Seeing red

It hasn't been an easy week with some recession-related work worries, but instead of getting agitated, I calmed myself down with a little patch working project (still in progress). Before Christmas, I bought a beautiful dolls bed, in brown wood. The aim was to do it up and sell it at one of my sales. The bed came with some very pretty but tattered old bedding, and I think it needs a bit of a lift with a homemade patchwork cover before it finds a new home. I have lots of red scraps, including my new Primark tea towels, and a holey 20p tablecloth that I found at the jumble on Saturday so I had fun chopping some into squares, pinning to paper templates and - my favourite part - arranging the pattern. 

I also have some gorgeous old red bias binding which came in one of the job lots of sewing bits that I can never resist at auctions and car boot sales. I do love the vintage packaging, so it will be a wrench to open it, but I want to use it as it's just such a jolly colour.

I love red, especially an old red. The stripy fabric, above, will be the backing for my small quilt. It's so nice to be using my finds instead of just hoarding....

Next task is to put some wadding inside my quilt and sew on the backing. It's been good to keep my hands busy these last few nights. I'm quite tempted to try a larger cover when this is done, although I do like the rhythm of hand-sewing, so I don't want it to be so large that I have to make it on a machine. And, I think that my sewing is improving  a little...just shows you should never give up. Still, I am glad that I have opted for some soft focus shots here: I haven't yet quite mastered watching TV and making tiny stitches at the same time....