DONT YOU JUST HATE......

.............The smell of paint being stripped with a hot air stripper!! I do and I should be used to it now. At least it wasn't me having to do this horrible job. No it was DH finishing stripping the window frame and door frame in my sewing room. It is coming on in leaps and bounds and I hope to show you the results very soon. He has already ripped out some awful cupboards in the alcoves and replaced them with thick shelves made from recycled scaffolding planks. The next job is many more power points behind my work bench and  better lighting with daylight bulbs above.
When we moved into this house 20 years ago stripped pine was all the rage and so every door, skirting board and even the stairs and 47 stair rails were stripped sanded to within an inch of their lives and left. Funny how our tastes change. Now  I look at the window frames and wonder if they should be white, well in my sewing room they will be but at least now they have a lovely clean base and the woodwork will look as it should !

 Note to self....I don't think all that stuff will fit on new shelves!!....

Of course all this renovation has meant access to my sewing machine has been sorely curtailed, but by no means stopped. So the other evening I set to and created a new cover for the Parker Knoll chair which my DH has in the dining room to watch 'his' big tele. It was perfectly OK covered in a large red and cream check, but being me and seeing it as slightly grubby I decided to wash the original and being a good fit to begin with it was a little like my clothes were a few weeks ago, not too small but certainly too snug a  fit for comfort (but that's a whole other story). So having seen these stunning patchwork sofas in many magazines lately,

 image c/o mydeco.com

 I thought I would be a bit more creative and make a patchwork cover for the seat cushion. Of course he is a 'bloke' and velvet and florals are not really his thing so the effect had to be a bit more subtle and voila..................

Amazingly he quite liked it!!

Well when the sewing machine was completely out of bounds I had to resort to the hexis and hand sewing!! My they do grow apace. Having found the new way of using the English paper piecing which does not involve sewing through the paper ( in my case card) templates, I am thrilled with the progress......

 If you haven't read my other posts check this site for hexi templates and links to easy piecing  here....it saves a lot of time and many sore fingers!

 Well yet again time has defeated me, why does it always take me a whole evening to write a post and edit a few pictures. Is it just me or does everyone go through this!
I have so many things to tell you but never seem to have enough time to do it. Never mind tomorrow is another day....and I will be back.....

TTFN

Jenny xx