Olympics over, now back to sewing

Well, the para Olympics are now all done and dusted and what a wonderful few weeks we had.  I could not believe just how much T.V. I watched over that period, but have to say I loved it all.

 While the Olympics were on, I did sit and embroider... you remember this.

The pink flowery one is for a girl..... as you can see, and the cream fabric at the back was planned for a boy, and this is what they turned into.

Just the beginnings 

So cute

I love them 

His and hers...

The patterns are from Australia, but we are hoping that they will soon be for sale here.  That was not the only hand stitching....... someone asked me if I would be willing to smock a baby dress.  Now, I have never made things for sale before, but this lady has 6 grandson's and her daughter has told her that grandchild number 7 is a girl.  So of course dresses are what this grandmother want to see this baby dressed in,  how could I say No.  The only thing is, I have found it hard making the type of dress the grandmother wants, and she had some very definite requests..... dress for a 3 month old, yoked dress smocked on the back as well as the front, 12" from shoulder to hem, bullion roses, French Val Lace, and that is exactly what I have made.  It is quite sweet, but I think this will be the last.

 So as you can see there was a bit of a baby theme going on.

I have also sent off my mini quilt that I was making for a swap on flickr, have you ever visited the site?  There are some really talented ladies making these quits for swaps..... go have a look scroll through the photos, you will be amazed.
I added a few extra's as a gift to my parcel.

Quilt and goodies

 I had a couple of the pin wheel blocks, so I made them into a pincushion and needle case.  I never fill the pincushion, as I know in other countries they can get 'walnut shells' and other fillings that are  much better than poly wadding. I also made one of the little plastic fronted wallets. So I hope she likes....

Wallet, needle case and pincushion (stuffed for show)

All I have to do now is track the parcel making sure it gets there, then sit back and wait to see what drops through my door.

The other flickr group I have been working with is this one.  You may remember that we started off with our own block and each month it was sent to the 'next' person to add a round.  I thought I would start a scrappy block giving all the other ladies lots of different colours and fabrics to add to. I also  thought I would eventually turn it onto a 'Quillow',  well as my block gradually made its way across the pond to America and it soon became clear this was never going to be that 'Quillow'.  The quilt top arrived home and measures approx 88" x 86"

Quilt top 

Mr D said we had to buy a beach house to put this in, but as money doesn't extend to that (doesn't even extend to a bucket and spade let alone a beach house), I have decided to redecorate our spare bedroom.  Now anyone that knows me knows that my house is mainly pale pink and green, very calming, so this room will be very different.  Keep watching this space and you may get to see work in progress.  

Some information from me that I think is worth a read

I am not sure how many of you wander around blog land looking for interesting things.....one of the sites I visit is 'Little Island Quilting' and there was some very interesting reading regarding pricing in the U.K. of Liberty fabrics, can I suggest you go here to see what I mean. I did get a follow up email from Alison and this is what she added ..

And the email conversation I was having with Liberty stopped when I  

asked them how come they could ship fabric from Italy to the US which  

is higher freight charges than to the UK, then the US pays 11.4%  

import duty on fabric, then any associated state taxes, sell at more  

than £5 less a metre and still make a profit, why couldn't a more  

reasonable price be offered in the UK? I also questioned why not one  

online retailer in the UK is prepared to sell for the less than £14 a 

metre that Liberty are charging on their own website. It was at this  

point that they stopped communicating with me which speaks volumes.  

Hugely inflated price for UK customers and a silent gentleman's  

agreement to price fix.

Nuff said!

All very interesting..... bit like the DMC embroidery floss that sells in the U.K. for almost a £1 and in the USA for as little as 39cents.....