hour. Because, if you put the drier on for an hour, the onesie's that you've spent two days working on and that you need finished for today WILL. SHRINK. And you will be left with 2 hours to make something for your friends new baby.
That's what you don't do - unless, of course,  you are me.
Oh how we laughed.

Fortunately Bella was super kind and napped for a whole two and a half hours today, so I was able to make some replacement presents.

I made her this baby blanket out of a couple of different spotted fabrics. The red and white polka dot was found a few weeks ago and is lovely and soft.

I think the other fabric is Heather Ross (or am I wrong? I can't remember). And it's backed in pink fleece, which I would never usually choose, but some serious time constraints meant that my choices were limited.

For the binding I used a fabric that is a light aqua and cream polka dot, because I love that fabric at the moment and it picks out the accent spots on the Heather Ross (??) fabric.
As well as using fleece I also had to machine sew the binding - which I hate to do - it just does not look as good or as professional as hand sewing it. But I had to be sensible and realise that it was the only way I could get it finished in time and that my friend probably wouldn't even notice, let alone care.
I also made her a bib.

I used a mix of vintage and modern fabrics for the front and a fantastic Laura Ashley stripe. I think I actually prefer the back, but it's reversible so L can choose which she likes best.

And at the end of it all I found that one of the original onesies, although a lot smaller than when I started, wasn't ruined and may actually fit baby E now.

Phew.

As well as going to visit  L and baby E in hospital - (beautiful, beautiful baby girl) I also went out this evening with someone other than Jim for the first time since Bella was born! Wow I can't believe that I haven't been out for an evening other than with Jim for 15 months!  For a moment there I almost felt like a real person!

Boys and Girls

Bella had her afternoon at the childminders again today, which she obviously enjoyed a great deal, if the minimal hug we got when we went to pick her up and her demands to be put down so that she could go back to playing, were anything to go by! (I'm sorry that sentence could win awards for it's terrible structure!).
So anyway, her afternoon at the childminders of course means it's my afternoon to be able to work. And work I did.
First of all I finished the new quilt top that I started over the weekend.

It's the blue version of the quilt that I made for Bella's first birthday. I'm hoping to get it basted and possibly even quilted tomorrow.  And then I think that I'm going to put it up for sale in the shop. Maybe. I might just keep it for myself.

I also made a bag to go with the playmats that I sell, so that they can be lugged around more easily.

I've been using the playmat that I made for Bella for over a year now, and for over a year I've been saying that it needs it's own bag so that I can cart it around more easily! So today I finally got round to designing and making one for a playmat that was recently ordered. And I'm pretty happy with it - but I still need to make one for Bella's mat! (Ack you know what they say about the Cobbler and his own kid's lack of footwear).

The other thing that happened today was that a friend of mine had her second baby, Eve. We're all very excited about this because she's the first of our group to be mad brave enough to have a second child and we're all desperate to see how on earth you cope with two! I'm particularly interested as Jim and I have decided that we want it to be our turn next! Eeek!
So anyway, I decided that I wanted to make some special onesie's for little baby Eve and started them today (and yes I've known for at least a month that Eve would be born today, and I started them.. today!).
So I bought a pack of plain white onesies.

And appliqued them.

They're not finished yet. I still have some stitching and embroidery to do. But you get the idea.

And this one is for someone else. (it's a surprise)

I'm hoping to get these all finished tomorrow as well. Bella's got her MMR jabs tomorrow and Jim's taken the day off work so that we can go to the docs together. But hopefully Bella will be fine and I'll be able to get a few hours of work in in the afternoon.

Not Mushroom In Here

Since Bella's birth, her eyes have wept almost continuously. Apparently it's not that uncommon for babies to be born with blocked tear ducts. And apparently it's perfectly normal for them to unblock themselves by the time the baby turns one. So after Bella turned one and her eyes still watered, we received an appointment with a specialist to discuss an operation she woud have to have to correct the condition.
The appointment finally arrived for last Friday so the three of us spent 3 hours waiting to find out what would happen next. And I'm so relieved to say that she doesn't need an operation after all. It turns out that if her tear ducts were blocked, they aren't now and that she actually has a little extra piece of skin in the corner of her eye that is pushing her eyelashes against her eyeball, causing her eyes to water. And apparently it should sort itself out by the time she's 4 or 5.
This is such a relief, I can't tell you! Whilst the operation wouldn't have been a big one ( I don't think), I was truly dreading putting her through that and have been studiously ignoring the impending appointment.
So it was great to be told such good news and a lovely way to start our weekend!
The rest of the weekend has been spent finishing off a couple of orders and starting a new quilt.
I also bought a plain white t-shirt to alter for Bella. Nikki  has been talking a lot about making or altering her own clothes which is something that I'm really interested in, but that I have no confidence in being able to do myself. So I thought that I would start small and see how I get on.
You would also having to be walking (or surfing) around with your eyes closed not to have seen all the wonderful stencil t-shirts that are about. Here , here  and here  for instance. So the obvious first project was a t-shirt, (although not a stencilled one because I don't have the paint - yet). And here it is.

As I said, it started as a plain white t-shirt which I then appliqued mushrooms on to.

And then I sewed cuffs on to the sleeves.

And a border on to the bottom of the tee.

I haven't tried it on Bella yet (she's been throwing up since yesterday so no lovingly handcrafted clothes for her today!), but I really enjoyed doing it and I like the outcome. And most importantly it's given me a little (but not much) more confidence in altering clothes. I know it's just a t-shirt, but it's a start right?

(sorry for the lousy pictures - apparently summer's over!)

10 Simple Pleasures

Capello tagged me for the 10 Simple Pleasures meme - so here goes.

1. Eating  BLT croissants for lunch on a Sunday with Jim and Bella (she has jam).

2. Asking Bella for a kiss and getting one (that's a new thing for her).

3. Listening to Annie Smith's   Quilting Stash podcast whilst crafting in my studio, with the sun shining through the blinds and Bella down the hall napping.

4. Buying fabric!

5. Having a glass of wine whilst Jim baths Bella and puts her to bed.

6. Going to get Bella when she wakes up in the morning. She is always laughing and pointing to all the things she's thrown on to the floor whilst waiting for us to get her up.

7. Drinking coffee in Borders whilst reading Selvedge or MSL

8. Wandering around the car boot sale on a sunday morning with £10 to spend. I allow myself £10 every week and Jim is allowed 60p for a cup of coffee! Sounds fair to me!

9. Walking in to my studio and closing the door behind me.

10. Buying fabric. (we all know it's worth listing twice!).

A little Bit Light, A Little Bit Heavy

This cold (can I please call it flu even though it isn't?) has really knocked me for six. I wasn't able to get out of bed at all yesterday and although I am obviously feeling a little better today I'm still living in the land of Blluuurgghhhh! So please excuse me for being somewhat uninspired and posting about another lampshade.
I made this one today.


(what d'ya mean there's such a thing as too much pattern??)
This is obviously a modern shade as opposed to the vintage one I covered the other day. I'm really happy with it, but I particularly liked the juxtaposition between the vintage shape of the older one with the use of the modern fabrics.

I've still got a few kinks to work out in the design of these, especially as this one needed a slightly different construction than the other one, but I think they're working out ok. 

On a different note, Bella went to childcare for the first time ever today! Oh and I can't tell you how conflicted I am about this.
I work from home and look after Bella full time. And up until now this has worked for both of us, I hope. But I am getting busier and busier and in order to earn money and fufill my other obligations I made the decision last week to send Bella to a childminder for one afternoon a week. It's a childminder that comes highly recommended and that already looks after 2 of my friends children (I am the only sahm I know) and I obviously took Bella there a few times and got to know the women that work there (there's always two childminders together), before just dumping Bella there this afternoon (can you hear the guilt?!). But I still feel very very strange about this.
Now before I continue, I have absolutely no opinion at all about whether parents should stay at home or not. I do not judge either way and the opinion that I do share here, relates purely to me and my situation.
So, the childminder is a lovely person and has a lovely house that is full to the brim with great toys and books and paints and paper and everything else I would want Bella to be exposed to. And she respects the fact that Bella has never had chocolate or icecream or juice  and only drinks water and milk and blah, blah blah (fill in all the other things that prove I'm a crazy mother) and most importantly of all, Bella loves her. And I need to work and she's only going there 4 hours a week. So I know that I shouldn't feel guilty - I mean for goodness sake, it's for such a short period of time that if I wasn't paying for it, I'd call it a play date! But I honestly feel like crap about this. Even though I know that it's probably really good for her to be socialising without me.
Ack, you know what? That's my baby girl and no one can take care of her as well as I can and no one loves her as much as I do. And I know that at 15 months she's probably not too young to spend 4 hours a week away from me, but I'm her mom! You know?
Anyway, you know that she had a great time and although she was happy to see us, there hadn't been a single tear shed all afternoon. Even when we left. And I'm pretty proud of that. My parents weren't that great at instilling confidence into any of their children and it's something that I'm really aware of. So I spend a lot of time encouraging Bella to be independant and secure and hopefully it's working a little bit. So although I feel shitty about leaving her there, I am also incredibly proud of the fact that she was happy and smiley and, in their words -  'a complete angel'.
Yay Bella! And I'm sorry.

(ignore the bad hair day, as you can see, Bella stole my cap!)

Let There Be Light

Today was supposed to be a lovely day. It's a Bank Holiday, so Jim's off work and there's lots going on in the village next to ours - May pole etc. So I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing spring (almost summer, almost summer!) day.
Ah well. Maybe next time.
The reality was that I woke up with a streaming, horrible cold and spent most of the day in bed listening to Jim and Bella playing downstairs. Not fair.
I did get the lampshade finished this morning though.

I have to say that I'm very pleased with it. And think I may have to run with this idea a little more.

As you can see, I've bordered the top and the bottom of the shade with two diffrent colourways of the same print.

I handsewed the borders on, which was a little bit of a nightmare, but worth the effort I think.
Unfortunately I didn't take a proper before picture - I know, I know, what was I thinking - but this is what it looked liked when I started work on it.

It originally had a disgusting tassel thing stuck on to the bottom of it and was just not very pretty, but was the right size. And buying a new lampshade big enough would have cost a fortune.

As I said, I've definately got more ideas for this type of patchwork.

Oh and because I'm ill (again) and therefore didn't get anything done today, this is how my kitchen table looks at the moment!