What's On Your Workdesk - Week 472

Morning Everyone,

Back again after, for a special reason, missing last week's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday over at the Stamping Ground.

Yes, it's our very own Annie who, with her lovely hubby, travelled all the way up to Scotland to stay in a nearby village cottage. So near that we were able to spend several lovely days together showing them the delights of Ayrshire, including where we are in this photo, Culzean Castle. Not to mention the particularly yummy delights of Nardini's in Largs - ice cream!!! The week sped by to quickly but without our blogs and Julia's WOYWW we would never have become such good friends - and what a shame that would have been. Like Annie says, 'we shared much chatting, laughter, cakes and, oh yes, ice cream ... Ellie made me eat it honest!' She's not kidding, I really did ... nobody goes to Nardini's and not eat ice cream!!!

Of course, I would have been somewhat remiss had I not told Annie about the fabric shops in the area ... well, she is a sewist after all! One of the best is Mandors in Glasgow. Annie lost no time in visiting this magical shop bringing back a gorgeous selection of fabric which she insisted on splitting with me ... someone who shares her stash is my definition of a real friend! Annie, I'm still stroking these on a regular basis!

And, at last, the reason your here ... my desk today. Another layout in progress. Since I reorganised (read cleaned and decluttered completely) my craftroom I've rediscovered my love of scrapping. The pile of coloured cardstock is there while I decide which one would make the best layer for that photo. At the back is a book of layout sketches - my page is based on the third one down on the left on the page it's open at. The alphas will be used when I eventually decide on a title. Why, oh why, is it so hard to think of titles??? Up in the left corner of the photo is a post card which reminds me that my daughter and I will be off to  a quilt show at Mary's Patch, Glencarse, at the weekend. I discovered Mary's Patch by chance on the road to Aberdeenshire, where we were visiting my son a couple of months ago, when we stopped for a bite to eat ... a serendipitous stopover if ever there was one!

I haven't stopped listening to Audiobooks and I do intend to update you on all books listened to over the last couple of months but I think this post is long enough for Julia as it is. I'll just leave you with the one I'm listening to as I type, 'Unstuffed: Decluttering Your Home, Mind & Soul' by Ruth Soukup.

While I was in a decluttering mood I thought this would book would be just the thing needed to encourage me to keep going! And up to a point it has though I don't necessarily agree with everything Ms Soukup has to say on the matter. She has a very interesting viewpoint on the hobby of scrapbooking ... in a nutshell, she appears to think it's a waste of time!



Right, that's my lot for this week. I have a day at home today so I should be able to visit a goodly number of desks - well, that's the plan!

Take care everyone and have a wonderful WOYWW.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - WOYWW Week 405

Hello Deskers, Followers and All,

Welcome to my new follower - Valerija - it's lovely to see you here.

It's yet another Wednesday, another WOYWW over at Julia's Stamping Ground, and so another excuse to reveal all! 

So what's on my desk today. Well, not a lot really so I'll share with you new goodies brought back from the craft shows, Hobbycrafts, Scottish Quilting and The Stitching & Sewing Shows, at the SECC, Glasgow, on Friday.

Lots of lovely fabric and fat quarters - these were found in in the Stitching & Sewing Show - all earmarked for particular projects.

These, on the other hand, were an impulse buy. I spotted the beautiful panel when buying the green fabric you can see at the back of the photo above. It just spoke to me! And as the seller was cutting it off I noticed that the pink fabric on a nearby bolt was the perfect match. Serendipity!

Lastly, the only papercrafting goodies - a tiny alphabet stamp set and a couple of glue tapes - vital for papercrafting of any kind. Read on to see why I picked up so few papercrafting goodies.

The postie has been busy!

I have fellow bloggers, BJ, BJCraftCorner, and Shaz, Silverwolf Cards, to thank for the purchase of these goodies. I'm looking forward to inking up those fabulous Hobby Art stamp sets - the March Hares were spotted on Shaz's blog and whilst online my hand slipped and added the set of Season verses to the basket. What can you do when that happens? And there was no resisting the set of Sizzix Alphabet dies spotted on BJ's blog, so useful for scrapbooking, and then there was the Shaz's post about the so inexpensive Chinese dies - my resistance hit an all-time low!

Finally, here's the knitted sweater I've made for my little great-granddaughter. It's not perfect but then I'm very out of practice and had forgotten how loosely I knit. Still practice makes perfect. 

I added a few little embroidered daisies because it looked a bit plain when finished.

As well as being WOYWW day it's also International Women's Day and the theme for 2017 is 'Be Bold For Change', so here's to a bold and changing, for the good of course, world for all women everywhere, and then, perhaps, it would be women's day every day. 

Happy WOYWW and have a wonderful week.

Sewing Machine Mat

Morning Everyone

A quick post today because we are off out to the garden centre shortly so I better get a wriggle on.

What I have to share with you this morning is the sewing machine mat I made as a gift for my daughter, Juli.

Juli has plans to create a sewing corner elsewhere in her home but in the meantime she sews on a table in her main living room. Because of this, it occurred to me that anything that helps muffle the sound of the sewing machine would be very welcome. I searched online and found quite a few illustrations of sewing mats and then I adapted the idea to the fabric I had chosen.

Materials used:

• 1 x patterned fat quarter - If She Knows She Sews - £3.25 from Oh Sew Crafty
• 1 x plain turquoise fat quarter - bought at the craft show in Glasgow last year
• Wadding cut to fit the padded bit that the sewing machine sits on
• Black bias binding - enough to bind the edges of the pocket piece and round the entire mat.
• Thread, scissors, sewing machine

Now all I need to do is make a mat for my own sewing machine but that could be some time as I have one or two more pressing projects I'm working on at the moment.

Thanks for dropping in. I hope you have a lovely day. I see the sun is breaking through the clouds so it may turn out to be a lovely afternoon.

Take care.

Jam Jar Wraps

Hello Everyone

Just a very quick post today because I'm heading off out in an hour or so to visit me niece, Louise. She was rushed into hospital yesterday seriously ill with a bad reaction to an antibiotic and is now recovering in the High Dependency Unit. So please forgive how brief this post is.

I made these two jar wraps a while back. They were made with scraps of fabric, snippets of ribbon and lace, and beads.

The colour of the  fabric used for this one is actually a shade of grey, the flower is a pale shade of lemon, and white lace.

This one is made with a scrap of white on white patterned fabric, hessian, cream cotton lace, that beautiful rose ribbon, and strips of beading ... glued on with fabric glue.

And that's it for today. Thanks for popping in.

Must rush.

Happy Crafting,

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 318

Happy Wednesday Fellow Deskers,

Whoops! And another week has zipped by. Time to report to our Head Desker, Julia, for another What's On Your Work Wednesday.

Some progress on last week, but admittedly not much. Since last week the flock of birds, twenty-one in all, have been cut out of fabric and pressed on to the base fabric which has a pretty dragonfly pattern on it; the photos are still there from last week but I have pulled out a few papers with a view to scrapping them; the crochet cover is growing too - all blues and greens for a boy.

So that's my desk today. All I need is to find some time to do something crafty. Anything crafty would be nice! But when the sun comes out, and being mindful of the need for the Sunlight Vitamin (vitamin D) at my advanced age, I'm spending as much time as possible catching a few rays before it turns to liquid sunshine ... we've had a lot of that recently :(

However, right now I'm off to join the EM for a spot of lunch, then I'll be back.

Have a great day everyone,

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 317

Happy WOYWW Everyone,

It's the 1st of July and it's a wonderfully warm day - what more could we ask for? Well, more time to craft might be nice ... it's been pretty scarce around here these past few weeks and my desk has been boringly bare, definitely not worth showing. But, figuring that I couldn't possibly miss yet another week, couldn't have Julia, our Head Desker, thinking I'd given up altogether!, I've gathered up a few bits and pieces I'm either working on or planning to work on and even a couple of finished projects!

At the back there's a little gift bag I did find time to decorate yesterday using the papers and toppers lying nearby. Beside that are some photos awaiting scrapping ... the top one is of me and my newest great-grandchild, the reason why I have been so distracted of late :) To the front a new magazine picked up on a trip to the Post Office yesterday. To the left is a flock of bird shapes cut from freezer paper.

These still have to be ironed onto fabric to create applique birds that will be scattered over the front of a pram cover for the new baby.

To the right is a couple of remnants picked up on a trip my daughter and I made to Remnant Kings in Glasgow last week. Haven't finally decided what I'll make with them but they were such a bargain, especially the wool plaid, I couldn't resist. On top of these is the beginning of a chevron design crochet cover ... this time a small one, just big enough to cover baby Callum when in his car seat.

And here's a pic of the multi-coloured bed runner I've been crocheting for months - only finished yesterday evening! Enjoyed the crocheting but hated all the yarn ends!!!

So that's my desk today. As already mentioned, it's a lovely day here, not bright sunshine but definitely hot. Muggy too, I feel a storm coming on which is the perfect excuse to stop indoors for a session of blog-hopping.

First, I'm off to join the EM for a spot of lunch, then I'll be back.

Have a great day everyone,

Purple Drawstring Bag

Morning Everyone,

Happy St George's Day!

Apologies for being a really bad blogger at this time but blame the garden! I've been weeding, digging, raking, planting and sowing seeds, all of which takes a lot of time. And let's not forget the watering ... it's been so hot and dry here that I've been out with the hose every evening making sure those seeds survive! All this physical exercise leaves me totally jiggered by the end of day with no energy for crafting. Normal service will be resumed eventually ... just don't ask me when!

I did, however, take a quick couple of hours out recently to make this little drawstring bag for my sister's birthday.

Made from Debbie Shore's Bag's Galore Molly bag pattern, it took only two half fat quarters, some adhesive applique paper for the heart shape, satin ribbon, scissors, thread and a sewing machine. It's fully lined. The pretty purple/pink flower patterned fabric is a Kirsty Allsop's design - a fat quarter which came free with Love Sewing Magazine - and the plain purple fabric was just a piece left over from another project.

I fringed the square on the front before attaching the heart shape with a satin stitch ... not perfect but I was in a hurry :)

That's it for now ... off to sow a few more seeds in the cutting patch.

Have a great day whatever you are doing.

Happy Crafting,

Rainbow Meringue Cushion

Afternoon Folks

I hope this finds you well and keeping warm - unless, of course, you're in a hot part of the world. Here in south-west Scotland it's perishing though nowhere near as extreme as it is in Massachusetts, US. I've seen the news and we're told the snow is at least 2 feet deep - that's a lot of snow so if you are over there do stay cosily indoors until the roads are clear.

If you've been popping in over the last week or so you won't be surprised that I'm still harking back to last year for today's share. Another cushion, no. 7, but a different shape ... a small narrow rectangle - chosen especially for my sister, Margaret. As Margaret has MS and therefore spends a lot of time in her wheelchair I thought this would be the ideal cushion to pop behind her back, or even her head if she wants to have a wee snooze.

It took fabric from three fat quarters to make the cover. My favourite is the blue fabric with the rainbow meringue print - reminds me of the time we had tea in Aunt Betty's, Harrogate. I've added some snippets of various trims that I found tucked away in my stash for added interest, including a white bobble trim - everybody seems to love the bobbles - and a very pretty blue rosebud trim :)

There was a tiny strip of the print left over which I used to trim the envelope back.

That's it for today - short and sweet :) Because I used those snippets of trim, I'll submit this cushion to Pixie's Snippet Playground.

I spent a few hours playing with watercolours yesterday evening, whilst watching TV. I now have a wee stack of interesting background pieces created with watercolour washes and Brushos and some stamped images watercoloured and ready to use on various projects - though I'm not too sure when I'll get round to making them up. Anyway, something to look forward to using some time soon.

Thanks for taking the time to drop by.

Happy Crafting,

Butterfly Cushion

Afternoon Everyone,

From a very wet corner of Scotland ... not that I should complain, the flowers are loving the rain.

I've just got a sewing project to show off to you today because I'm fair chuffed with how this simple cushion turned out. My sewing skills are becoming less rusty by the day :)

It was made as a gift for my granddaughter's birthday. The fabric called Butterfly Stripe was bought at Dunelm Mill and it only took half a yard to make. The only tricky bit for this rusty sewist was measuring and cutting the fabric to ensure the stripe with the butterflies was centred on the cushion top ... it's not like cutting paper or card, you can't just slip the fabric into a guillotine and start chopping, sigh :(  Were it that easy!

The closure at the back is the easy-peasy envelope style which worked so well with the striped pattern that you can barely see where aperture is in this photo! It's between the two pink floral fabrics.

I hope you are all having an enjoyable weekend ... and certainly better than mine. My mouth is full of very painful ulcers, has been for a few days. I'm living on a diet of yogurt, soup and Bonjela - lovely, not! A really nasty side-affect of iron deficiency even though I'm taking the tablets as prescribed like a good girl :(

On the bright side, our new washing machine was delivered and installed on Friday :) It's a thing of beauty and washes like a dream ... and the spin is so quiet. It's a funny old fact of life that it is not evident how badly a piece of equipment performs until it is replaced by new!

Take care everyone and happy crafting,

Friday's Christmas Card

Evening All,

True to form I've just finished making the weekly Christmas card. This week the them is 'going for gold' and this card has gold by the shovelful! The background fabric, from a fat quarter bought at my local sewing and craft shop, has gold detail all over it and was sewn on with gold coloured thread - yes, I've finally christened my 'new' sewing machine.

Confession time: my lovely daughter gave me the sewing machine, a Brother, well over a year ago but I'd simply never gotten round to trying it out - in fact, I hadn't even taken it out of it's box. I think I'd gotten it into my head that it would not be as good as my ancient but well-loved Jones. I've made amends now and it won't be going back in the box because it is a great machine, lighter than my old one, but very easy to use.

Tilda is basking in a halo of embossed gold and her present is tied up with gold embossed ribbon.

As are the baubles hanging from the mistletoe on the topper - the image was stamped on to red card with VersaMark, embossed with gold powder then cut around the outline of the design.

The red ribbon is edged with gold and even the card candy is gold. For a change I made a second topper and adhered it to the inside of the card instead of making an insert - in truth I didn't have time to fiddle around making an insert this week.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Stampin Up Smooth Card, Wild Wasabi, for base; Docrafts Papermania Capsule Collection Red Card for matting and bauble topper; gold embossed card for Tilda topper; smooth white card for Tilda stamp
• Fabric: Gold/green/red/ Christmas patterned fat quarter; gold coloured thread to match.
• Stamps: Tilda Bringing Present- coloured with Promarkers and blinged with iridescent glitter and Heat It Up gold embossing powder; Mistletoe and Bauble - a freebie stamp from Craft Stamper (I think!), stamped with VersaMark and embossed with the gold powder.
• Embellishments: Anita's Christmas Ribbon - gold-edged red; gold card candy

As usual I will be submitting this card the same two challenges I do every week:

• Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #10  - Go for Gold
• Snoflakes Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.

I've completed the Busy Doing Nothing card but I will post it later as I have to get a shift on if I want to get this to Hazel's challenge on time :)

Happy Crafting,