February 21, 2012

Bounty,

I might have a hurty elbow, but I am not one to be deterred.  At least where shopping is concerned anyway.  Last week I nipped out to do my monthly rounds of the local charity shops and actually managed to score pretty well this time,


woollens to felt and some shirts to chop up.

Although I do often peruse fabrics online, I still prefer to pillage my fabrics from old clothes.  Many reasons why, cost is one as recycling is much cheaper.  This horror story has also worried me from the perspective of using designer fabrics for commercial purposes like I (and indeed everyone on Etsy) do when making items to sell and patterns for publishing.  That particular situation has now been resolved and agreements reached, but it does raise the question that when using fabrics, whose design actually is the finished piece?  This is why I'm very aware how much the use of well known fabric ranges impacts on a design and can take over from the piece you are making.  

My aim is for the focal point to be the item I've made, not the materials it's made from.  Anyone else feel like that?

February 20, 2012

My newest piece of sewing equipment...


Turns out, after years of intermittent pain which has slowly developed into near constant pain, I have tennis embroiderers elbow.

Hopefully the epicondylar clasp and a week of high dose ibuprofen will help!

February 8, 2012

Sometimes I wish...

I could go along with the things I make.


This little guy has gone off to Texas.  I'd love to go to Texas. 

One day maybe.

February 7, 2012

Can you help?

In a break from normal posting, I feel compelled to mention this...


There is a little girl called Aillidh (pronounced Ay-lee) here in the UK.  She is 8 years old and has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia.  Currently Aillidh is in hospital in Glasgow undergoing her third course of chemotherapy but she urgently needs a stem cell/bone marrow transplant.  In a cruel twist of fate, neither of her siblings are a match.  The reason I am posting about this is because Aillidh is an unusual tissue type as her Mother is of part native American Indian origin, and I know I have a lot of followers from the USA.

Please consider joining your countries bone marrow registry, the link for the USA is here, and also for the UK.  Spread the word, tweet it, blog it, facebook it.   There is also a Facebook page set up to link to.

Even if you are not a match for Aillidh, you could help save another life.

Thank you for reading.