Show & Tell -recent makes

Thank you for all your lovely comments regarding the Send A Little Love Swap, it would seem that you all enjoyed it and some of you would like it to become a yearly swap, which sounds good to me! I shall put a reminder in my diary for next year.

This post is a little show and tell of some of my recent makes.

Those of you with children especially teenage ones will know that they frequently ask for last minute gifts for friends and recently Rachel gave me, erm let me see about 6 hours notice that she needed a gift for one of her friends who was turning 18. The only brief I was given was that she liked turquoise so this is what I came up with.


I used some gorgeous glittery silver fabric for the numbers and some silver grey ric-rac.


I also added a little embroidered heart on the back.


Hopefully the birthday girl liked it.

This next make is definitely the longest bunting I have ever made. The whole alphabet!!


The bunting was for a brother and sister so needed to incorporate blues and pinks. I started with the stripe fabric and co ordinated the fabrics from there.


I manage to add some buttons too.


It was hard to photograph as it was so long but it looks fabulous in its new home!

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Send A Little Love Swap

I just wanted to apologise for my lack of posts lately especially to those of you that took part in the
Send A Little Love Swap. I did in fact start writing a post around the 14th February but I got way laid and then I had more things to say and show you and less time to write about them!!!

But anyhow I am here now and I hope you all enjoyed the Send A Little Love Swap as much as I did, looking at all your lovely blog posts you all received and sent some wonderful goodies around globe.

I was partnered with the lovely Leonie from Kiwi at Heart and this is what we sent each other.

Leonie sent me this Kete, 

which is a traditional Maori basket woven from flax leaves, 

Leonie added a bright red crocheted heart,

Inside were lots more treats

a red dotty heart handmade card

some delicious jellies which I ate whilst looking at my gifts.

three felt heart handmade and hand stamped love mini cards,

a ceramic heart with the word love stamped in the middle

two reels of washi tape

and some gorgeous red, white and blue heart bunting

and here are my swap goodies all together.

And here is what I send Leonie....

I did a little looking stalking on Leonie's pinterest boards and found that she like aqua, red and white so themed my makes around those three colours. I think I may have gone a little overboard though!!!

I covered some plain white matchboxes in some valentines themed papers that I picked up at Home Sense and filled them with buttons, trim, ribbon and a red rose pendant.

I found some fabulous aqua, red and white fabrics on ebay and make a quilted pincushion and some personalised bunting.

I thought that Leonie might want to make something from the fabrics so I added some pieces too.

 Keeping with the aqua,red and white theme (I told you I had gone overboard!) I found some lovely printables on pinterest and printed them on photo paper.

No love swap parcel would be complete without some LOVEHEARTS sweets and some chocolate.

I also found this little love heart note book in Home Sense (you can never have too many notebooks).

and finally a heart shaped candle.

 Thank you to everyone that took part in the Send a Little Love Swap and a special thank you to Leonie for being such a kind and generous swap partner.

A giveaway win....

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my bargain charity shop find hexagon quilt. It was interesting to hear that some of you recognised fabrics from dresses that you wore in the 70's and the memories behind the girl guide badges. How amazing that a quilt an evoke so many memories and hopefully after its been cleaned and repaired it will continue to give memories to our family too.

I hope you are all keeping well during this horrible weather, I'm am still very much in hibernation mode and as much as the rain is awful we have been very lucky in this part of the country with very minimal flooding and my heart goes out to those badly effected by the floods.

We have seen the sun several times in the past week and boy has it made a difference and although it is still pretty nippy out there we did manage to venture out in the garden to clean the car.

The snowdrops 

and the daffodils (standing like soldiers)

seem to think that spring is just around the corner - I do hope so!

So do you want to see my giveaway win??

Back at the beginning of January PJ over at The Snail Garden celebrated her 6th blogiversary and decided to hold a giveaway, I was lucky enough to be picked out as the winner.

On friday my giveaway win parcel arrived and this is what I found inside.

How cute is this teddy bear label.

and lovely neat handwriting too!

and inside was this beautiful and delicate crocheted doily.

 Isn't it beautiful,

intricate

and stunning!

PJ also included some very delicious all butter shortbread biscuits and some tasty twinings tea.

Thank you so much PJ I have now found just the spot for the doily and will share a photo of it very soon.

Hexie Love

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my recent swap makes, I sometimes forget to take photos in my rush to send them off so it was great to be able to share them with you. It's also nice to know that the simple things in life, like den building under the table, will always be the best way to spend a rainy day!

Today I decided that a bit of charity shop shopping was in order to see if I could find any bits and pieces for my up coming swaps. I always like to look at the curtains and fabrics as you never know what you might find, some days you are lucky and others there isn't much to see.

Today was one of those lucky days as I found this fabulous hexie quilt. 

I love hexie's and I would love to make a quilt one day, but in the mean time I can admire and enjoy the love, time and patience that went into to making this one. 

Wouldn't you love to know it's history? 

The thought that someone somewhere sat and took all those different fabrics from curtains, bed linens and clothes paper pieced them into hexagons and then hand stitched them all together with teeny tiny stitches is incredible.

I"m not sure of it's age but it has two diamond jubilee badges sewn onto the centre hexie of a lilac pretty flower.

The fabrics are varied in colour and type 

and have that wonderful aged appearance that you  wouldn't get with new fabrics. 

Although it needs a little repair here and there I think it's amazing!

I love the randomness of it, 

which is unusual for me because I love a bit of order and symmetry to most things!

It's a lightweight quilt and has been backed onto what looks like an old bed sheet with a little wadding inside

It will need a wash first and I would have like to have taken some photos outside but it's just too, too wet and soggy outside so this masterpiece will be packed away until the weather improves and then it will be mended and used, which is the only thing that you should do with something so beautiful, I just wish I could say it was all my own work. Maybe one day I will.  

So how much did I pay for this stunning piece of hand crafted work....

the princely sum of £7.99

A bargain right????

Rainy Days

There is only one thing to do on a rainy Sunday and that's build a den under the table and colour in pictures. Oh and stay in your pyjamas all day.


I love the fact that he isn't the least bit bothered by the very flowery den cover!!


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A Swap Makes Update….

I was looking through my photos and reflecting on my makes over the past couple of months I thought I would share some of my swap makes now that they have been received, but first I must apologise to Joy from Daisy Row for not only was I really really late getting her swap parcel to her but I didn't even post about what she sent me in the first place!!!

Ages and ages ago Kimberley from Creative Chaos organised a kitchen swap and I was partnered with Joy from Daisy Row and this is what she sent me…

can you see the chubby fingers of Tomas who couldn't wait to eat his Kit Kat??

This oven glove certainly isn't as clean now but has definitely come in handy!!!

a lovely friends magnet

a lovely bright red the cosy

Thanks Joy for being such so patient and for the lovely swap gifts. 

Okay so here are some of my swap makes, I signed up for the dish cloth swap over at Leonie's blog Kiwi at Heart and my secret partner was Cat at Catalina's Cottage, I stalked read Cat's blog and found out she liked Cath Kidston amongst other things and I found a fabulous pattern on the internet and here are the two dishcloth's that I made.

The tiny centre roses were rather fiddly but I got there in the end

Cat has a son and daughter and I remembered that I had some Cath Kidston floral fabric  and some of her rodeo cowboy fabric so I made a hanging heart and a hanging star

I also found a piece of floral and check Cath inspired fabric in my stash so I wrapped a ribbon around it and popped it in the parcel.

Here are all my swap goodies for Cat 

not sure if I went a bit overboard of the Cath Kidston theme!!!

Next up was the Cracker swap just before Christmas I was partnered with Belinda from Frugal Workshop who told me she liked the colour orange, lighthouses and books so I made a book bag from some lighthouse fabric that I had in my stash.

It wouldn't fit inside the kitchen roll so I wrapped it around the outside.

I also made a little lighthouse tag.

I found a beautiful piece of orange fabric in my local fabric shop and teamed it with bright blue ribbon for the cracker.

My other swap partner in the Cracker Swap was Debi over at Busy Little Chicken

who lives near Happisburgh lighthouse so keeping with the lighthouse theme I found this painting on the internet of the lighthouse 

and turned it into this mini quilt picture

This is the first time I have made anything like this and it was hard to get the dimensions and the depth right but I was pleased with how it turned out.

Initially I thought it would be easier  to hand stitch the edges but it was quite fiddly and I decided to use the sewing machine.

I think that is me up to date on my swap makes for the time being and I am now busy working on my next swap makes as I have three swaps on the go at the moment and I've been pinning like mad for inspiration!!!