A very wet day.

It is still raining here. Continuous, relentless water falling from a dull grey sky. Not a day to be outside, apart from essential stuff.

So, I cleared the ironing mountain (!) and then made a start on the mending pile. I have dropped 4 dress sizes since June, so this was much needed work :) I have a load of clothes which are now too large for me so I am taking in as many as I can to save some money by not buying new clothes. Most of these will only be worn in the garden although some are good stuff - some of the more difficult/expensive/favourite items I will take to the seamstress in Ledbury to be taken in for me.

I am all set up in the corner of the sitting room, the fire is lit, I have music or Radio 4 or TV to entertain me if I wish and a mug of tea.

I also got lots of old clothes cut up for rags, quilting and buttons. As they are all natural fabrics the remains will either be composted or used to make char cloth for fire lighting in the wood.

After a lengthy session with needle and thread I have 8 pairs of trousers taken in at the waist, legs taken in up the seam and some shortened as well (I have not lost height, but I had not got around to shortening them!) That will save me some money not having to buy new trousers :) I also have three shirts which have been taken in at the sides and bust and three favourite t shirts which have had the same treatment.

And it finally stopped raining late afternoon and the sun came out, so I went and picked the last of the Cosmos from the cutting garden to add some colour to the house :)

All in all a good and busy day  :)

What I have been up to lately - Quilting

 Finally, I got started on my quilt.

 Sorting through some the old fabrics I am going to re purpose

Cutting out lots and lots of squares

 

And arranging and re arranging them...

Table has been like this for several days now!

Starting to sew the squares together...using my new quilting foot makes the seams so much easier to do!

A glimpse of what the centre looks like...

More to follow!

Quilting - update!

I have been cutting up lots of saved up cotton clothes  - mostly from Compostgirl - not good enough to gift or charity shop but too good for rags, so ideal for quilting.

I now have a rotary cutter, a much larger self healing cutting mat ( I only has an A4 one, before - now I have an A2 mat) and a really useful cutting template ruler, as well as a really nice quilting book

All courtesy of my lovely Husband Compostman - who gave me these as a Christmas gift :-)

Added to the existing metal rule I already had, plus the sewing machine and assorted stuff I use on a regular basis and I am all ready to go.

Now - what project shall I do, first :-)

A quilt, a cushion, a table runner?

Any ideas?

I am a confident machine and hand sewer. (I think)

Mending the duvet

 It must be winter, as I tend to catch up with a mountain of sewing/mending/crafting tasks at this time of the year - (as well as scaling and conquering the ironing mountain)

This is the much loved duvet which Compostgirl begged me to "fix" it had a hole worn through, a number of unravelled seams and some of the buttons missing.

The buttons and the seams were easily fixed with new buttons and some sewing machine work BUT the hole was a bit harder to fix.

I got out an embroidery hoop and darned the thin, holed ares until it was much stronger. I could have used my sewing machine but small jobs like this are better done by hand I feel :-)

I was left with an area of darned fabric which needed covering, so little fingers did not "worry" at it again :-)

So I went to my stash of fabric and found an old pair of much loved cords of Compostgirls,from when she was 6 or so, which had some lovely fabric flowers on them - I was thinking about making some but remembered I had these in my stash box.

I cut off a flower and sewed it over the darn

And lo - a duvet restored to use and back in action on Compostgirls bed :-) she was very pleased with this :-)

What have you repaired, lately?

And here are some I made, earlier...

Whilst Compostgirl was making her purse, I was sewing  these from scraps and oddments. I like them :-)