Sewing Machine Cover

I Made it! YEAH!

I hope that I made it in time, but I have finally finished my Sewing Machine cover for the Elefantz competition

I have been trying to get this project finish for sooo long and today I'm sitting here with a big grin on my face, because I finally have that sense of achievement!

I'm especially proud of myself as I had to teach myself how to use my left foot to sew, and my quilting lines are really quite straight! Surprise Surprise! hehehe

I sat at the sewing machine most of the day yesterday, to get it done. It was really uncomfortable as you can imagine with my leg the way it is, but I had to take my mind off things, because both my Mum and my Husband were stuck on the other side of the bushfires on the south coast of NSW in Australia. Thank goodness my hubby got home safe. Mum decided to stay up there until it was safer to drive home. They were stuck in Ulladulla and we live in Batemans Bay.

Anyway, here are my pictures for the competition, just click on them to be taken to Jenny's blog, there are some awesome entry's in the competition to give you some inspiration.

Do you like the whole I made for the handle? I was quite impressed with myself! hehehe I really really really want the win the book!! :)

Thanks Jenny and Cheryl I would never have finished this if it weren't for your competition!

A new Applique Cushion by Bareroots

I have been very slack with posting lately, but it seems like I have a dozen things on the go and just never seem to get anything finished! It is very frustrating, because I love that sense of achievement I get when I finish a project.

I have been trying to turn my Spring Garden pattern into a Sewing Machine cover (I changed my mind) for Jenny of Elefantz' competition and with two days to go, I don't think I'm going to make it unfortunately, I find it very difficult to sit at the machine for any length of time as you can imagine.

Are you like that? Do you get a real buzz when you finish something, but feel down when you don't get anything finished? Maybe I need to spend a day making pincushions so I feel I've acomplished something.

Anyway, here is the cushion I finished yesterday. It's from the Bareroots book Pretty and Cozy. I don't like how the red heart shows through the white heart, next time I will reverse applique the white heart. Also the pattern has a severe lack of photos, making it a challenge to follow the pattern at times.

Free Felt Scissor Keeper Pattern

Ok I have finally finished it! Just click here and you will be taken to my download page with all my free patterns. I'd love you to leave a message if you download any of my patterns and let me know what you will be doing with them!

New free Pattern for a felt scissor keeper coming

Well it has been quite a while since I last posted, but the reason is I am finally home from hospital! Even if it is only for about 6 weeks, before my next surgery. This was my last day in hospital, the reason for my big smile. I have the big brace on until everything has a chance to heal. The Drs want it on for up to 3 months. It will have been 6 weeks on Wednesday, so I'm halfway there.

Anyway this is what I have been working on. I'm doing a swap and my blocks are going to be for a picnic rug, so I thought what better theme than 'Teddy Bears picnic. This teddy will be in the middle of a spring garden. More pics soon I promise.

On to the freebie. As you may remember I ordered some wool felt from The Home Patch recently. Along with some gorgeous patterns and kits to keep me busy in hospital, I bought some wool felt 6" squares to make my own creations. This Aqua colour just spoke to me and I had to do something with it immediately! So some quick sketching and a little stitching and I come up with this....

I will try and scan the sketch tomorrow and get it up on the blog for you.


But then again, we are having a birthday party for my big 5 year old tomorrow, so it may be the next day. I have to instruct my darling husband how to plug the scanner back in as I am unable to move easily. Hopefully this won't cause a Divorce! hehe

Summer Garden and a lovely Giveaway from Jenny!

Guess What! A new summer garden stitchery is on its way!

After you all went so crazy for my spring garden stitchery I have started working on a summer one!

I'm trying to come up with an Autumn and Winter, but I'm have trouble trying to think of flowers that bloom in those seasons (I'm definately no gardener). Any suggestions?

In the style of Jenny of Elefantz Here's a sneek peek.

Speaking of Jenny, she has just released a Gorgeous new stitchery range on her etsy site and is having a giveaway on her blog! I bought her new christmas range of patterns this morning and she sent it to me within an hour and a half!!! Fantastic service! Thanks Jenny. Check out this gorgeous little collection, you could win this just jump on over to Jenny's site!

Wool Felt Kits by Annie Downs

I'm so excited, I've been wanting to mess around with wool felt for ages and so I got onto The Home Patch and ordered these.

Hubby just called and they arrived this morning! Yeah Looks like I'll be making christmas Baubles this afternoon. I also ordered the little pincushions, the lamb one, a ladybug and a chicken, I also got some extra wool felt so I can do some of my own designs (look out for some more freebies soon). I'm so excited, as I mentioned I just love Annie Downs designs.

Free Embroidery Applique Pattern Spring Garden

Ok friends here it is

It is a very rough pattern, but as so many of you wanted it, I didn't want to make you wait for me to draft up a better copy, so it is just a pencil drawing, but I'm sure you can figure it out.

I used 2 embroidery threads throughout and the stems are worked in Stem stitch as is the tail of the bird and the second flower, the swirly one. For this I used an opalesent thread from DMC, while the dragon fly and the running stitch inside the last flower is worked in Rayon. It just gives a bit of shimmer when the sun catches it.

The embroidered flowers at the bottom are just lazy daisy stitches with the pink one having two rows, the first longer than the second and the middle filled with french knots.

So there you go, I hope you all love it and please send me pictures if you do use it, it gives me that warm fuzzy feel to know that people are enjoying my art.

hugs Paula x

Cushion it is!

Wow I am overwhelmed by all your lovely comments!

I will definately be sharing my pattern. I have sent my pencil drawing home with my sister and she will scan it for me, and after she emails it to me I will clean it up for you and then put it up as a PDF.

I'm so gratful to Jenny for sending you all over, I have been a fan of her blog for quite a while, so to feature on her blog makes me feel all funny inside. You know that feeling you get when you feel like a little school girl! hehehe I feel very special, thank you Jenny. After all she was the inspiration for my stitchery. I really love the way she combines applique with embroidery, (Annie Downs does this too, another of my favs) so this was my first attempt.

You all have been so kind that you have inspired me to give it another go, so stay tuned for another pattern soon! all your ideas for projects has my brain swimming with ideas! Lucky I brought my sketch book to hospital.

I really love Judith's comment about it reminding her of 'spring' so thats what it will be called. Coming soon, 'Spring 2' or maybe 'Winter' or 'Summer' or 'Autumn'.

Thank You all, I truly appreciate ever single comment, you have all made my day!

Hugs Paula

Oooh by the way, because I'm in hospital for a little while longer, I have sent 'Spring' home with my Mum, she is going to make it into a cushion for me, so hopefully I will have pictures in the next few days.

Free Sleepy Cat Embroidery Pattern

Yeah I have finally worked out how to put up my PDF patterns for you, so you can download them for free. I blogged a while back about this little pussy cat cushion, it has a secret pocket. I was going to sell the pattern on etsy, but decided that I have received so much help in the way of free tutorials and the like that I need to give a bit back to the blogging community. So if you like this, please feel free to download it from here and of course please let me know what you do with it! I'd love to see pictures!

I might add a tutorial when I get out of hospital. I have the instructions written, but I don't have any photos. Do you want the instuctions without photos for now or would you just rather wait for a proper tutorial? let me know in the comments. :)

Heres a picture of the secret pocket, sorry about the pic, this is from my old camera.

Please leave a comment if you have the time, it really makes my day to find someone has left me a comment, and it lets me know I'm on the right track of what you want from my blog.

Star Chrismas decoration / Ornament mini Tutorial

I had some fun yesterday whipping up this cute little star decoration. I think next time I'll use 2 threads of DMC though, the embroidery is a bit too hard to see.

I forgot to take a picture of the back, it is also a red star, but I left it blank except for the running stitch around the outside. I'm going to embroider the year, or my name, or I'm thinking about using it for an advent swap, so I might put some details of that on it. As you can see, I'm still very undecided.

This is how I made it:

I drew a star on template plastic and cut out my template. I used this to cut out two red felt stars and I just eyeballed cutting out a white star 1/4" bigger, but you could use a second template or even a cookie cutter, your choice.

I embroidered a lazy daisy flower with a swirly stem, two lazy daisy leaves and some french knots in each point of the star.

I attatched seed beads in a rough star pattern in the middle of my star using sewing thread, It is much stronger than embroidery thread!

I took my blank red star (if you want to add a date or name it is easier to do that now) and attatched it using running stitch to the white star. Make sure it is centred! Before stitching down the top point, add a loop of ribbon to hang your star. I added a few quick stitches with my red sewing thread that I still had threaded from the sead beads, before the running stitch went through both the ribbon and white star.

Next I took the embroidered red star and attatched it in the same way, using a running stitch but make sure your needle only goes through the top red star and the white star! You don't want a double row of running stitch to come through onto the back.

And thats it! Easy peasey!