Stitchery

The first of the month already, how did that happen?? The round-up of August projects will be very brief as the lure of a cool glass of crisp white by the pool was just too strong to resist.

Despite all the lazing around I did manage to;

• Make the Babushka backpack for the Practically Paper Piecing Blog Hop (still time to link up your projects if you haven't already!)

• Finish and send off my Bee blocks for the Star of Africa and Sunday Morning Quilts Bees

• Complete my pattern test for Sew Festive Handmade's Harry Potter themed embroidery pattern, which will eventually become the front of a keepsake box but that is for another month. Check out this pattern and the rest of the Rebecca's Potter-themed range here There is a 20% discount available until Monday 3rd. 

• And just scrape in under the wire with my August project for 12 WIP's in 2012

So the month wasn't entirely given over to the consumption of alcohol in the sunshine after all!

Whilst the men in the family were wearing themselves out hiking the hilliest section of Hadrian's Wall on the Bank Holiday weekend, I was treating myself to a Stitchery course at my  LQS. Given that it lashed rain all day it was not difficult to see who got the best of that bargain! In the morning we looked at various methods of interfacing fabric for stitching and drew our own patterns for the comparisons. As art is definitely not one of my strong points I went for a simple boat shape.

I liked the puffiness of the Pellon backed fabric and would probably use that again. I wrote down the number but needless to say cannot find it now!

We had the opportunity to look as well at different methods of transferring embroidery outlines including using a lightbox, which was a definite step up from my usual method of taping the image to the window :) I had brought along an embroidery magazine that I had bought in France the week before, so decided to use one of the iron-on transfer images for my project. Needless to say with so much chatting going on the actual sewing done was limited.

I originally intended to turn the finished embroidery into a cushion with the Eiffel Tower fabric, but my husband bought me a Kindle for my birthday so now I am thinking that I might use it instead for a Kindle cover. Either way I will have to finish the embroidery first!

So I have at least one project underway for September already. Hope you had a more productive month than I did.

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts