Sew Easy Reversible Slippers

A little too big. I have not made these for a while, so cosy!

Lazy Day

It's a long time since I've posted I don't sew much these days....The dog doesn't do much either, just loves to lay in her bed all day. The cat's not much better, he spends his time on the table.

Lazy Brown Dog!

Tabby Cat Table!

The Last Minute Easter Hunt

This year we put all the  Easter eggs into brown paper bags. Then decorated these with a vintage Easter picture glued on the front. Next punched a hole in the bags then tied up  he bag with ribbons. Very exciting for the children as they had so much fun unwrapping the bags to see what was inside...Yes there were too many Easter eggs, we all got a bit carried away. All this was done at the last minute....in fact it was a hit and one of the easiest Easter hunts we have done.

Sometimes simple is just best...

Vintage bunny pictures on brown bags, © Google

Our big chocolate bunny posed for photos...We bought the cake and then
decorated it with a yellow and green bunny decoration.

The Garden Harvest

The vegetable garden has been doing really well this year, especially the tomatoes. My daughter looks after the garden, I just collect the produce...and look after the rabbit.

Feeding the soil

Bunny poop it's his job to feed the soil. Here he is eating the
'Alpine Strawberry'.

Out and about in the garden...just having a rest while my hutch is cleaned.
He's a 'Chestnut' Angora rabbit.

Garden Pollinators

We were so lucky this year we had a bumblebee nest at the back of the garden. Such busy bees collecting pollen all day long. There are four types of bumblee bees in New Zealand.

They won't sting unless you make them angry...Did you know bumblebees
are attracted to blue?

The Bumblebee Nest

Having a Bumblebee nest in the garden is okay, they are harmless unless you
make them angry. They just go about their business. We need bumblebee's
in the garden. We were so lucky to have this nest in our garden.

Bumblebee nest, it's empty now they've done their job

The tomatoes are 'Beefsteak'. I'm going to make some chilli sauce using the 'Spicy Tomato Sauce' recipe.

Spray free, organic tomatoes

Beefsteak tomatoes

The Potatoes

I think these are Lissette 

My lavender was at it 's best too. I didn't pick any because the whole garden was turned into a bee garden, spray free, with plenty of flowers to attract the bees.

Lavender 'Arabian Nights'

Lavender 'Dilly Dilly' my favourite. Attracts the bees...

I think the bee below is a solitary 'Carpenter Bee'. Whoever he was, he spent most of his time chasing the bumblebees off the lavender. Very funny to watch him hovering...A bit unlucky though, too many honey bees, and bumblebees. The solitary bee was unable to have the lavender to  himself.

Bee: Carpenter male.

And this little girl just loved the Strawberries that she found in the 'Strawberry Patch'.

A big red ripe spray free, organic strawberry....

Today Was Such a Nice day

I lost my blog mojo, and with all the 'curved balls life brings' I just spent more time on Instagram so easy to just take a photo and put it up and follow some fellow bloggers....But I lost my tomato sauce recipe, and suddenly I remembered it was on my blog, so here I am!

Today was so hot...Here are a few pics of my day, a very quiet day! I spent some time taking photos of the cats who spent the morning inside too.

A Winter Top

I loved this fabric when I bought it and it's been in my stash for ages. It's a jersey knit, with plenty of stretch. I liked the feel of it so I bought it...It was really enjoyable sewing this fabric, I was really careful pressing it as I didn't want the fabric to stretch any further.

The one and only problem I had, and it was my own fault. I overlocked the hem, then used a twin needle to top stitch the hem (too lazy to change the thread on my Janome cover-pro). This was a big mistake...Firstly I should not have tried to twin needle stitch over an overlocked edge...The whole hem had major tunnelling. Actually I didn't know why I did this because usually I just sew without overlocking the edge if I'm using a twin needle.

Lesson learnt...I re-did the hem with the cover-stitch machine and it turned out perfect.

Unpicking started off well, I use cheap snips to do this...Though in
the end I cut the hem off and started again.

The cover stitching was perfect, no missed stitches. I used my 'Humper
Jumper' to go over the seams.

Vogue 8634 Size: M. Easy sew a little big fitting wise, but I would definitely sew
this top again.

Long top made to be worn with tights...not over this A frame skirt. I had
a reluctant model who didn't want to change into tights for the pic.

It looks lovely and warm for winter but I think I could have made it
slightly more fitted...

Side view...

The fitting of this top is a bit big  because my model had 2 layers
of clothing underneath when I did the fitting so now it looks slightly loose!