Saturday photos #12

Five minutes during a walk at Clumber Park, a National Trust property in north Nottinghamshire.  

More sewing with my sister

I've been showing lots of denim bits over the last couple of months, and while these 'samples' are definitely now going to be a quilt in their own right, they were intended initially as experiments in working with denim, to see how the stitching I imagined would look in real life, but also to consider what effect it would have on how the fabric behaved, how heavy/stiff it became and what the implications of that would be.  The plan was to get together with my sister, who is much more skilled in garment-making than I am, to try and create some garments.  This was the weekend we got started.

We worked with a combination of my stitched pieces, some old jeans which had not been stitched and a couple of pieces of remnant denim.  These had a rather pleasing dull red reverse, which turned out to be a good thing, as one section of the pattern was cut the wrong way round.  We considered a couple of fixes, but decided to go with the flow, so the red got onto the front! 

There is quite a lot of handstitching to do in finishing this, so I'm going to get that done and then post the whole thing (though sadly I'm away for a couple of days now and only enough packing space for little things, not great big ones!)

Sewing with my sister

I've spent the last two days with my sister, happily sewing away.  We had loads of fun, worked hard, made a few fortuitous mistakes, talked a lot (though that was mainly me!)

We also used our machines a lot, so, since I am going to link up with Slow Sunday Sewing today, I'm just going to offer a peak at the hand stitching that went on, and will post more fully in the next few days.

Playing with colour

Like lots of other people I love a good play on Play Crafts Palette Builder software, so the linky party at A Quarter Inch from the Edge gives me the perfect excuse to share one or two of my favourite pictures:

Camellias, just past their best;

and this one.  The photo is of a piece of fabric that in real life looks nothing like this - the light was all wrong, but I love the way the colours have come out.  A happy accident!

Every which way is slow

The day had to come, I guess, when I wanted to do something for which applique, rather than piecing, seemed like the best way forward, and that day is today.  I've gone all around the houses thinking it over, but no other answer seems right.  So applique it is.  

This means that right now I am not machining at all, which in turn means that my production has gone from slow to slooooooow.  

This is what it looks like right now.

I'm hoping I'll get the hang of the applique okay (and please don't look too closely at my stitches, or tell me it will take years to get it right; I need it to work now, or at least now-ish) but any helpful tips more than welcome!

Back to the jeans

Having spent last weekend being social, it's been good to get back to my denim, which becomes the main thing I am working on for a bit, now that Inner City is in the quilting pile.

I've done a couple more pieces.  This one is tiny (just a pocket).  

I am taking quite a lot of pockets off as I go along, because I like to see the contrast between faded and still-new denim.  But I'll still use them somewhere, so stitched this one - something as tiny as this is done in next to no time! Very satisfying. 

Then I tackled the other half of the kids' jeans that I started here.  I just added one big patch and stitched all the way across it .

I really like the curve at the top of this patch:

I am also still playing around with all the pieces together, though reaching no firm conclusions.  I like the mix of heavily stitched and less densely worked pieces though.

Linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Sewing - lots of wonderful hand-stitching projects all in one place! Also with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Saturday photos #11

Five minutes in a hospital foyer, yesterday evening.  And taken on my phone, hence the grainy quality!