The simple joy of sewing...

My love for home and the domestic life is no secret and something which nourishes me despite the day to day responsibilities of running both the business and design arms of Elefantz Designs.

But home duties and business duties combined can leave me lacking in 'spare' hours to simply enjoy creating for the sheer delight of it.

Don't get me wrong - I love designing and hand embroidering new patterns every month for The Stitchery Club as well as each year's Block of the Month and occasional Scripture designs which I share here on my blog; it's a privilege and a joy, a gift not to be taken for granted.

What I miss are free mornings or afternoons (or dare I say it, days?) when I can get lost in my sewing room and simply 'make' things just for fun. Before I became a designer this is what I did each and every day, I sewed for pleasure alone, and usually with a young Blossom right beside me.

Occasionally I do take time to make gifts, a project as a tutorial for this blog or a pattern for the Club, but those times are scheduled and are few and far between. Well, they used to be.

Since my diagnosis last month I've been mentally and physically adjusting what I can expect of myself and as the weeks go by there'll be a few more tweaks come in to play because another health diagnosis has been added to the list. The nice thing about all this is that instead of bemoaning what I'm no longer able to do, I've decided to focus on what I can give myself permission to enjoy!

And one of those 'enjoy' bonuses is sewing time.

All my energy for business and basic housework is gone between 10.30 - 11 am so I begin my day at 5.30 am because here in the tropics it's the coolest part of the day and bit by bit I do what I am able until my body signals 'stop!'.

Once I'm at that point it's all downhill so there's a lot of read, type, rest and sew time these days. Sometimes the most I can do is sit and hand embroider new designs or type the patterns...but other afternoons I can slowly potter around in the sewing room and sort through my very large box of stitcheries and make pincushions, and you have no idea how much I am LOVING this!

Here's what I made the past couple of weeks, all destined for Christmas gifts.

This one is for someone *very* close to my heart...

I gave this pincushion to my dear friend Dianne when she came to visit last Friday. I had no idea her middle name is Joy so it became extra special.

Wendy came to visit with Dianne and this pincushion was my gift for her, a very belated birthday gift for my sweet friend and she loved it.

This is for another very special friend, but as it is still winging it's way to her in the post I cannot tell you who the friend is, but I do hope she likes it.

I now have my box of stitcheries right beside my sewing machine and though my fabric supply is quite small it is sufficient to play with for quite a while so I shall enjoy making pincushions and pillows and other small items in the months ahead for the sheer delight of doing so.

There truly are silver linings to the clouds I've recently discovered hovering permanently in my life, and I thank the good Lord for showing them to me.

Regarding the Pincushions: if you follow these tutorials you can make similar pincushions to the ones I've made. Be creative and add extras like buttons, lace, beads, stitchery blocks, pockets...each one then becomes unique.