3D Letters

I made this for a friend's birthday, it is made from 6 layers of foam board, stuck together, then covered in newspaper and PVA glue.

I laid the material on with double sided sticky tape, to ensure that I could reposition if need be and to ensure that the fabric wasn't ruined with glue.

Quilt No.2

I've finally sewn all of the squares for 'quilt two' together but I've now lost my quilting wind and therefore have frozen, I'm sure it'll come back, it always does. Probably during the height of summer, as there really is nothing worse then sewing a quilt top to the wadding and backing during hot days, but when the wind strikes, you just got to sew.

If the recipients of this blanket are lucky, they may get it before their first wedding anniversary, unlike the recipients of the First Quilt. It's not about the delivery date, it's about the love which is given while making it, hence the lack of energy and ability and the duration for making one, honest, honest it is. 

OK, maybe I'm just impatient and like to change my projects often and due to that, I apologise to the lucky recipients, when it is finished. Along with the other three which haven't even been thought about yet...I'm going to stop giving them as presents, as I'm crap at quilting.

Christmas Stockings

I've been extremely lethargic lately, work has been crazy and all I seem to do outside of work is sleep. Personally, I'm looking forward to a calmer time, if such a thing exists.

But, due to the beloved festive period being here, today I have sewn some stockings for my two god-daughters, admittedly they won't get to enjoy the splendour this year, but next year, Christmas should be pretty epic for them...yep, that is right, I am going to claim that these stockings will change their future Christmas experiences!

These particular stockings are made from Moda's 2011 Christmas range, with a plain white lining.

Quilt No.1 Making

I've had to change the colours
slightly, so you can see the
pattern, as it's a light jade on cream.

One of Tom's oldest friends decided to get married to a pretty fab girl and I had the desire to make a quilt, after all of the time at the Haberdashery last year, I couldn't resist...so I started thinking that making one as a present couldn't be too hard...Yes, these are the same two who's wedding I helped decorate.

The thing about making a quilt is that it's a very personal thing. It doesn't just keep you warm, you can also dress your home, so you need to ensure it's in keeping with how the people you're giving it too, might dress their home. Or maybe I'm thinking too much?!

These two particular people have a Classic, Country, Parisian, Sleepy City Suburbs style. The girl is vintage and calm colours, the guy is good suits and shiny shoes.

My initial lay out
for the quilt

Luckily, the haberdashery I used to help at, Beyond Fabrics, had a nice selection of five inch square packs, one that had maps of Paris on them. Additional to these, were various pretty flowery squares.

There are only 40 squares in a pack, at approx. £15, bearing in mind of the salvage, that only covers 2.5ft by 2.5ft, roughly. Which won't make a single quilt of 6ft by 4ft.

Luckily I had various flowery patterns in similar colours, so I cut additional squares up and started to lay them out in a satisfactory pattern, where none of them seemed to clash.

I started to sew my 4 squares into square formations and realised, I was going to need loads more material, bloody hell, it's gonna cost a fortune! I head back to Beyond Fabrics and found some fantastic new materials with little swirls on them...perfect!

So I started to make borders, 1 inch wide. They have great appeal and look fantastic, but, they are a bitch to cut, sew, press and sew! I also made 3 inch wide borders to go in between the squares. I would suggest doing bigger squares, but I had an experience, back in the earlier days of my sewing career, where I tried to make a double quilt with big 7 inch squares...huge mistake!!!

I then needed to extend it length ways and found some neutral materials in my box, to add in. This is when I made a huge mistake, I mismatched two materials, then added a strip of plain either side, it looked shit! Cue lots of unpicking...the joys of sewing!

I set about cutting and sewing to break them all up and added my strips to the strip of squares and borders.

It's been suggested that I should have made a plan to begin with, or have used a pattern, but it's not how I fly. Yes it might have made life easier, but it wouldn't have been so much fun! If you've a logical brain, get an idea of what you'd like it to look like and set about it...I wanted squares, the borders were a last minute requirement that set it off nicely.

My lazy quilting...

I found the cutting of the final borders of the quilt and the sewing of those borders really tedious. It's up there with sewing the quilt top, wadding and backing together, or the binding...both dull as! The most exciting part is sewing the quilt top, it's a lot of fun seeing it come together, although I need to improve my lining up of the squares, etc.

Also, I bailed on actual quilting, lazy of me, I know. I did little square stitches in the middle of the squares and left tassles on the reversed side. 

The finished article!

I will try harder in the future on the actual quilting part, as I'm soon to embark on another quilt. This time it's brightly coloured with lots and lots of squares, I'm still collecting the material for the quilt top, I'm worried that I'm loosing my mind, as I'm seeing every item of my wardrobe as potential material. 

Here is a little taster of the next quilt...

Etsy...

I've set up my own Etsy shop, finally.

Up there, I've loaded two baby mats.
I was unsure about the pricing, but I've been fair to cover costs and a small profit, minus my time.

I've been advised that Not on the High Street, is also good, but I'd rather not list the same items in two places. I'll try my luck with Etsy and we'll see what happens. It's all quite exciting.

In my lifetime, I've sold a handbag to a friend of a friend years ago, but I've never sold anything to a stranger. I've always given things as gifts. It seems rather bizarre to be selling items, but also so very exciting. That is of course, if anyone buys them. Well, in fact, regardless of people buying them, it's still exciting!

Dress Making

My friend Simone lives in LA and works for Alexander Henry Fabrics, every time she comes to visit, she brings me little gifts from their collections. This time, she brought me the fabric I used in the dress below, and the Frida Khalo fabric, to the right. Isn't it gorgeous, it's a deep turquoise, very vibrant and just purely adorable. Being given a couple of yards of both, was a dream come true. I love you Simone.

I had a hen do last weekend and due to being unemployed, I needed to conserve money, where I could. So decided that with the new fabric, I could be productive with my time and money. Out came Diana from retirement, and off I set. I measured the booby triangles, sewed them together. Cut four lengths of material, sewing two of them end to end, folding the edges over and ironing, then placed and sewed the boobs in place.

Eton Butterfly Print

Then I cut the lengths of the skirt and gathered them to be the correct size and sewed them in place. I was hoping to have a small open back to the skirt, but failed. I had far too much material, oops! I hemmed from 6 inches below the belt, and then sewed it all together and hemmed it. I also sewed the belt up properly. Made a quick couple of straps for the top half and popped them into the tops of the triangles.
Basically, it was really easy and took me about 4 hours to make. Isn't it cute!

It worked out really well, until about 1am, when one of my straps popped off, not so great! But all in all, it was fab and I was extremely proud to be wearing my own design. I'm extremely tempted to make a couple of summer tops in a similar style now.


Plus, I've been sewing for about 15 years now, and I've only just found out how to gather material through stitches. I guess it's true what they say, you're never too old to learn.

Birthday Bunting

I really like making bunting. I've made loads in my time, this string were for my friend's birthday last year. Previously, I've made pink bunting, and for some reason, when I make it, I appear to go over the top and make miles of the stuff. The pink string are about 10 metres long. This one is about 8m, or more?!

My friend recently commissioned me to make some for her pub, so I set about making sexually neutral (yes, there is such a thing) bunting. It's made from my scraps box, which cleared out a huge amount of material, and in typical fashion I made two lengths of 13 metres. Opps! What can I say, I really enjoy making bunting. Or should I say, I really like my sewing machine and the relationship I have with it.

If anyone would like to commission some bunting; if you've a scraps box you'd like me to use, or just a colour palette. Please email me here.

Baby Mats

Baby Rhydian & his mat

Now that I've reached this certain age, lots of my friends are getting married, or having babies, or both. I like to make presents for them all, as it's more personal and charming. A year or so ago, I made a really awesome present for some friends who were expecting, it was an effective, and lovely present, that my friends loved and have been using ever since. A baby mat. I now make them for everyone, as they are just so pretty and practical.

It's simply a brightly coloured, padded mat for the baby to lie on. I use modern brightly coloured fabrics (100% cotton). The first two I made, I backed with this fabric, as I had an abundance of it (stupidly am running out now, I must restock). Recently, I've been using anything brightly coloured and fun. I love making them, so much. They are so pretty and give instant impact, visually and on a practical level.

My friends had twin girls, so I made this mat for them, it's dimensions are: 38.5" x 23". It's back with the yellow floral fabric used for two of the squares.

I'm hoping to get some up on my etsy account soon, in the mean time, if anyone would like one, I'll happily take on the commission. On average, they are 23" long and about 20" wide, but if you'd like them in a different size, colour, patterned or plain, etc. Please email me here.

Updated: April 2013

Two recent mats -

Upholstery Funtimes Part 1

So, I'm not very good at this, I've done loads of renovations, of various kinds but have never blogged about them (well not really), so bear with me...

Once we had the flat confirmed and we'd check the size of the kitchen and what furniture we needed, we journeyed to the reclaim yard close to my parents house, Haynes of Challow, if you live anywhere near it, I recommend it, it's great! We went in to the final two sheds (leftover crap/house clearances, that no one else wants). JFo, Tom and I all scoured the place, JFo found a huge leather topped desk that she could have quite happily lived in/on, given a chance, and an antique rocking chair she had a mild love affair with.

Tom found many things he liked, most of which were out of our price range, although he did love a lampshade that was of the Victorian "World" map, it was lovely but he wouldn't buy it?!

I fell in love with everything but I have a love for poor, seatless, backless chairs that require some love, new seating, new legs, new backs, etc. Anyhow, we found four hapless said chairs at the back of a pile of other hapless chairs, and due to them all costing a total of £48, we could justify the £98 for the gorgeous fold out dining table, which has a hidden drawer and is just too charming for words.

Tom's choice was a leather covered chair with a bite out of the back, and a really charming chair, with holes in the seat. I chose two sorry looking chairs, one with the seat falling off and the webbing ripped, and the other with the webbing ripping but the seat, relatively in tact from hessian down.

The one with the hessian intact (see right) was easy to fix, especially as I used some gorgeous fabric from a kind friend, and I threw some new webbing in and a new cushion, for good measure. I also, put some trimming over the staples I used, yep, I totally cheated. I did however, stick the trimming on with furniture pins. I'm learning!

The other one, with ripped webbing and screwed seat didn't quite look like this, when we bought it, it was falling apart, filled with horse hair and had a rotten seat. After I threw out the seat, I ended up with this sorry looking thing (see left). The next exciting thing I did was try to get the nails out and the webbing off. It was interesting, a lot of them, I had to hammer a lot of them in more, rather than try to remove them, as many of them had rusted. I did my best with a pair of pliers, a tack hammer and a claw hammer and some determination (plus one hurting finger, due to a miss hit with the hammer, ouch).

After I'd gotten it cleared, I set about making a new seat base, I had to use curtain tape, as the haberdashery near my new pad didn't have any webbing (damn it!). Curtain tape worked very well though. I used the furniture tacks to perfection, as I totally forgot to buy carpet tacks earlier. They worked a treat and the seat works well. It looks stupid, but I can't wait to put the new cushion and cover on it! It's so exciting!

Isn't it cute!

After I'd got the seat webbing sorted, I set about finding a cushion, I totally cheated, I was going to get some foam and shape a seat accordingly, but instead, I used a cushion pad I had lying around. I was going to use two, but it seemed too poofy, so chose one big pad and shaped it (Although in hind sight, I should have used two, as it feels very thin now).

Once I'd got that sorted, I drapped the chosen material over the chair and started to staple accordingly, tucking the edges in for a crisp look. I found that stapling first, means you've more room to change and adapt. I mainly focused on getting the corners neat, as they have the most work to do. Once I was happy with the shape, I tacked it in place to secure the material.

Due to running out of upholstery pins, I glue gunned on the trim to cover the tack heads (cheating once again). It was a steady job but definitely worth it. I'm really proud of my work, even if I cut corners. Although, now I've sat on it a bit and realised I should have put two pads on the seat, I'm going to cover another cushion in the same material and use it accordingly.