Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's already 5 January? It's a wonder we've made it through Christmas and New Year at all, what with the weather having been as awful as it has been.

I've had a wonderful Christmas having spent lots of time with the family and I've also been very lucky on the crafty front.  Not only did I receive a KitchenAid for Christmas but I was also encouraged and helped along the way to buy a new sewing machine. I decided on the Janome 525s which is the machine used in the Great British Sewing Bee. Having read lots of reviews I decided that if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me!

So this is what my New Year's Eve looked like

You can see my gorgeous new sewing machine in the forefront of the picture, and in the background you can also see my lovely new craft cupboard. My wonderful husband built it for me the weekend before Christmas.  Consequently I have had great fun clearing out all my crafty cupboards and drawers and sorting everything out. It's amazing all the little bits and bobs that you find that you've kept along the way for future use.  This is what it looks like today after a good tidy up

What to make first with my new gadgets? I made a cheesecake for dessert on New Year's Day with my KitchenAid and I made a knitting needle case using my new machine. I actually recycled the lovely material I had previously used to make a cover for my old machine. 

I followed the fantastic tutorial that can be found here  http://www.guthrie-ghani.co.uk/blog/knitting-needle-case-tutorial. In the past I've been baffled by the instructions to make a knitting needle case but these were so clear it was really, really easy to follow and I'm definitely going to make some more as gifts.

I did squeeze a little bit of last minute crafting in immediately before Christmas. First of all, a pincushion for my mum who had told me that she was still using the same one that my brother had made when he was at Playschool (he is now 32 years old)

I made it using a kit from www.thelittlelavenderpatch.com.

I had also been working on quilting a duvet cover for number one son. He had a duvet cover which he really like the colour of but unfortunately it was determined to always slip off of the duvet on the inside.  I had grown tired of always having to put the cover back onto it so I used some wadding that I had in my stash and handquilted around the circular patterns to hold everything in place (one of the reasons I have upgraded my sewing machine is because I would like to try quilting). I then topstitched all around the edges to hold everything in place securely. I'm really pleased how it's turned out, in particular I like the fact that having quilted around the circles on one side, you're left with a nice circle swirly pattern on the other side of the quilt. 

I'll be linking this post up with the first Handmade Monday of the year. I'm really looking forward to catching up on what everyone's been up to over the Christmas and New Year period. Join me there if you can to get some inspiration for the months ahead!

Love Natalie