And, 6 months later …

We are back in lockdown. Here in Wales we are on day 14 of a “sharp firebreak” of 17 days. Yesterday, England went into lockdown for a month

If you told me 6 months ago I would spend the time sowing masks – I don’t think I would have believed you! I am not the kind of sewer who is happy making the same thing day in day out – but that is what was called for, and that is what I did. I am probably a better seam-mistress for it – but don’t ask me to alter your clothes …. trust me when I say I am not that good at “proper sewing”

I also took the time to have a really good clear out in the studio plus a re-paint and re-arrange. I am truly happy with the way it is now. Somehow the work-flow is much improved – although I still have huge capacity for it to look like a tornado has passed through after a few hours of working!

My friend Jane has recently leant me an embellishing machine (Sometimes known as needle punch or felting machine) I have never used one before and I am so excited to be giving it a go.

What can I tell you? …. I find it really easy to break a needle – fortunately the one Jane has leant me has 5 needles and you can replace the needles individually – I imagine that this is better than a machine where you have to replace the whole unit every time one needle breaks – so far, in three “goes” on the embellisher I have broken 5 needles! However, I replaced them all with some that describe themselves as “strong”. Fingers crossed that will make a difference! The possibilities seem endless. I imagine that I will use it as a way to create backgrounds for working free machine embroidery on – but who knows.

The only downside that I can see – is that having spent a month getting rid of a vast amount of “stuff” from the studio that I will never use, (for example postage size fragments of material left over from cutting out masks), I keep thinking;- I could have embellished that!

I also could not resist trying to create a little vessel – very happy with my first attempt!