End of Week 38 and 39

Annnnd We're Back!

Well hello!

We are back from our travels and trying to acclimatise back into B&H life, wash five mountains of laundry and catch up with the 277 emails in my inbox. Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post and for the cards we've been sent. Here are a few more photos, then I'll leave it alone as the whole girly-scream-oh-I-have-elbows-weddings-blah-cake-dress-flowers ick is the main reason we didn't go for all that in the first place:

I'm working my way through my New Forest/Cornwall photos and will put a few up when they're suitably fiddled with, and I have a couple of calendar pages to catch up on. Plus, I'm sending out my new postcard this week and I have step-by-step snapshots of how I put it together to share, which is interesting for me as a documentary of how I work at the moment (or even just how I worked on that particular day), but I hope won't be really dull for you!

I also am trying VERY hard to forget about the two weeks of sugar/carbohydrate overload. The two or three ice creams a day are especially proving difficult to get over. Back to the good diet 100% now.

Honest.

An Announcement

We got married yesterday.

End of Week 37

Zipperdeedoodah

Another project to share. After umm-ing and ahh-ing for weeks about what to get, I finally decided to make a set of three different sized zippy pouches for my friend Sally (the one who's off on the year-long round-the-world trip who we are not jealous of at all) for her leaving present. I thought they'd be small and light and practical at the same time:









The fabrics are either from my stash, or ones lovely people gave me for my birthday. I think all of them came from the fabulous Fabric Rehab. I think I'm finally happy with the outcome of these. The best tutorial I've found is this one (although obviously I miss out the clear pocket part), and I use fusible interfacing ironed on to the reverse of the outer fabric, and a heavy weight sew-in interfacing sandwiched between the outer and inner fabrics. Nice and sturdy without being too thick and cumbersome. LOVE these. Think many a Crimbo present may have one of these in there somewhere this year.

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

Phew!

Well, it's been all go here over the past couple of weeks. Deadlines out the wazoo, birthdays, sorting holidays, library work..... This morning is a fairly quiet one so I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog while I could and share a few things I've been working on lately.

Here's my latest dress:

The fabric is from the Sussex Beacon charity shop on George Street, Hove, who have been selling LOADS of fabric recently. I believe at the moment they are offering the fabrics for half price. Anyhoo, it's pretty similar to the other dresses I have made; slightly more empire line, though, and with a channel put in under the bust to make a housing for a simple belt (it's just 2m of black bias binding sewn flat). I also put in slightly more flowing sleeves gathered with elastic at the cuffs. I'm just off to a leaving do in this photo (hence the slightly pants evening light). One of the ladies I work with has just gone off on a year-long round-the-world trip. I'm not at all jealous.

And here are a few sketches and colour samples and the like from projects I've been working on:





It's strange, I always think I've done no work whatsoever, but, actually, looking though the stuff I've been working on recently, there's really quite a bit. I can't really share more of it, though, until it's out in the Big Wide World. My new postcard came though this week, but I'll share that once I've sent it out, which won't be until the end of the month.

We're off on our hols from Tuesday, so blogging will be pretty non-existent for two weeks. I hope the weather stays fine for us, especially as we're camping! I do love the onset of autumn, though. My absolute favourite time of year. I have bought pretty much all of my autumn/winter wardrobe already (can't resist new knits in the shops!), although I'm sure I'll make myself a few wintery dresses as the season progresses. There is a definite autumn smell in the air, though, and it's amazing how quickly it's getting dark already. After the hols, I'm starting a 10-week book-binding course which I'm really looking forward to. And then there are more birthdays, more deadlines, and Christmas (eek, the C-word) to look forward to. Sigh. I do like being busy, though. Good job, really!!

End of Week 36

Signs of Approaching Autumn II

Conkers:

Sunset, 8.01pm Today

Open Market Haul

I got this bunch of lovelies for the grand total of a fiver from the Open Market yesterday. I've washed them since, but aren't they yummy yum yum even as they are? They've been added to my rapidly increasing china collection.