Simple Satisfying Sewing

Maybe it's because my heart is aching so for the Palestinians, maybe it's because my throat feels utterly constricted with rage, maybe it's because this world seems so wilfully angry and ignorant, but I've been doing just what the title for this post says: sewing simple, quick, easy, satisfying little makes. You saw the collection of makeup bags in the previous post. Well, I made my orange churn dash block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour of the month,

I'm having fun finding appropriate 5" centres in the colour of each month!

Here are all six together in case you missed it on Instagram:

In my ongoing (and unsuccessful) efforts to use up all my small scraps and strips, unsuccessful because they never end, I made a grey scraps box. For the quilting, I used a cool Sulky rayon twist in grey and black that I used years ago on a quilted coat.

I like to quilt in the colour's name, or synonyms for it, as you see here.

In retrospect, I should have made a brown and beige one because once I'd made the grey box, the grey scraps that were left to put inside were less in volume than  my brown/beige ones! One day... For now I popped them into the grey box.

Grey is quilted in here, sideways. The text print is a scrap from my nephew's quilt I made him-gosh-ten years ago now.

I had thought the cats on grey was a perfect lining until I opened up what I thought was a fat quarter, only to find said fat quarter had been used to make a mask (remember?!) and so I only had enough for two sides. Not to worry; I had enough of two other grey chunks to finish up the other two sides and a bottom.

The bottom. Spot the little bit of Canada fabric with “…& free” from our anthem🤩

I like to make a quilted bottom now for these rather than put in a foam or cardboard piece between the fabric lining and fabric bottom. This way I've used up more crumbs for the bottom, and quilting it means it's more stable so the foam or cardboard isn't really needed, especially once it's filled! I stitched a grid and then did the diagonal lines similar to how I quilt my makeup bags.

I'm making decent progress on my To Do list; I had planned to either make the cushion or start the quilting on the baby quilt next, but I've suddenly found myself about to make a tote and matching makeup bag for one of my yoga students after Sunday's class! As she walked in past me and another student, who is also my friend, she said, "Where do you girls get your tote bags?" To which Susan, my friend, said, "Sandra makes them!" and I added, "I sew so I don't kill people."😈

Literally a sign on my sewing room given to me by Brianne several years ago. This is the back of the rainbow of scraps boxes that sits on the IKEA shelving unit where my stash is stored. 

Well she hung back after class to get more info and then we texted back and forth Monday evening and it looks like I'm making her one now.😁

While making the grey scraps box, I found a chunk of grey Canada fabric by Moda that I think is big enough to birth another tote bag in a Canada theme so I may just make two at once! The whole country has got right into celebrating all things Canadian, so cool, and long overdue imho.

Sign in The Glasshouse, Chatham, Ontario 

I spied this sign on Friday, a day out to Chatham where we visited The Glasshouse, a favourite greenhouse, highly recommend if you're in southern Ontario. We brought home four more perennials for our garden 'oasis': crocosmia, which was the main one on my agenda, Deutzia, another on my radar, though the one we got was not the white as I'd wanted, but a beautiful soft pink, Angelica gigas, one that caught both my and MacGyver's eye, though we were unsure because we'd not heard of it, but when the lovely man helping us brought it up on the computer to show us just how beautiful its flowers are, and MacGyver heard how huge it can get, he was smitten. I also bought some gaura, another plant my gardening guru of a mum had in her garden. How I wish she was still alive. She would love seeing what MacGyver, her gardening guru, as she always called him, has done in our yard, well garden. Anyhow, MacGyver had been hoping to find gunnera but no luck, though they did have bamboo, another on his gotta have list, though we didn't get any... yet. It's so expensive!! 

Second stop on the agenda was Birdie’s Nest, (that link tells you exactly what she's about) an eclectic store where you can find décor for your home, your yard, gifts, women’s clothing, jewellery, crystals, furniture, and so much more. She sources her stock from personal trips to Mexico, Indonesia, India and Thailand, where she buys directly from local artisans. She was actually in the store that day, dressed as usual in a colourful eye-catching outfit! MacGyver wanted one of her huge clay pots from Mexico, which he got. I was just along for the ride and browsing, so I thought. However, a water fountain just had to come home with me, a wonderful, soothing, very soft addition to my sewing room, though I may be moving it to my yoga room when I practise! 

The bubbler is under the crystal ball, which tumbles as a result, and is lit from inside the rocks. Photo-bombing is Naala, our beautiful much-loved and much-missed Rottweiler mama-bear.

So, finding joy in sewing simple things, being surprised by finding something like this fountain, or the Angelica gigas, just tootling up the road 60 km to do a little plant and home retail therapy can be just what's needed.