Well I finally finished Mr Blue, my first ever teddy bear. He's ended up with a somewhat surprised expression but I love him to bits and am very pleased with the way he's turned out. It's a week for finishing things off I've decided so I've also finally finished the wrap for my first doll Marina, having decided to add some turquoise blue lining to it and I have to say its finished her off well. Now I just need to finish sewing the bag I promised someone for Christmas and I can go back to doll making!! Although I have just bought some curtain material in the sales to make new curtains for the lounge!! Too much material and too many possible projects and never enough time in the day. Tomorrow its doll club and I'm looking forward to seeing all the very talented ladies in the club again. I went last month for the first time and they made me very welcome and we had a great deal of fun making sculpted faces. If you want to see the outcome the club has a blog site called fanciful figures... Now off to put the kettle on before going back to the sewing room. I love it when I get a day off work and can do just what I want....

The joys of family...

Well, with work, previous illness and just day to day stuff I haven't been able to get into the sewing room as much as I'd like to, and when I have been in there dolls and teddies have had to take a back seat. My younger brother, who has a daughter of 15, and his partner are expecting a baby on March 23rd. Finances are tight and he was very pleased with himself when he bought a moses basket at the market cheaply. He took it home feeling happy and his partner said (before she saw it) it's not pink or frilly is it? They're expecting a boy and so he hadn't bought anything pink - but it was very very frilly!! When I went to visit 3 weeks ago, he said to me could I help him out with this situation and maybe change the covers. I said yes I was sure I could do something - although I had never done anything quite like this before! His partner gave me some material ( a cot set that she hadn't used with her first little boy) and off I went having promised confidently it would be no problem. Actually it turned out to be exactly that - no problem. I'm very pleased with the outcome... I'll let you decide for yourself if that confidence is valid - the photo below is of the final product, and it was white and lacy/frilly...

My older sister who works in a charity shop in Manchester now she's retired, told me, on seeing the picture above, that they have a number of moses baskets in the shop which have no covers of bedding with them. They can't sell them because of this.....  Hmmm - I can see a potential gap in the market here.....

A slight diversion...

Well I finally have made some time in the sewing room,, but I haven't picked up Myrtle yet, although I have a feeling that she's tomorrow's project. I still have 3 more days off work yet and I think that's a good window of opportunity to go "messing about in the sewing room" - a bit like messing about on the river, but definitely warmer and drier!!

Anyway I have been dabbling with teddy bears, well just one teddy bear actually. I've never made a teddy bear in my life and in my usual style, have chosen to do things differently! Well in this case I've chosen to make him from some very non teddy type material as you can see from the picture below. The material is a kind of stretch material base with a shaggy surface in different shades of blue.

As you can see he's far from finished as I'm waiting for some joint pins to come. I ordered some, which came by return and are exactly what I'd asked for - unfortunately what I asked for and what I wanted are two very different things!! The ones that came are far too tiny, even though finished he will only stand about 7-8" tall. He's not stuffed yet (can't stuff him until after the joint pins are in, and he doesn't have a face as such, although his eyes have arrived. For a first ever teddy I'm really pleased with him, and he tells me his name is Blue - obvious really I guess...

I also wanted to share something with you all, a handy tip if you like. I went shopping with the husband as he wanted new walking shoes, and we ended up in the fishing section of a local large outdoor retailer. For reasons best known to anyone but me I wandered into the fishing bag section. I found in there the ideal bags for carrying lots of small crafting items, complete with plastic sectioned boxes made to fit the bags. So ladies and gents - if you've never been in a fishing shop, now may well be the time to try. Oh and fly tying stuff for making your own flies (also fishing stuff!!) can be used to add as embellishments to dolls I think - not that I've tried it but that's for a later day...

A New Year ahead... And the flu...

I'm really looking forward to 2011 and want to take this opportunity to wish all and sundry the best year ever!! Christmas Day here was fabulous and Father Christmas bought me everything I could have wished for. However after that things went rapidly downhill. I started to cough that evening and within 24 hrs it was clear that I was in for a rough few days. That few days turned into over a week and I'm still not fit enough to go back to work. I'd mind that less if I was fit enough to do anything very much in the sewing room, but I'm not even really up to that either. I think I may have had flu - although it may have been some form of viral thing. Either way no sewing or creating has happened and I'm now getting very frustrated. So today I have promised myself that I'll spend at least half an hour pottering in the sewing room.

My sewing room is a bit like a man's shed I guess. It's a space that's mine that I can be frantically busy in or sit and do nothing much at all. It can be quiet or I can have music on. The dogs can join me if I want company or not if I don't. It keeps me sane when things around are crazy. I think everyone should have a shed or a sewing room. Maybe it would even reduce anger, stress and crime? I am, as you probably have guessed from the last comment, the eternal optimist. Although on the stress front the elder sister tells me that knitting has been proven to reduce stress. I'm not convinced having tried it this week for the first time in about 20 years. Boucle wool and a far from easy pattern probably wasn't the best choice to start with!! I do think though that being creative does help to calm the mind, even when it doesn't go quite according to plan and maybe those are the best times. I love the look and feel of the fabrics and the excitement of not being exactly sure how things will turn out and in 2011 I'm planning on having a lot of things turning out differently... Life is after all for living, and if the now moments are well lived, the memories will be worth looking back on and the future will be something to look forward to..

Here's to 2011....

Frustrations of a new doll maker...

Well I started the new doll and was really happy with the legs, and I could see Myrtle in my mind. I knew she was called Myrtle, even though all I had were a pair of cream spotty legs. She was going to be a little old lady - a feisty little old lady.

I had the materials and thought I was away. Then it all went down hill - as often the best laid plans often do!! So I went ahead and made a body for her. I used jersey doll skin fabric this time. Last time I used flesh coloured cotton. Anyway I was fairly happy with the body, and carried on with the arms. The first arm almost complete I realised that the body and arms didn't match in any way. The body is too big and totally the wrong colour for a little old lady. A rethink was called for and I decided that I would remake the body - still not quite there with that yet. While I had been stuffing the arm I had completed I had a nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right somehow. See the photo below and tell me what went wrong - what's my deliberate mistake??

Yep, you guessed it. The hands on upside down!! Now I need to take the whole thing to pieces, turn the hand round, remake the body slightly smaller with different material and I'll be back to where I was a week ago!! With Christmas only a week away and presents to make I think this may have to take a back seat til the festivities are over!!

The joys of management...

No sewing today as I am reeling from a challenging day at work. I manage a small team and today we did team building stuff. On the whole it was a success, and some big steps forward were made. But following the session I took a little time to reflect on what we had done, what was said and how we could "move things forward". I found myself using management buzzwords like "thinking outside the box" and "this isn't a blame culture". I thought afterwards, what did I wish to achieve out of today - all I wanted was for the whole team to get on, to work together and for us all to do what we do best - care for people. We are nurses after all, so that's what we should do. Lots of questions came out of that thought - do we care for our clients (used to call them patients but oh how time changes), do we care for our immediate colleagues, do we care for the company we work for(NHS) or the company that we provide the service for( prison service) or for the people around us who aren't our immediate colleagues. On the whole I'm pleased to say the answer is yes, at least most of the time, although now and again I wonder if we are helping the "clients" by, for example, providing them with easy access to opiate based pain relief for "back pain" - difficult to prove, easy to fake. My nurses work hard to provide equivalent care and the best service available to what can be the most difficult to please group of "clients" I have had the pleasure of caring for in over 30 yrs of nursing service. I have 4 separate solicitors letters on my desk awaiting reply, all complaining because they did not get what they wanted - please note however that is not that they are complaining because they did not get the right treatment, good service, polite, knowledgeable and timely care, but because they did not get what they wanted. Drugs to feed their habit, a letter to get them out of work, evidence that there is a reason they can't produce a urine sample for drug testing cause by some never heard of illness or a side effect of their medication. It's a tricky job mine, but always a challenge.... Oh and by the way, mostly they get free access to solicitors. I expect if they had to pay for solicitor's time I would waste a lot less time replying to just such letters...

Winter...

It's cold, very cold but as yet we've been lucky to not have any snow. I say lucky but in some ways I envy those who, like my brother is surrounded by 6 ft snow drifts and at least 18 ins of snow everywhere. Altho I don't envy him having to park a mile away from home and walk back to his country cottage!! We saw a few flakes of snow and that's been all so far. The cold however does make you want to curl up in the warm. My sewing room isn't the warmest room in the house so it needs a heater on for at least 20 mins before I can venture in there. Mind you it is small so once it's warm it tends to stay warm. I spent yesterday evening sorting through my ever increasing stack of fabrics and had a thoroughly enjoyable and creative juice making evening. Must have been good as I woke up in the middle of the night dreaming about my latest creation!! Maybe I need to get out more, although I do work full time and have two very manic spaniels so it's not like I never get out!!!

Speaking of the spaniels the latest little incident we've had to deal with is that Rocks, the youngster has discovered how to get onto the dining room table. He's obviously gone up market as he started by sleeping on the coffee table. Anyway the problem with all this table climbing is that it means he has an extended reach to things that he shouldn't be getting hold off such as the TV freeview box buttons, now in tiny little pieces. Husband currently surfing the net for a replacement...

Enough musings, the sewing room calls... And we can't watch tv so I might as well use the time usefully...