Birthday makes....

October and November are already looking like being busy for parties and today was just the start.

Rachel had a birthday meal to go to and I made this personalised reversible half apron for one of her friends. 

He enjoys cooking so it seemed the idea gift and although this looks a bit like an a-line skirt it does in fact fit straight when it is on!

Initially I was just going to line it in the red but then came up with the idea of adding the big "C" to give two ways of wearing it. I hope he likes it!!

Tomas was also at a party today, this one was a joint swimming party for two of his school friends. When I asked their mums what sort of things the girls liked it was pink, fairies, princess and glitter. 

I had the perfect fabric in mind this Michael Miller glitter fairy in pink, I teamed it with some hot pink fabric to make these two personalised cushions.

 I been perfecting my appliqué stitching

and this font was nice and simple to sew around.

I was really pleased with how these turned out.

It's boys parties next so I have football and ninja turtles in mind!!!

Hi everyone, sorry I've not been around much lately, July was a busy month with school events, family life and with a lack of anything exciting to say this has kept me away from blogland, oh that and Big Brother and never being able to get a quiet minute on the computer!!
I have tried to keep up with all your goings on but with over 600 unread blog posts to read I might just have to bite the bullet and hit the mark as read button as I fear I might disappear under that momentous number at some point.
We (well the kids) had quite a few birthday parties to attend during July and I made several presents
A tiger themed personalised cushion - it took ages to sew around all those letters!

A personalised PE bag for a Scooby fan.

A fold over clutch make up bag and personalised initial fabric heart.

I'm finding that with the kids at home for the holidays my crafting time has pretty much stopped although I did manage a bit of a tidy up today in my workroom and as Rachel wants to earn some extra pocket money she is listing lots of destash items for me on eBay (for a percentage of the profits!)
So if you fancy some bag patterns, jewellery project books, fabrics and much more then take a look at my listings. We (I mean Rachel) will be listing lots more over the few days so keep popping in to see whats on offer.
EBAY

January Makes

Like many of you I signed up to the challenge of making a least one item a month over at Annie's blog - 

 The Felt Fairy

I wanted to use this challenge to make some things for our home as these often get put on the back burner in favour of making lovely things for other people...think typical builder, builds lovely homes for other people but can his wife get him to put up a curtain pole - can she heck!!!

So I have surprised myself this first month by not making one but two makes, alright they are identical but we can count them as two can't we??? 

And here they are -  my patchwork stripe bolster cushions for Rachel's bed.....

 

 because of the design of her bed there is always a gap when she puts the bed against the wall (she moves her furniture around quite a bit so sometimes there isn't a gap at all!!)

Clothes, books, pens, socks and much more have a tendency to fall down this gap and I have meaning to make these some bolster cushions for ages to stop this and to make the bed look more comfy. 

I used a combination of new and reclaimed fabrics so we have pieces from a charity shop skirt, a duvet, a pillowcase, and the one I love the most one of my Nan's vintage dresses.

I have to confess to finding it hard sometimes to put fabrics together like this and initially when they were cut and laid out I really wasn't sure but once I started sewing them together, I was delighted with the combination. I used my over locker for the seam as I love the neat finish it gives. 

Anyone else find sewing the pom pom trim on a bit of a nightmare, I tried to sandwich it in between the fabric so that the pom pom's were only showing but my sewing machine just didn't like it so I resorted to putting it on the outside. Any tips would be gratefully received for the next pom pom trim project...

I think I may have over stuffed the first one and might re stuff it at a later date, am I'm the only one that does just keep on stuffing, I do find it tricky to get that just plump feeling!!!

Both the cushions fit nicely along the back of the bed and even if  when Rachel decides it's time for a room shuffle then they can sit at either end of the bed too.

Rachel loves them and I think they do go rather nicely with the CK bedding....

So that's one item crossed of the Home Makes List, it's a new ironing board cover next...unless I get distracted by something else!!!

Lastly I just wanted to say another thank you Annie as the other day I received my bag handles through the post from her bag handles giveaway, I received some round handles and a funny postcard, not sure whether I am actually going to use them as bag handles yet so we shall see what my creative brain comes up with???

Tuesday Night Sew In

That's last Tuesday not tomorrow - there's no way that I'm that efficient....

Every Tuesday (well almost!) I have a Tuesday Night Sew In with my partner in crime Ruth,
 this was the inspiration for our first project.


It's been a major learning curve as neither of us have hexagonal quilted before and rather therapeutic too.
I have embarrassed my kids on several occasions by taking my tin of hexagons out in public.
This has been a work in progress for several weeks and sometimes more chatting occurs than sewing but last week we were on the homeward stretch (well Ruth was as I had forgot to make my hexagon flower).

My work is on the left and Ruth's is on the right

Because I hadn't finished my flower we made a start on sewing Ruth's cushion together.

Ta-dah!!!

how fab is that!

Not wanting to hold up starting on our next project I got to work making my hexagon flower and finished off my cushion too.

 

Here it is on the chair in the porch - now you can see why I went with a different colour scheme.

 

I did have a slight panic when in the final throe's of stuffing my cushion one of the patchwork squares frayed (I should have realised when I cut it that it would fray quite easily and used a wider seam but then hindsight is a wonderful thing) I managed to salvage this mishap with lots of awkward hand sewing. Phew!

I think Ruth and I are both very pleased with our cushions (I know I am)and have learnt lots by completing this project, we are now thinking about the next one and are hoping to find a Halloween themed something on the wonderful waste of time that is Pinterest!!!!

Father's Day

This post is for Paul, the best Daddy in the world.....

Rachel popped some of those money tissues in her card it's probably the only time she'll be giving money not asking for it.

I have come to the conclusion that I work better under pressure and you can't get more pressure than making cushions the night before can you??? Paul has been asking for months for me to make a union jack cushion and a welsh flag cushion and I just kept putting off doing them always making/starting something else first or using the excuse that I didn't have the right fabrics!!! Well like most men he isn't easy to buy presents for and although we had a couple of small things for him I was stuck for ideas. On Friday/Saturday he hinted that I must have been burning the midnight oil in my workshop making his cushions (I hadn't I'd been crocheting in front of the TV) so last night I set about the task of making two cushions and instead of fannying about I just got on with it and cut out a dragon made stripes and started sewing. Needless to say it was a bit of a late one but he was chuffed with his cushions

 and now I've got to make the kids a welsh flag one each (pink for Rachel and red for the boys). I was a bit worried that the union jack one was a bit girly but wanted to keep with the green and red theme as it is to go in the orangery on the green chesterfield.

You can't see it very well but the red felt is glittery for just that little bit of sparkle!!!

I have to say having now cut out three dragons (only one more to go) my thumb was a little sore from the scissors!!!

Rachel has also put in an order for a pink/green one of these - I knew there was a reason I bought all those cushion pads...

After opening his presents we all sat down to a lovely full english breakfast made by yours truly

We have spent the day just taking it easy and we're looking forward to a lovely roast lamb dinner in about a hour...
I hope all you Daddy's/Dad's have had a great day!

A Monthly Make 2011 January

Amazingly even amongst the chaos of the kitchen refurbishment I still managed to complete one item this month. Well technically I suppose it's two items as I made two of the same thing!!!!
Jack was invited to a surprise birthday party by the mum's of two of his classmates and unbelievably the children managed to keep it a secret from the birthday girls for over a week....
Jack wanted me to make them a birthday gift and asked for personalised cushions, they had to be exactly the same as the girls are BFF (best friends forever for those of you that weren't sure!)
I have come to the conclusion that I work much better under pressure as there wasn't much time to make these and I made up the pattern as I went along.....


I'm really pleased with the outcome especially using cross stitch for the names and now have orders from Rachel, Jack and Tomas to make something similar for them.....


To find out more and to join in the making fun just pop over to The Felt Fairy by clicking on the picture link below.