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!!!

Dressmaking Wednesday

With my fabric all washed and pressed I headed off on Wednesday to my dressmaking group, it was much busier this week and everyone was busy with their projects when I arrived. My first job was to give my pattern pieces a quick iron, so I plugged the iron in and let it heat up when the fire alarm suddenly started bleeping, I was standing right under it and it didn't like my hot iron at all! I turned the iron down and moved the ironing board away from the pesky fire alarm, anyone would think I had burnt the dinner (again!)
With my pattern pieces nicely pressed it was time to lay out my fabric, now although we have lovely big tables to work on at the hall the group use pattern cutting boards like the one in the picture below.

I've never seen or used one of these before but I can see it being really useful when cutting on the floor or on your dining table. I think I might add this to my ever growing Christmas list.

Now as the newbie in the group I didn't want to rush ahead nor did I want to keep pestering Jean every five minutes but my dressmaking abilities seemed to completely disappear as I laid out my fabric and pattern pieces. If I had been at home I would have just got on with it but for some reason I needed reassurance that I was doing it the right way. I spoke with the group about this and Jean explained that it happens to everyone. Phew, was I glad to hear that! 

With my pattern piece pinned in place Jean explained that if the pattern requires a zip then she advises to add an extra 1/4" to the seam allowance for turning and adjustments. With this in mind and with my scissors poised I set about cutting out my fabric. The front and the back use the same pattern piece so I re pinned the pattern piece and cut that one out too. The next step is tailor tacking, again something I have never tried before, so my homework for this week is to tailor tack both the front and back pieces and then it's onto the pleats.

Luckily for me one of the ladies in the group has made this skirt nine times in different fabrics so I had the chance to try her's on for size and to have a look at how the pleats are constructed. I'm not much of a skirt wearer but I have to say that the skirt was really comfortable and I just hope mine looks as good as Rose's.

Busy Bee

Lack of blogging can only mean one thing - I've been a busy bee!

I can't quite believe a whole month has passed without me writing anything, I have been trying to read most of your posts so I haven't been out of the loop completely.

So what have I been up to..... Well on the crafting front I have made two HUGE beach bags and two matching drawstring wet bags.

A lovely bright summery paisley fabric.   

the inside with lots of pockets.

Beach huts fabric 

with a lovely co-ordinating stripe fabric for the lining.

These bags have waterproofed lined pockets on the sides for drinks bottles and the drawstring bags are lined with waterproof ripstop fabric too for wet swimwear.

Two personalised swim bags

and a cute messenger bag from fairy fabric

And over the past few days I have been making pirate outfits for Tomas and some of his friends for Treasure Island/Pirate day on Friday.

a green swashbuckling pirate

a pink girl pirate, the skirt is based on handkerchief/bandana style skirt that I found on Pinterest but adapted slightly, changing the wide elasticated waist band to a narrow covered waistband.

a black and red shiver me timbers pirate

and finally my very own Tongueless Tomas pirate.

There was lots of very excited pirates in school this morning and I picked up a very exhausted pirate this afternoon.

I also finished off a secret present today which I can't show you until next week when it has been received but I am rather pleased how it turned out!

We have also started working through our home decorating list starting with Tomas' room which hasn't been changed since he was a baby and really needed doing. So we emptied the room, selling any unwanted furniture on ebay to help pay for the new furniture which i had ordered to make the most of the special offer and had stacked in the garage waiting for me to put together. We then removed the old border, filled holes and rubbed down woodwork before going out to choose some paint. It seems that it has been some time since I bought any paint because I nearly fell over when having had my chosen paint made up I got to the check out and it was £40 odd for the emulsion and £20 odd pound for the gloss!!! I must be getting old! We also bought a huge tub of magnolia for the ceilings which was cheap in comparison. We live in an old Victorian house which is beautiful but has the drawback of single skinned wall (no insulation) and as Tomas has one of the only north facing external walls I lined it with polystyrene to add a little warmth. We also found some textured star paintable wallpaper which I used over the polystyrene. I'm just hoping that Tomas doesn't do what his older brother did and make lots of little marks in the wall with a tiger!! With all the prep work done, Paul painted the ceiling and I painted the walls and glossed the woodwork and the radiator. The next job was to order the carpet, just as we are leaving the house I realised I didn't have the room measurements so popped back in doors to get them. When I got back in the car I said to Paul "oh by the way I measured the hall stairs and landing carpet too." He just nodded and knew what was coming next, my logic was if the carpet fitter is here fitting one carpet then he might as well fit two!!! This did mean that I had to get two rooms finished before the carpet arrived and although it was tiring it was worth as the hall, stairs and landing definitely needed a freshen up and I needed a kick up the bum to do it!!

I haven't got any pictures to show you yet but I will take some as soon as the finishing touches are in place.

There is so much more to tell you but it seems I have rambled on long enough and It doesn't help that I have been writing this post over several days TTFN.

Somehow or another Rachel turned 15 on Wednesday

 and one of her presents was this DWEEB crop top

 (don't ask but apparently that or NERD and GEEK are the things to have written on your top) 

the only thing was she didn't have a skirt to wear with it for youth club this Friday so who does she ask to help her out in this fashion dilemma - good old mum!!!

Rachel : "MUUUMMMM!!! can you make me a black skirt by Friday??"

Me : Let's look on pinterest, do you like this one???

Rachel : Yes!

Luckily Paul and I popped into town on Thursday to

A) order me some new glasses and 

B) to pick up some bits and bobs from the haberdashery stall on the market

which meant I could get some 4" black elastic which I needed for the waistband.

I already had some black fabric so it was just a case of using my brain to calculate the radius (as per the tutorial) of the skirt which turned out to be as easy as pi (sorry I couldn't resist!)

One pattern was made, one skirt was cut and then today all I had to do was make the elastic waist band, serge the edges of the circles, attach the skirt to the elastic and sew the hem!!! EASY!!!

and I have to say it was one of the easiest things I have made in a long time

although this does mean i have had a request for more skirts! 

Now where did I pin that tutorial on dyeing elastic?????

It takes two......

Thank you for all your lovely comments about Tomas' first day at school, sorry I haven't had time to reply. I do love reading your comments so keep 'em coming!
With a change of school has come those rushing around jobs of buying forgotten bits and prices needed for the new term. Swimming is on the agenda during the summer and because the pool is outdoors the children need a towelling robe to wear from the classroom to the pool and back again. But it would seem we all like snugly warm fleece dressing gowns for our children and I was struggling to find a towelling one anywhere. After a day of searching and not finding anything suitable I decided that I would have to make one so I bought two beach towels, nice a light weight but soft and snuggly.




I searched the Internet to see if there were any tutorials and find one that sort of described what I needed to do but it was a little vague in places??? I wanted to make it nice and simple so it was basically rectangles for everything. I used a fleece dressing gown as a size guide and got cutting. I wanted the stripes to match so used one towel for the back and the other for the fronts. The sleeves are exactly the same too, slightly anal I know but I cant help it! The collar and the front facings were the most vague on the tutorial and I think if I made another one then I would adapt these a little but the finished robe was quite a triumph I think!




Tomas seemed to like it and it did a great job keeping him warm and drying him off on his walk across the school grounds. The kit needed for swimming also meant that a bog standard swimming bag was going to be too small so after choosing some fab tropical fish fabric I made a personalised extra large swimming bag too. I arrived at school this afternoon to one delighted if not tired little boy who had thoroughly enjoyed his swimming lesson and whose swimming bag was almost as big as he was!




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a BIG old round up......

 I really seem to be out of the habit of blogging at the moment, although I am still managing (only just) to keep up with all your posts. I think I just need to manage my time a little lot better! 

Oh and thank you for all my birthday wishes x

So what's been happening in my little corner of the world then...

Well the most important event was today as my baby turned 5, I can't quite believe that at lunchtime 5 years ago I was busy pushing a new life into the world whilst Paul was enjoying a cup of tea and chat with the midwife!!!

Tomas loved his chair and desk and has been happily writing away since coming home from school. It's his party on Sunday and we will have 30 odd 4 and 5 years bouncing up and down on a bouncy castle!! Wish me luck!

Right onto some crafty makes now.

Back at the beginning of February I finally got around to recovering our dining room chairs, they were originally cream but had recently become so mucky that it was a tad embarrassing when we had friends over. So armed with some bargain curtain fabric and a staple gun the chairs were recovered in no time, why I had put it off for so long I don't know!!! I did try to recover the grotty iron board too but for some reason it turned out a bit small so no photo of my epic fail!!!

Also back in February I took part in the Heart Swap and here is what I sent my swap partner Lisa over at NoodleBubble. Lisa likes owls so I tried to incorporate those into the heart theme too.

One of the reason for not blogging is that I have been really busy sewing here are some of my recent makes....

some drawstring bags for a party planner

notebook covers, a personalised horse racing one

and an oriental embellished one.

a football themed PE bag

personalised napkins (I found another great tutorial on how to get the best mitred corners)

 Some lovely Easter makes

 A couple of patchwork striped bags, one for knitting and one for crochet.

My first ever fully finished quilt. A gift for one of Tomas' friends.

A marvel comic fabric cushion.

Phew! that's a lot of makes!!!

It hasn't all be hard work though there have been some shopping trips along the way too and although I haven't got photos of everything I have picked up a bargain or too.

The bobbin lamp wasn't a bargain as such but I had my eye on it since before Christmas and thought that I had missed out because the new version in the Spring NEXT catalogue is a different colour so I was thrilled to see it still for sale on the website and snapped it up. Had to pay full price but it was worth it...

There has been some fabric shopping too some you can see in the makes above, the marvel comic fabric, the stars fabric and the wonderful horse racing fabric. Whilst I was shopping for the fabric to make the grey Easter basket some fabulous fox fabric fell in the my shopping cart as well, I'm not sure what I will make yet but it will be mine all mine!

There have been a couple of new charity shops open in our area recently but I haven't had time recently to pop in so on Tuesday Paul surprised me with a trip to the Boreham one and I picked up lots of goodies, a Next mid brown cord jacket, ideal for when the weather gets warmer, a pair of Per Una jeans, a rugby lover glass for Jack, a couple of t shirts for Tomas, a mini hot water bottle and the basket in the picture above all the just under £20. I do like a charity shop that is realistic with its prices and the staff are lovely too.

Well hopefully that is me up to date, one thing I wanted to mention was pen pals, I was paired with the lovely Millicent and a little while ago I wrote a rather long and rambling letter to her, today I received her reply in the post. I'm really looking forward to getting to know Millicent through our snail mail letters but she has been feeling a bit under the weather recently so pop over and say hello and brighten her day.

I still have a few more WIP's but will post about those once they are finished, thanks for reading this rather long post and I will be back soon xx

PS just click on any of my photos to make them bigger, if you want to that is....