Sooo I swithered and swithered about what i should take a picture of for my seasons in 2026. I then decided to take an overview of each side of the house, we will be moving in a few years and I want to capture the house as it is. 

OK May is soooo different! On the right hand the trees are flowering way more than before, you can just see the acer and the tulips peaking out from behind second rowan tree the roses are so much higher too! On the left the blossom has stopped blossoming but the dicentra is flowering way more and the tree is too. Its lovely to see the garden shaping up for summer

January right

February right

March right

April right

May right 

January left

March left

April left

May left

Redoing temperature embroideries 2021and 2022

This was my first attempt at making a booklet for my temperature embroideries. It was all a bit organic and I was never quite fully happy with the result 

I loved the outer part of the booklet I put old embroideries into the cover and sashiko samples in the back cover

But I made the inner parts too big, I like the vertical sashing but it and the part at the outer edge made the pages too big

Also I made the center sashing far far too big and even when it was "pinched" in it was still too big

So nothing for it but too rip out the whole lot 🤣 I also put the 2021 and 22 Temperature embroideries into two different booklets I could have combined all the 4 years I've done into one booklet, so that's what I'm going to do now!

Ripping apart and reconstructing!

I loved being reunited with these mandalas

On the inside was the sal quilt embroidery sampler i made, the embroidery on the right hand side is decades old, pre 2000!

I decided to go with the booklet cover i made for my 2022 embroideries. It has enough room for all 4 sets of temperature embroideries i made. I paired up my 2022 temperature embroideries with the mini series fpp blocks i made, I had two left over for the cover 

Thats both the 2021 and 22 inserted. Still plenty room for the 2023 and 2024 Temperature embroideries to be added! The 2024 is one panel only as i switched to using Littlelightstitchery yearinembroidery tracker fabric.

Mandalas

I found these downstairs, they will be pre long covid so thats over 2 years! They are printed on solvy which is still pretty sticky. I think these were from a bigger pattern and all got printed out at the same time

Seems a shame to waste them and they should hopefully come up quickly

OK they are done!

Small

Medium 

Large

With the large one I took some liberties with the design, I didn't do it all and amended the inner parts of the petal

Things to remember! I hate using solvy 🤦‍♀️ it hurts my fingers to stitch through and takes a few goes to wash out. So memo to future Sheila- only use solvy as a last resort and not for anything which is very involved!

Remaking bunny pixie basket

This is not a very good picture but I forgot to take a before picture 🤦‍♀️ I made this pixie basket with some of my favourite bunny fabric years ago

But i was never happy with it. I rushed it, used a yellow thread in the bobbin which showed through in places and it was just not good. I rushed sewing the inner lining closure too it was awful!

For some unknown reason I also used fleece to line it 🤦‍♀️ this made it all floppy, plus i felt the ribbon handles were too long. If it hadn't been in my favourite fabric I would have binned it. Ive always meant to redo it and now its time has come!

Lets get rid of this awful lining plus get out all the yellow thread

I was unhappy with the way I closed up the inner turning hole. I honestly dont know what I was thinking!

Right all unpicked and ready to wash

Washed and interfaced and already looking better!
Done! The inner turning closing looks so much better and the corners are pinched and sewn for a better shape

Handles are shortened 

It holds all the cut off bits of fabric i use as leaders and enders

Soooooo much better crisp and fresh and i love it!

New sewing room

I now have a new sewing room!

My old and much loved sewing room was on the top floor of our 3 story house (yes I know 🤦‍♀️ not long covid friendly!) I loved that room but it has been out of bounds since I moved my bedroom to the middle (ground) floor

I had been using a small sewing machine in the corner of Marks WFH office which was great but still restrictive

As I recover and can sew more Mark suggested swapping his WFH office for my sewing room. It took me a while to say yes because I loved that old sewing room. But oh my goodness I'm so glad i did! I love this wee room

Yes there's less space but let's face it I'm not at the stage of laying out and basting a quilt on the floor 🤣

I love it! Mark took down all my pictures with their "inspirational" 🤣 quotes 😉😉

After! 

I love it 😊