Getting on with some sewing.

This morning I spent a little time looking for the missing doll house doll. I'd taken the armatures, doll fabric and stuffing with me when we went away last month. I'd unpacked the folder I had the parts in but the doll I'd been working on wasn't there. This morning I had time to try and find her. I looked everywhere and then it struck me. Had I looked in the bag I'd taken my stitching and reading book in? Finally I found her at the bottom of the bag. She isn't very neatly sewn and it was a real pain when it came to putting the stuffing in. That being said I'm happy with the way she looks. I obviously need to add her face and hair and there is still some stitching to do to give the ankles, knees, elbows and wrists shape. This is the first of the dolls with the armature in them that I've made. I'll work on the man doll next. It may be a little easier as he is slightly bigger.  If I decide I'm not happy with them I have enough fabric to make another set. Second time around I'll be aware of all the mistakes I made.

After taking Missy and Twiglet for a walk I set up my machine and pulled out the apple core quilt. I was making this to use up scraps but also to practice sewing curves. I made and added two rows to the quilt.

I also cut some more apple cores as I want the quilt to be a lot bigger. Before I packed it away I pulled the apple cores I was going to use on the next row. I still need to cut more blocks.

I spent time this afternoon going through the bird pattern book which is this months Chookshed Challenge.

I want to make a quilt from the bird blocks but I had promised myself that I wouldn't start another quilt until I'd finished one. It must be OK to start another quilt if it's for a challenge so I've already started planning. The first bird I want to stitch is the green woodpecker. We sometimes see them when we go for a walk round the local cemetery.

I'm going to increase the size of the patterns slightly. There are twenty two patterns in the book so I need to decide on the number I want to do and also what background fabric do I want to use for the stitched blocks. I do love the planning stage of a new quilt but then I enjoy all the stages, even sewing on the binding.

Tomorrow I'm in work because we have an open day for prospective students. It's only 10 am to 3 pm but still cuts into sewing time. Fortunately I don't have any major plans for Sunday.  I want to plan out which projects I'm going to work on this month and work out some time slots in my diary to set aside for sewing. Hand sewing is easy as I always have something with me that I can work on but machine sewing generally has to be a little more planned. For now it's nearly bedtime and I'm going to do some slow stitching on the frog block for half an hour.

Take care

Lyndsey