The Sewing Dilettante

Last Friday, I started the fantastic Christmas Projects class offered by Judith. We're going to be making a variety of buttons, brooches, and fun fabric crafts over the course of 4 weeks, and I'm already having a blast! We started off kneading, molding, and rolling out Fimo to create little flowers, hearts, and Christmas trees, among other things. It was like being a kid again, messing around with play dough, as you can see from the photo Judith posted! The difference with Fimo though is that, once baked, it hardens, meaning these little shapes can then be used as buttons, pendants, and card decorations. Here's a selection of mine... Clockwise from left: A Christmas tree complete with garland; two tiny snowmen; a Christmas marshmallow (what do you mean you've never heard of that?!); a handful of teensy little hearts. I'm hoping to use these to make little barrettes and necklaces for my  nieces this Christmas. They love jewelry and hair accessories, so I thin...

It's been a while since my last post, and I don't have much excuse except that I've been manically busy trying to juggle 16 million things at once! Feeling slightly overwhelmed by it all this morning, I headed out for a pressure-releasing power walk (read: waddle) and was almost immediately refreshed by the autumnal glory in Ormeau Park. Obviously, I couldn't resist kicking through the leaves like a little kid! Somehow it's never really occurred to me before this year how similar autumns are here to those back in New England. Belfast may not have New Hampshire's reputation for fantastic fall foliage, but it's still pretty spectacular! The crisp fresh air combined with the lovely scenery and some child-like romping on my part put things back in perspective and made me crave some of my favourite autumn treats, pumpkin pie chief among them. I just might have to rustle one up this weekend!  These are the only photos I have to show today, but there'l...