Lessons from my Mum

It's Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee and even in the antipodes we are celebrating along with all the British and Commonwealth subjects. It warmed my heart to see; the bridges on the Thames scrub up so well for the floatilla, the brave little Dunkirk fleet and lastly to see Prince William sing 'God Save the Queen' whilst standing behind his grandmother. 

We do share the same bad weather as Londoners though. All this Queen's Birthday weekend, we've had a low pressure system sitting just off the coast sending torrential rain and high winds. So much for a sunny long weekend. I'm just glad I wasn't out camping. I was nursing a sinus/sore throat/cough/cold thing for all of last week until it sent me to bed all day last Friday. So cold wet weather was perfect for convalescing and reading (been powering through Stephen King's time travel novel called 22/11/63).

Also perfect timing for my mum and dad to visit. My dad turned 84 on Sunday - the Queen beats him by nearly 2 years! I wasn't 100% but my mum managed to teach me a few new sewing skills. 


Machine Embroidery

She brought down her whizz-bang Janome Memory Craft machine that has a long arm and a lot of embroidery features. Most of the time however my mum uses it for winding bobbins. Bit sad really.

Using it I managed to come up with a great label for the 'Fussy Fairytales' quilt using a scrap piece of 'Far Far Away 3' with green trees.

Hand Embroidery


I have never tried hand embroidery but my mum is a veteran. So we spent Sunday night watching 'Downton Abbey' S2 Ep4 with mum teaching me the back stitch, satin stitch, stem stitch and a colonial knot.

She gave me a bunch of threads, a 6" hoop, needles, some fabric and a fabric pen to keep. And also a copy of Yvette Stanton's "Right-hand Embroiderer's Companion" (and yes, she originally wrote a guide for Left-handers). 

So I began work on a Zakka Style project called 'Happy Handwarmers' which is coming up soon. It is a relaxing thing to do, and like hand-quilting, you can embroider watching tv.


Hexies


My folks returned to their home on Monday and so I had to teach myself how to do hexagons which feature in this week's Zakka Style Sew-Along Tweed Pouch project. I am not sure if I am doing it correctly so I might go back to the April Craftsy BOM tutorials and pick up some tips.