Making a Safari Cushion

/
Making a Safari Cushion

The real joy of embroidering is when you can make a special gift for someone you love and this project has been supremely joyous in every way. I wanted to make a gift for my sister and brother in law who have recently done a bit of a make over in their living room. As they have just got new sofas, I felt a cushion was a good option and In thinking what to make, I thought of the holiday of a lifetime that they went on a few years ago, on Safari in Africa and decided on a safari theme. Yumiko Higuchi’s beautiful (aren’t they always) book of embroidered animals is just so gorgeous that it is easy to get drawn into her world of spectacular sewing and feel inspired to have a go.

Read More

Making a Waistcoat

/
Making a Waistcoat

I am absolutely thrilled to see that waistcoats are making a bit of an impression on the fashion scene this autumn - not that an I am avid follower of fashion you understand - but seeing one of my favourite items given a new look in the shops is just the inspiration I needed to get going with this project.

Read More

Creative Autumn Endeavours

/
Creative Autumn Endeavours

Hello and welcome to Autumn. It is such a glorious season here in England and perhaps I appreciate it more because of all the years we lived away on overseas postings. When we first returned, I was immediately struck by how the seasons here are so clearly defined - in both Russia and Sweden, Spring and Autumn were barely a whisper - it just seemed to go from Summer to Winter in a matter of weeks. I remember how we would return to Moscow after the summer holidays, ready for the start of school and we would still be in cotton tops and then a sort of grey stillness would descend upon the city and the temperature would drop by the day over just a couple of weeks and soon and then it was Winter. The trees that lined our boulevard seemed to shed their leaves in a single shake and all was calm and in waiting for the first snow. Here in Yorkshire, Autumn has time to really show off it’s golden hues and wild heathers and the colours make me want to start on new projects. This year, I seem to have excelled myself in lining them up!!

Read More

Florentine Roses Quilt Pattern

/
Florentine Roses Quilt Pattern

Sometimes the idea for a new quilt design just comes out of nowhere and it’s hard to fathom the chain of thought that sewed the seeds - in this case though, the idea came from two distinct sources that just happened to coincide in a creative explosion at almost the same moment and with an unexpected suddenness.

Read More

Festival of Quilts 2021

/
Festival of Quilts 2021

Exhibiting at the Festival of Quilts is usually the highlight of Ruby’s year and after the cancellation of last year’s show and the uncertainty about what and how it would be this year it all felt rather a daunting prospect. For a long time, I wondered whether it would even be on. As it happened, I think it has turned out to be in many ways the best show ever! Now, being home for a few days I have had time to reflect on the whole show and the new people I got to know and to look at the bits and bobs I bought too (because let’s face it, there were always going to be some of those).

Read More

The Haberdashery Pattern Tidy : A new quilt pattern

/
The Haberdashery Pattern Tidy : A new quilt pattern

It’s been a while since I did a new quilt pattern, but I was really inspired with this one, because it is actually useful too. While I have been watching the Great British Sewing Bee on BBC tv, I was thinking how wonderful the studio haberdashery was and I thought about how I could use this happy image to make a quilt and then it struck me that it could be a ‘pattern tidy’ as well. I don’t know about you, but through all these months of lockdown, I have accumulated quite a few quilt patterns both printed and pdf’s and as always I am full of promise to make them all. Sound familiar? Well this way, you can have a charming quilt to hang on your wall and somewhere to keep them all - there is a pocket for the smaller printed patterns and one for pdf’s. What is more, you can customise it for your sewing room or craft space and use scraps from favourite fabric collections or themed prints and make it modern or vintage.

Read More

Making the Triple Threat Briefcase by Sew Sweetness (or my explorer bag)

/
Making the Triple Threat Briefcase by Sew Sweetness (or my explorer bag)

Well…. I hardly know where to start or how to contain my excitement about this one! It’s a WOW project and superb pattern. Bag making is something I enjoy once or twice a year - sometimes for someone else as a gift and sometimes I am motivated by what might be just really useful for myself. This is definitely the latter - it isn’t going anywhere!

Read More

Dressmaking, getting older and a vintage peplum jacket.

/
Dressmaking, getting older and a vintage peplum jacket.

Of course it is not everybody’s style but the thing to take away from this posting is that you can make what you want, taking ideas from fashion magazines, movies or historical costume and just have a go. Think about the key points you want in a garment and look to mix and match elements and find the style that really reflects your personality. In the end, getting older is all about being yourself - not a mum, a wife, a job - just yourself.

Read More

Making an embroidered clutch bag

/
Making an embroidered clutch bag

Clutch bags seem impossibly glamorous to a vintage girl who spends most of her days in Jeans, but this one is pretty special. In fact this posting has been marinating in my draft box for a very long time and I am so happy to finally be able to write about it. During these long months of lockdown, ‘making things’ has been so important to me and I know to lots of other people too and it has also been a chance to finish up some things that have for whatever reason been dragging their threads…so to speak. This charming project has been one of them and I really can’t explain why it has taken me so very long to get around to finishing it.

Read More

Visiting Salt's Mill - a UNESCO world heritage site in Yorkshire

/
Visiting Salt's Mill - a UNESCO world heritage site in Yorkshire

I was so happy this weekend to finally get to venture out to actually visit somewhere and especially happy because it is one of our absolute favourite places in the world to go…and what’s more it is right here in Yorkshire. Salt’s Mill remains, for us, a surprising gem in the textile heritage of the Yorkshire landscape.

Read More

Four Period Costume Embroidery Patterns

/
Four Period Costume Embroidery Patterns

Hello there and Happy Easter. I do hope you have some sunshine to sit in while munching your easter eggs. There’s a new pattern in Ruby’s sewing room and it is just the prettiest set of little designs that are fun to stitch and great for putting on any number of things, especially handmade gifts.

These girls are around 5” high so they are quick easy projects to sew and there is a world of possibilities to explore with embellishments like teeny tiny buttons, seed beads, sequins and metallic threads.

Read More

'Homage to Venice' - Free Quilt Pattern

/
'Homage to Venice' - Free Quilt Pattern

…..and as the boat approaches through the last church-crowned islands …….so the whole scene seems to shimmer - with pinkness, with age, with self satisfaction, with sadness, with delight. The navigator stows away his charts and puts on a straw hat: for he has reached that paragon among landfalls, Venice.”

These sentences, paraphrased from the opening pages of the most wonderful book ‘Venice’ by Jan Morris (first published in 1963) for me, perfectly sum up why I love Venice so much and why I wanted to capture a little bit of it’s magic in a sewing project.

Read More