I hate Lycra, officially (and Blogger - leave my pictures where I put them!)

I don't have much to show you this week, I've been incredibly busy, but unfortunately not with crafty things.  My husband came home on Wednesday with some pink Lycra and some white Lycra and asked me to help whip up something for a display they were making for the business he owns.  I can't show you here on the blog what I made, but it involved sewing a very simple seam on the Lycra and adjusting it until it was in the right place to fit over a wooden base.  The pink Lycra was fine, I sewed 2 seams, and then got it right, but the white Lycra... 

It was very thin, shiny and slippery and liked to wedge itself under the needle plate, preferably making itself so stuck I had to cut it out and leave a hole...  I was cursing by this stage.  Then I finally got a seam done, and the stupid stuff had folded under itself so I'd sewn through the Lycra in 3 places.  Out came the seam ripper...  It took me 2 hours to sew a seam in one piece of Lycra, I was almost crying.  On the positive side, I learnt a very quick and easy way to rip out a zigzag seam!

I also had to do some mending.  My mum asked me to sew the hole in my dad's pocket (visible on the outside) as I had her sewing machine.  I was so impressed with myself when I did a perfect job, asked my husband to look and show me where I'd mended the trousers and he didn't know!!  Mum has now passed the clothes reparing mantle down to me - not that I want it!

I prefer making things like this:

I embroidered this bookmark using Aimee Ray's Doodle Stitching: The Motif Collection (click link on my sidebar) and then sewed it to a piece of patterned fabric, turned it and top stitched.  Maybe not the neatest bookmark in the world, but I quite like it.

I embroidered this one with little bunnies from a pattern bought at The Flossbox.  It took me 3 evenings!

Sorry about the messy picture layout, but Blogger is making me lose the will to live.  I have to upload photos one at a time, then leave the post I'm writing to go elsewhere on my dashboard, then come back and I'm allowed to upload one more photo... it takes forever!  And now it wont put them where I want and seems to want to put them all at the bottom.  Grrr!

Anyway, the photos are close ups of each of the 3 bunnies, and the back.  It's a bit messy, you can see where I messed up the stitching, it's not rectangular and I did the topstitch too far from the edge/too close to the embroidery.  I did take the first bit of stitching out but it had left little holes so I had to sew in the same place.

And finally, the only other thing I've had time for this week is starting this cross stitch for my mum for Craft Book Challenge Part 1:

Do you know what it is?  I'm going to make it into a little drawstring bag I think.  I have to get cracking on presents for my mum as her birthday is just 2 weeks away now.

Hopefully I'll have hundreds of presents to show you in a couple of days!  Or maybe just one item I've half sewn/messed up!