Whizzing UFOs

Just have to record the momentous occasion - you recall I bought a sewing machine in April? Well, I finally got it out last night!!! My craft shelves are heaving and now that A needs a box of his own (he's been raiding Unique Scrapstore) and K has two, we need more space - so that box of UFOs has got to go. So far I've had a good practice (and discovered that felt needs a ridiculously high tension or the thread pulls straight back through and tangles underneath).

I've stitched up the ends of the height chart I finished last year so that I can put the dowling through - all I need to do on that is iron it, stitch on K's height on her birthday next Thursday and attached the cross-stitch to the felt (this is a big challenge as I need to be able to get access to it each year to put the next birthday height on). I've tacked up the ends of the weather chart ready to be stitched - all that needs doing on that is the dowling cutting to size, attaching a ribbon to hang it with and attaching the central piece sturdily (fabric glue didn't work properly), and then that's ready. I am thinking of saving that as a Christmas present for K, though, don't want to overwhelm her with stitching.

I've also unpicked the mess I made of a large piece of brown and silver velvet and retacked that ready to turn into a scarf - it's stretch lycra velvet so I'm sure that'll be quite a challenge to sew properly. Also in the UFO box is a large piece of cotton to make a summer wrap skirt from, and a velvet dress which I plan to cut down to tunic size, so a couple more nights of tacking there. Then I'll get the machine out again and whizz through the lot of it!


In other news I have now threaded up a Christmas Westie pic for my sister's xmas gift, have the pashmina/thread/sequins for my mum's gift, and this year's xmas tree project is a sweet little gingerbread house on plastic canvas from The Nutmeg Company, my first foray into 3D cross-stitch. Blessed Samhain NEARLY got finished - there's just a bit of the border left to do now but it'll have to wait until all the xmas stuff is out of the way now. All this, and I've volunteered to make some things for a charity auction, too...!