Carpet down

Carpet down, it is one of those heavy duty ones that have to be glued to the underlay.  I wanted something that is easy to clean with a short hard pile, that will actually make it easier to roll around on my chair lol.  It takes a little longer to lay this kind of carpet, and you need a window open to air off the glue lol.  I think it's well worth having this kind of carpet in a craft room or the like, in the long run it will last a long time.  When Hanni bought her new house and got to the carpet stage both her and David went to Shaw Carpets in Barnsley, so we went to have a look.  As soon as I walked into the factory showroom I'd seen what I wanted.  

The box thing in the pictures below is the first of my new under wall cabinet drawers from Ikea, just the right size for all my threads etc.  More storage haha you can never have enough storage.  I'm having a couple as shelves as well.

The carpet in the dressing room is staying the same no need to change that for what it is.

Craft room update

Craft room coming along nicely, the paint is on the wall, I chose the Dulux Ivory Lace, it actually dries slightly lighter than it looks on the tin, which I'm glad about.  I chose to have paint on the walls to keep the room cooler.  When we had the house extension done our bedroom had painted walls for a while then we papered them and the difference that made was really noticeable.  Upstairs in summer gets a bit warm, so I'm hoping the painted walls will make a difference.  I currently have a ceiling fan in this craft room, so I'm trying out the new room before I decide whether to have one in there or not.  Everything is now ready for the carpet.

New Craft Room

Well I'm having a new craft room, Hanni has moved out as I've mentioned before and her room is bigger than the one I'm currently in.  This one is being reverted back into a bedroom, I've had it for the last three years, it does feel a lot longer.  Her room is actually a bit bigger than mine, plus she has a dressing room.  David has planned it down to the last nut and bolt lol, he just keeps saying what about this and how about that etc, etc, etc.  So the plan of action is to strip the walls (I'm just having them painted) to find any lumps or bumps and sort them out.  Wall cupboards turned up on Saturday morning, dado trunking and LED strip light arrived Friday.  Carpet being delivered and fitted next Thursday, so the painting has to be finished for then.  

This is a link to my current craft room 

It looks all very clean and tidy, but it's nothing like that at the moment.  I have the addition of 'My Brother', he is currently living in front of the window so I don't have that much room any more, not to mention the fabric that I have squirreled away haha.

This is Hanni's room as it was being decorated when we did the house extension and looked like this when she moved out.

 My Brother will live in between the doors, so I will have plenty of sewing room.

This is the dressing room area with the floor to ceiling sliding wardrobes, soon to be my storage.

This is what it looks like at the moment

The red stuff on the floor above is the dado trunking which will be full of sockets for all my gadgets, it won't be red that is just a peel off cover. 

Work in progress

This is what I've been up to today, I've been on My Brother, I've really missed this machine.  I'm doing some cushion covers for Hanni, she bought her house last October and after all the renovations she moved in March and has been waiting for cushions ever since.  I have started a couple of them before Christmas but everything had to stop because of my rubbish health.  This is a cat and will be for a cushion that will live in her bedroom, there will be two but this is the first.  I just thought I'd show my work in progress.  The design is from a set called Large Farm Animal Collection from Kreative Kiwi Embroidery and has to be sewn in two hoopings.

Quilt for Iyla my nephews baby

I made this quilt using my Accuquilt Go 2½" strip die, very quick, very easy.  I just cut some of the strips into squares, doubled the size for the rectangles then just sewed both of them together and made a strip to sit at the side of them, these where my blocks.  The size wasn't planned, I just thought when she is a little older and needs a duvet day she will need a quilt to a least to cover her lol.  Once I'd pieced all the blocks together I used a cotton wadding and the grey and white spot cotton fabric for the backing.  I did do a stitch in the ditch to quilt it but had an urge to randomly stitch lines across the quilt, so it ended up as a crazy paving effect.  The border was left over bits of fabric trimmed down before adding the binding. 

 I inserted a label I made on my embroidery machine with wash and dry instructions on the back.

Baby Bibs

Three bibs I made for my nephew haha, well for his baby of course.  I used Sweet Pea Machine Embroidery designs for these.  There are some really lovely designs for baby stuff on here.  This first one is the Rabbit

Second is the Owl

Then I did the Monkey, very cheeky lol.

They are all done in the hoop and really easy to do, the instructions are very clear and easy to follow, in fact once you made one that's it you can just get on and do the rest.  They look quite different depending on the fabric you use, take a look at the pictures below each main picture on the website.

Quilt for my mother-in-law

Another before Christmas project this time for my mother-in-law.  Last summer David and I were thinking of something to get for his mum for Christmas, what on earth do you get for someone who has nearly everything.  Well, I had a brainwave, she had had to have heart surgery, and with winter coming around I knew her legs would suffer a little from the cold.  I remember my dad having the same problem years ago when they took some veins out of his legs, so I knew she would be the same.  I thought a quilt would take the edge off.  

I used the Kreative Kiwi Embroidery designs Redwork patterns, I know I didn't do them in red but stay with me on this lol.  The designs are called Garden Delight and Garden Delight 2, I thought they would be apt for her as she really does enjoy her garden.  One of the sets has nine designs and the other has ten so I had to repeat one of the designs to make this quilt, you may also notice that some of the blocks are stitched slightly darker than the other, this is the amount of times a line of stitching has been overstitched, the more lines the darker the line.  Each set was different so I alternated each design to balance it out a bit.  I used her favourite colour which is aqua, I also used white cotton fabric.

I matched the colour of the aqua fabric with the embroidery thread so if you have a look at the back of the quilt you will see I quilted in the hoop and just did the sashings once the blocks were finished.  I like to hand sew the sashings down to finish off as my lines of sewing on the machine look horrendous, I just can't get them to sew in a straight line, so less stress, just get out a needle and thread lol.

The label I did on my embroidery machine, I always put washing and drying instructions on the back, just so anyone I make for will know how to look after it.  

Cushion covers for my nephew

A couple of cushion covers made using the Kreative Kiwi Embroidery designs, in fact I bought extra fill cushion pads as well for these, nice and plump lol, I think they were a 20" cushion pad, they were made for my nephew and his partner for the arrival of his first baby.  I used the Jungle Animal Collection - Large Applique patterns, they are so cute, these cushion covers were made using the largest size and needed two hoopings.  As you can see I used grey and white spotty cotton fabric for the envelope cushion cover and for the giraffe and leopard I used a brushed cotton fabric, very touchy feely.  I did the animals on my embroidery machine then attached them onto the covers with a straight stitch just on the edge of the outline.  I really enjoyed making these and definitely want to use these animals again.

A few pictures showing the stitch out process.  As you sew them you actually tuck the body under the head and this connects them together, but because I was putting them onto the cushion fronts I did them separately so I could move the head about if needed.  If I had have done a smaller size I would have connected them before hand I think.  It actually didn't make that much difference in the end, it just felt like a good idea at the time.

Update

I'm back, well sort of, I've been quite poorly for the last six months and at the moment I'm only able to do stuff in short bursts, it's very easy to overdo it and David (hubby) is always in my ear about it lol.  I've had quite a bad case of Cellulitis, well bad for me maybe not as bad as some people get it.  I'd never actually heard of it until I'd got it, apparently one way it attacks is when your immune system is low which is probably what happened to me.  Just before Christmas I'd had that cold flu thing that was going round, twice and once I'd got rid of that I ended up with a throat infection.  That's when it got me.  I will spare you all the unsavoury details but it was more than painful and I've got really sensitive skin so that didn't help.  I had doctors coming out to see me, nurses coming every day and for a time they were here twice a day, they were fantastic all of them, they really looked after me, I can't thank them enough.  They knew I didn't want to go into hospital and did their best to help with that, I did have an overnighter when I had to have IV drips but I managed to get on the list for treatment at home so the nurses came to our house to give me the following daily IVs.  Even the people on the other end of the phone when we had to phone 111 because I'd had a very bad reaction to one of the courses of antibiotics I'd had to have.  It was about 11pm and I asked David to get me a doctor, I'd nearly collapsed, I never ever ask for a doctor so he and then Hanni (daughter) knew it was serious, they were both brilliant.  The 111 team were phoning us back until 4 o'clock in the morning making sure all was well.  As a result of that I couldn't even go to the downstairs cloakroom unaided, David and Hanni placed the dining room chairs strategically along the route so I could sit at each of them, at first with help then on my own just to go and pay a visit.  I couldn't even get upstairs to go to bed.

Anyway, I could go on and on and on for ages with it all, but I'm on the mend slowly, but it's happening.  I have muscle wastage so have to build that up again.  I now have to wear wraps on my legs so they don't swell up and for water retention, I have to check and moisturise my legs every day.  If I get poorly I have to check my legs.  This is now an everyday thing for ever and I will do it because I never want to go through all that again.  I just thank God I have a David and a Hanni, they are fantastic and have/are really looking after me, love them both very much, thank you, you two.

I haven't been crafting as you can see I've been a bit busy but I can show what I'd made just before Christmas, so over the next few days I'll post pictures.