Scavenger Hunt 2015 - A rather pathetic attempt!

Oh dear!  I don’t seem to have done very well with this year’s scavenger hunt!  I offer you a rather pathetic attempt, just half of the items.  I offer no excuse, except to say that my mind has been on other things, ie Barney the puppy!

Anyway, I thought I would show you what I have.  All are taken with my phone, which is very handy as I have it with me all the time, but the quality is not up to usual standard.

1 Bouquet of flowers – picked from my garden back in August. Don’t you love the grass that explodes like a firework!

 

3 A person walking a dog – an easy one to get!  Here’s Maurice walking Barney on the beach and in the countryside

7 A turtle – one of Barney’s squeaky toys!

9. A tent – a play tent at the Hampton Court Flower Show.  Reminds me of the one in the film ‘The Holiday’ so cute!

 

14. A traffic signal – a really bad phone picture from the car!

15 A flag pole with 3 flags.  This is perhaps my favourite picture!  5 flags, Scotland, Wales, the Union Jack, England and European Union on Worthing seafront.  The memorial is for soldiers who fought in the Boer War.

16. A panoramic view from the top of the Portsdown Hills overlooking Portsmouth Harbour, with the Isle of Wight in the background

17 2 or more people wearing uniforms.  Here are a samba band that were playing on the front at Littlehampton on the August bank holiday weekend.  Looks like fun!

18.  An overloaded truck or car.  Another bad photo taken out of the car window!

19.  A natural body of water.  The river Arun at Littlehampton again at the bank holiday weekend.  You can see how grey the weather was!

20. A ticket booth.  I give you 2!  One is the entrance to Hampton Court Flower Show, and the other is at the fair on the seafront here in Worthing

 

I did have ideas for the rest of the photos, but just didn’t get out to photograph them.  For example, we have a metal footbridge over the railway just down the road, along with several mobile phone masts!  And I really should have got a photo of our local college with its colourful window shades!

Thanks to Rinda for coming up with such a great list again, and I look forward to doing better next year!

1969 dress

Since starting to collect and sell vintage dress patterns on Etsy, I have been wanting to make one of them.  I choose Simplicity 8381, a 1969 shift dress with princess seams and pockets on the front.

The pattern istself was not in great condition, but still usable.  Laura at More Sewing helped me with the fitting.  The pattern is a size 16 (38inch bust).  Adjustments included taking an inch or so off the bust and adding onto the hips.  If you look n the pictures below, I cut the lining where the pins are.  Just shows how we have changed shape over the years!

Here’s the invisible zip going in, and a close up of the fabric.  It is a crepe like material and has a lovely drape.  It was easy to sew with and pressed nicely too.  The fabric was in a big bag of scraps given to my friend by Maryamm at Mazelino Designs, a wedding dress designer and sewing school.   I lined it with white polyester to give it that 1960s ‘rustle’ as I swish around!

I am really pleased with the fit of the dress!  I love the princess seam detail and the groovy pockets!  I found some vintage buttons to finish off the pockets.  If I made it again I think I would make the neckline a little bigger, it’s just a little high for my taste and comfort.

And a bonus!  A photobombing puppy!

My Garden in July and update on adventures

Oh gosh!  It is rather a long time since I last blogged!  I have been busy with my 2 adventures: puppy and Etsy shop.  I’ve set up a sewing blog to go side by side with my Etsy shop.  It’s here if you want to pop over and have a look.  I’m really pleased with the blog header, but not so pleased with the photos in the blog posts!  I need to get husband to take some better ones.  All I need now is some readers, so I have been avidly commenting on sewing blogs.  If you are interested, there are some great blogs in the side bar.

Anyway, my garden is looking fabulous this year after replanting the south facing border last year:

I’ve managed to do a fair bit of gardening this Summer, even though I generally have a little helper:

 

He is pretty good at ‘helping’ with the housework too!  Here is is having just jumped onto the sofa!

We are taking him out for short walks now and he is very friendly with people and other dogs.  Puppy training classes start tonight, wish us luck!

Sewing wise, I am making a dress from one of my Vintage patterns, a 1969 shift dress.  I’ll show you when it’s finished. 

I am slowly taking photos for Rinda’s scavenger hunt, need to get a move on with this! 

Meet Barney!

We collected our puppy on Sunday.  We’ve called him Barney.  Here’s a couple of cute photos:

He is very cute!  But we’re beginning to see his feisty character!  He is very playful, but wants to bite us and our clothes all the time.  We’re getting good at distracting him.

Scrapbooking a Holiday!

I’ve spent time over the last few weeks since we got back from our Australia and New Zealand trip scrapbooking another epic trip from 2013: California and Oregon Road Trip in the USA.  I used mainly Project Life pages, using the Kraft edition of PL cards.  I added in a few 12 x 12 pages, mainly because I had several portrait photos which didn’t fit in my PL pages.  Do you find the photo orientation to be a problem with the PL system?  I also used 2 collections of 12 x 12 paper pads, one called ‘Recollections’ by Michaels, and Studio Calico’s ‘Atlantic’, both purchased from TK Maxx locally.

I printed far too many photos, and started off using them all!  Eventually, I realised that I could cut some down or not include some of them.  I still have a very full album, and to be honest, it is a bit too big to show to anyone!  I am sure they will get bored quickly!  It’s a lesson I will learn for when I scrapbook the Australia/New Zealand trip.  I did do a small album of a few choice photos as soon as we got back, which I showed to lots of friends, like a brag book!

My process is first to put the photos into the album in more or less chronological order, then sort out which ones I will put on 12 x 12 pages.  Once I have that sorted, I go through adding cards and journaling.  I scrapbooked the 12 x 12 pages as I went along.  Finally, I sorted out all my stickers, stamps, and cut apart pages for embellishing.

I haven’t actually done a title page yet because I want to print off a 7x5 photo of the Harley-Davidson bike we hired.  I’ve included an itinerary on the first page.  Last time at my crop we had ‘calendar page’ as our challenge, and this just fitted the bill!  I made quite a detailed diary of the trip, so there is lots of journaling throughout the album.

 

Pictures taken at Santa Cruz, where we spent our first night.  How we loved the sealions!  Here’s one page where I have included a portrait photo on it’s side!  The sealion sticker is an old one I found in my stash!

 

Motoring south along the Pacific Coast Highway.  Another portrait photo on it’s side, but I did manage to include most portrait photos on a 12 x 12 page like this one.

 

Then we rode inland and spent a couple of nights in Yosemite National Park.  The wing symbol card comes from the Recollection paper pad.

 

And then north to Lake Tahoe.  Lovely scenery!  I used sketches for most of my pages by searching ‘scrapbook sketches’ on Pinterest.  Sorry I didn’t keep a record of which ones they were.

 

Up into Oregon and back down the Pacific Coast Highway.  The weather was rough and grey at first, but only served to make the coast more dramatic!  This page of the Yaquina Lighthouse uses the Atlantic papers (even though it is the Pacific Ocean!)

 

We stayed in a lot of cute B and B’s including this in Eureka, California.  It’s called Abigails Elegant Victorian Mansion and is decorated, furnished and styled in high Victoriana!  We thought it was completely eccentric!  It was like stepping into a Disney movie set!

 

It wasn’t all plain sailing with the bike!  We had a problem with the gear lever and had to tie it up with my boot lace!

 

Back down into California near San Francisco, we found the Earthquake trail at Point Reyes Station fascinating.  I included quite a few ‘California’ stickers I purchased especially for the album.

 

Just occasionally I had enough portrait photos to do pages like this one on the right hand side.  Here is the interior of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco which had a spectacular art installation of these long, long ribbons hanging from the ceiling on which the congregation had written prayers.

 

 

It was a wonderful trip, and I so enjoyed revisiting it all through the making of this scrapbook!  I hope you have enjoyed a little peek into my album and process.

Two more Adventures–Number Two

You will all know that I have rekindled my love of dressmaking in the past year or so.  I have loved reading the sewing blogs and have discovered a whole world of independent pattern designers, sewing tips and tutorials and pattern hacks.

 

 

I found that there is quite an interest in vintage patterns.  See Marie of ‘A Stitching Odyssey’ and Kerry of ‘Kestrel Makes’ Vintage Pattern Pledge.  I began to search in local charity shops and on eBay, and have amassed quite a collection in a very short time.  I adore the vintage illustrations, they are so cute!  The glamour of the 1960s is my favourite at the moment,  although I love a good 1970s sundress, or a 1980s ‘Lady Di’ haircut! It’s fun to see the sort of patterns I might have made in the 1970s and 1980s!

So to my new adventure - I have opened an Etsy shop selling vintage patterns and vintage sewing notions and haberdashery.  I love the cards of buttons, and the old wooden cotton reels!  And the little cards of press studs and hooks and eyes! I am hoping that other people will share my love of vintage sewing notions.  Please do pop over to Etsy and have a look.  I would love to know what you think.

Two more Adventures - Number One

You may remember that my one little word this year is ADVENTURE!  Well, after our epic adventure in Australia and New Zealand, I am about to embark on 2 more adventures!

Number One: Meet our new puppy!  He is an English Springer Spaniel, and in these photos he is 6 weeks old!  How cute is he??? We are going to collect him in just over a week's time.  So we are busy getting the house and garden puppy proof!  As yet he doesn't have a name.  We like Oscar, Charley, Bobby and Monty.  Any thoughts?  Or other ideas?  As you can see he is mostly black, and has the cutest face ever!

I have uploaded these photos via my phone, and have had to use blogger instead of live writer for this post, so the layout might look a bit different.  First picture is Lucy holding the puppy.  Third picture includes the other puppies and his mother, Pearl.  In the fourth picture you can see how black he is.

Expect this blog to become rather doggy over the next few months!  Can't wait!