velcro galore

One of the items on my FAL list for Q3 is the quiet book for my nephew.  I had a feeling this was going to take a LONG time, so instead of cracking on with it, I put it off for ages.  Turns out I shouldn't have (you could have told me that).

I'd previously cut out a load of the pieces.  The first thing they needed was the velcro sewing to the backs of them.

When that was done, I just had to pair up the front and back pieces and sew.  In some cases this wasn't as simple as you'd think, the felt stretches and distorts and my sewing machine doesn't like sewing away from little points.

Now we've been friends for a while, you can tell me the truth.  I'm a big girl, I can take it.  Does this look even slightly like a T-rex?  Would a 3-year old think it was a T-rex?

One of the pages is this face which he can velcro hats and features on and off.  I'm thinking the velcro for the glasses looks a bit odd when the glasses aren't on.

This is supposed to be a viking helmet.  It might have been marginally more successful had I sewed the horn-type-things on the right way up!  I would have unpicked but I used a small stitch on my machine and picking stitches out of felt is not fun.

The glasses distorted badly when I sewed them and the sewing is a mess!  Never mind, I'm sure they'll be the first item that goes missing!

This will be a jigsaw, well a jigsaw with square pieces.  I just have to figure out how to divide 7" by 3 (stupid me) and whether this should be velcro-backed too.

Not a bad start, and that is only a couple of hours' work.  I need to sew them to pages of course and make little pockets to keep the bits in.  I might just cut out some more pages soon ready for another sewing session.  We're going down to see my nephew at the end of October and I'd like to present it to him then.

Felt play

I have started a new project.  And not just any project.  Oh no, this is a time-consuming one.  I've been pinning quiet book pages for ages and always wanted to make one for Jacob.  He'll be three in March so I think I need to do it sooner rather than later. 

For those that haven't heard of quiet books, they're felt books with activities on each page to keep kids quiet.  It seems that a lot of LDS mums make them for their kids in church, but mine will be secular of course!  Above is the felt pieces for 3 pages.  I haven't got any further as I either need to find my velcro, or buy some more before I can continue.

I've pinned loads of pages for inspiration, but I've drawn my own templates.  This is a face with interchangeable features and accessories.  Hopefully Jacob will enjoy sticking a ginger beard on a rather odd looking man!  Well, who wouldn't?

Counting reindeer

One little reindeer - quite a happy chappy...

Two little reindeer - the second slightly amused...

Three little reindeer - the third ate all the pies...

And who's this?

It's a really strange and slightly freaky looking Santa.  Of course.

felt flowers

Morning ladies.  I've been on a bit of a felt flower making kick recently.  I think I showed you the beginnings recently?  I also said that I had some acrylic felt and some wool felt but didn't know which was which as I couldn't tell the difference.  Well, halfway through making the flowers I found my wool-felt stash.  Completely separate from the acrylic felt and feeling oh so sof.  So I can tell the difference!

Do you want to see the first batch?  They start off like this, with different layers of petals cut from different colours.

I layer them up and add a couple of buttons.  I thread wire through the button and then sew through all layers of felt at once by threading the wire into a chenille needle.  I also thread a button on the back to hold the wires in place without risk of it ripping the felt.

Once that's done, I use my gizmo to coil the two wire stems so they fit around a common or garden skewer.

I push the skewer up into one of the holes on the rear button and stretch the wire down so it holds the skewer tight.  I didn't take photos of any of this, but I have more flowers ready to skewer, so if you want a tutorial, I can do that.

The skewer/wire is then wrapped with floral tape to make a nice, neat finish.

I spent hours cutting out various colours and sizes of flowers, then spent a while layering them up in nice combinations.  I used the templates (but not the tutorials) from How Joyful's Camelias and Red Brolly.  Red Brolly embroiders her flowers.  I started to do that, but wanted something quicker so abandonned it.  I have one half embroidered that I will finish and use as a brooch.

There are 12 flowers here, 2 little ones and 10 big.  I have another 8 cut, layered, and buttoned, just waiting to be skewered!

FSNI September results

Good morning ladies. Wow, it is COLD here today.  Our boiler broke at the beginning of "summer" and we've yet to get it fixed... I'll be doing that this week then!

I joined in with the FSNI as usual on Friday, but I think they've extended the deadline for posting til Sunday which is good.  As it's dark on a Friday night when I finish what I'm doing, then in the morning I had to go out (more about that later this week) and by the time I got home it was dark again - not idea for photos. Not that you'd ever describe my photos as ideal anyway!

So, without further ado.  I did this:

Nope, not technically sewing, but making none the less.  Two were finished completely:

The rest require more cutting out of flowers in different colours.  You can see in the top photo that I started to embroider some of them... I'm not sure it's worth it so the rest will be plain!  I still have to figure out a way of making a sturdy stem, then I'll wrap it in floral tape.  I'm hoping to sell these at the craft fair, if I don't, they'll look fab in a vase on my table!

That's all for today folks, I'll be back in the week.

Zakka Style Sew Along week 19 - Cookie Mix

Afternoon ladies, and what a lovely afternoon it is!  Hot and sunny... though I am inside!  We had a great family day out with friends and family yesterday.  We went to Sherwood forest and picnicked by the Major Oak before heading to the craft centre.  Only one artisan was at work unfortunately, a silversmith, but she's agreed to give me and Mr CA silversmithing lessons, we'll be doing it in October, how exciting!

Having lived abroad twice, travelled extensively and living in a country which attracts immigrants, I've met a lot of foreigners over the years.  They always ask where I'm from and I say "Nottingham".  I get blank looks.  There are then two things I can say and they'll know exactly where I'm from - Nottingham Forest, or, more often Robin Hood.  It's nice to come from somewhere with such a world-wide recognised legend (and I mean Mr. Hood, not the footie team!).

Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent, back to the craft.  Oh, another tangent coming up - whilst talking to the silversmith, we got into a discussion about the word craft.  I said it used to be a sign of real talent and a mastery of a skill, as in craftsmen and craftswomen.  These days it makes most people think of little old ladies knitting or kids cutting and sticking (wrongly I might point out!).  Mr CA said that people who used to spin, weave, knit etc at home were called crofters and the skilled professionals were craftspeople.  Anyone know if this is true?  Or do you completely disagree with my opinion of the word "crafts" these days?

So, I'm right up against the wire again with this week's Zakka Style Sew Along, it won't be so for the next two weeks, next week's is done and the week after's is drying in the kitchen as we speak...  If you want to take a peak, you can find the linky here.  And this week's host is over here.

This week's challenge started with a little embroidery.  I changed the pattern slightly from "Sugar Cookie Mix" to "Rebecca's Cookie Mix" as this is for my goddaughter, and I have no idea what a sugar cookie is!  Surely all cookies have sugar in them?

I also modified the bag.  In the book it was an unlined bag, filled with fibrefil and closed with ribbon.  In my experience, parents of young kids live with little bits of games and toys all over the house, I think it's a lot better for the parents if such games/toys are provided with their own storage so I made the bag lined with a drawstring closure.  I didn't fill it with fibrefil, I've left it empty so the biscuits can be kept inside.

Here's a close up of the embroidery.  Still not very clear despite me putting some of the things I've learnt about photography into practice.  This was lit from the front and the back and on a white sheet.  Hmmm, more reading required!

Here's a close up of the lining - it's the same material as the embroidered patch.  I used blue cord in the drawstring to match the embroidery.

Next up were the cookies themselves.  All handsewn from a mixture of acrylic and wool felt.  I mixed up my two supplies of felt accidentally and I do find it difficult to tell the difference... I don't think I'll bother spending the extra cash on wool felt in the future!

This was a nice little project, albeit mainly hand sewing.  I found no errors or difficulties in the patterns, though any of you who follow the Flickr group for the SAL may have seen the recent posts by Rashida Coleman-Hale herself?  She responded to our errata thread and explained that these things are out of her hands and she's very in favour of having pattern testers after having read our comments.  She came across as very down to earth and as caring what we all though.  I suppose I think of craft authors as not being real people, she's definitely made me see that is not true and I'm going to be more sympathetic in future to craft writers.  The final decision on what's included and the style of the writing is with the publishers, as is the decision not to include step by step pictures or diagrams or to have the patterns tested.  So, my focus has moved - come on publishers, get with the programme, we're your target market so it'll pay to listen to us!
 

FNSI results - sort of!

Hello and happy Monday.

I know I'm supposed to post my Friday Night Sew In results on a Saturday, but I never get a chance.  Better late than never though.  Except it's not as I've forgotten to take a picture! I had embroidered some words for a notebook cover for my dad, but as I then took it upstairs ready to be sewed to the notebook cover, I forgot to take a photo!  I will post it when the notebook is done. 

It's not all I did on Friday night though, I also made these little drawing pins.  Not great, but my dad should appreciate them!  They're to go with the fabric covered notice board I'm yet to make him!

We also had a bit of a Sunday Morning Sew In with my stepdaughter and her friend - both aged 11.  They were sitting right next to me staring as I finished one of the drawing pins above so I asked them if they wanted to make something, oh they did!  So I got out my basket of felt and fetched down The Cute Book and Felties and asked them to choose one each.

Abi decided to make the panda, but with purple and white felt, and Alex wanted to make a monkey, with an orange face.  I quite enjoyed teaching them to sew, despite the chorus of "I can't do it!" when threading the needle, tying a knot, doing an overstitch!!  Here are the results:

I made sure to tell Mr Crafter'sApprentice to say they were fantastic, just in case he forgot!!  It was so hard resisting the urge to snatch the needle out of their hands and do it myself! 

The rest of the weekend was taken up with family stuff, but I did get a chance to get some cards made as the girls wanted to make cards.  I took them into my craft room and let them use my stuff for the first time, vetted of course, there were many things they couldn't use, but with a stash like mine, there was a LOT of stuff they could use.  Again we had a chorus of "I can't do it!" about double sided tape and cutting out stickers and they refused to follow my advice of placing things on the card and getting the overall design right before sticking anything down!

I didn't think to take a photo of their cards, but here are mine.

Masculine cards are hard to make so I'm always pleased when I come up with not one, but two designs.

Sorry about the photo quality.

I've been making cards for many years but over the last year had lost my urge and my creativity.  Now that I'm knitting, crocheting, embroidering, cross stitching and sewing like it's going out of fashion, I find it really easy to make a card and so inspiring.  Not sure how that works!

Felties

The urge to sew led me into making felties.  I'd seen them on the internet and loved them so I bought a book - Felties by Nelly Pailloux.  What a great book it is!  I bought a stack of felt and got to work.

Meet pensive bunny (from Felties)

And Sleepy Fox (also from Felties)

And Timid Lion (also from Felties)

And Bashful Panda (yep, you guessed it - Felties!)

And Tree (my own design)













And Babushka, the keyring (Felties)

And the little bunnies (from Aranzi Aronzo's The Cute Book)

There are more to follow!