My sewing machine

It's about time I introduced my sewing machine. It's not conventional...

It's an old manual Singer

Isn't she beautiful? Look at all the intricate design and pattern:

There's a serial number on it which enabled me to look up the year it was made - 1936 in Kilbowie, Clydebank, Scotland.

This is not an electric machine so I have to feed/guide the fabric with my left hand and turn the wheel with my right in order to sew. It can be quite tricky sometimes!

Excuse the mess in the background! I was hoping the strategically placed plants would hide it but they haven't done their job properly...

The only change I've made is to add a walking foot so that I can quilt a little more easily. Yes, I know the modern plastic looks out of place on this lovely old machine, but believe me, it really has helped!

She can only do one stitch length and type but she does the job. Maybe some day in the future, I'll get an all-singing, all-dancing electric sewing machine that can do fancy stitches (I always want to do zig-zags for some reason) and have different stitch lengths but more now I'm more than happy with the old Singer!

A quilt for Edie

I found the cutest animal print at the beginning of this year. Really bright, primary colours, letters of the alphabet and zoo animals. I knew I wanted to make a child's quilt with it but didn't have anything else to match. So I went and found some plain fabric in coordinating bright colours (red, blue, green) and made up a quilt loosely based on the log cabin concept. Here's the finished product:

Front

Back

A close up of the "log cabin" panel:

I kept the quilting really simple, just straight lines around each panel and the middle cross. You can sort of see the geometric pattern better on the back of the quilt...

The whole thing was finished off with bright red binding and, of course, a tybalt label:

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the finished article. It can be used as a quilt or a playmat. This is for a special little girl's first birthday next week (I hope her Mummy's not reading this, it's supposed to be a surprise!). Happy birthday Edie!

Catnip toys

To pass the time while recovering I decided to make some cat toys. I dived into my scrap bag and pulled out a couple of colourful bits of fabric, sewed a very rough rectangular pouch and filled each one with leftover wadding and a few pinches of catnip.

Safe to say the tinkers like them...

Merky

Mini

yuck!

Am down with a vomiting bug. At least the vomiting has stopped now - but still feeling very drained and tired. Annoyingly, all the stuff I had to do this weekend has had to be cancelled - like going wedding dress shopping and food tasting with the caterers. (Did I mention I'm getting married next April?) The last thing I feel like doing is eating Indian food at the moment! Oh well, I can still do some internet work for research and work on the invitation wording etc to stop me getting too bored.

Sorry this is such a boring post! (Not that I think anyone even reads this...)