Living a happy, creative life

 

Summer Sewing

...it's sew much fun!

    I think it's probably rather a waste of time for me to apologize for how long it's been since my last blog post (October...oh, my...) and far too much of a Canadian stereotype. So I won't - but I do promise to you, dear readers, and to myself, that blog posts will become a more regular thing.  I suppose I could try to figure out how to use the calendar feature on my phone to schedule them, but really, I much prefer a pen and my planner. How many of you use a planner these days? I'm curious if I'm the only one!

     Rambling about organization aside, I do have a lot to share with you, which I just love to do - I think all of us creative types are like that, and it's a joy, isn't it? Let me show you what I've been up to...

     My birthday is at the very end of June.  Before my actual birthday, I invited my Mum and my sister for lunch - not something we get the opportunity to do often.  For many years now, whenever I've invited anyone over for my own birthday celebrations, I like to make a grown up version of a goody bag...handmade style! This time, I was inspired by the lavender growing in my garden - both of my plants were just covered in flowers, and you can see in the photos how the colour of the lavender influenced what I made. 

      Into a really sweet mini picnic basket I tucked some lavender from my garden, a pieced and quilted oversized coaster that fits a mug and a treat (I'm sorry, but the term "mug rug" is a bit to cutesy for me...), a lavender bag, and a charming (see what I did there?) little embroidery hoop wall decoration using some of my favourite bee themed fabric and a pretty bee charm.  

I just love this little bee charm.  I made myself earrings with the same ones years ago and wear them all the time!

A delicious gluten free lunch.

Loads of flowers from my garden.

    Lunch was a delicious mix of gluten free goodies, flowers from my garden, deliberately mismatched china dishes, and plenty of chatting. It was just the kind of low key gathering that I like!  

    Further low key birthday celebrations (the best kind for this introvert!) were going to a garden centre (where I got to choose a beautiful Hawes watering can as a birthday gift from my husband), and enjoying an evening get together with my crafty bestie @weewishes_handmade which also involved another handmade goody basket!

My lovely Hawes watering can.  This one is for house plants.  I already have a much larger one for watering outside.

Sewing the binding on this zipper pouch...with some refreshment!

    This goodie basket took a slightly different theme. This time I was inspired by some gorgeous sea themed Tilda Cotton Beach fabric that I had in my stash.  I sewed up a small zipper pouch from a pattern by Erica Arndt and I was so pleased with the result!  I just had to add lavender from the garden and a lavender bag, but then I completely went to town with another embroidery hoop project, this time pulling out my trusty glue gun, some pretty shells, and a few Swarovski crystal pearls for good measure. The result was a really pretty seashell wreath that my friend just loved - and so did I! Not exactly a sewing project, but it was a lot of fun to mess about with a glue gun again, and it did fit so beautifully with the sea themed zipper pouch that I couldn't resist.  I'm a multi crafter, what can I say?

All set up for tea and cake

Quilts on standby in case we got chilly.

     I have a lot more to share with you, but this will probably do for know. It's a blog post, not an essay  - I wrote enough of those during my post secondary years!  For now I'll leave you with some garden inspiration....gardening being my other favourite hobby, if you don't count drinking copious amounts of tea....

One of many cups of tea had out in the garden.

Sunflowers are a must have for the garden.

View from where I sit with a cup of tea in the afternoon.

I do a lot of container gardening as our patio is south facing and gets full sun most of the day.

See what I mean about sunflowers?

Mu husband built the pergola and the obelisks that you can see in this photo. 

Freshly cut sweet peas and gerbera daisies from earlier this summer.

    I hope you've been having a summer full of crafting and gardening delights so far.  I'm looking forward to some embroidery projects and putting together a few of my own design ideas over the next month.  I'll be back soon to share with you a speed run rag quilt and our family holiday in a beautiful West Coast setting!  Until then, take good care of yourselves 💕