Red Nose Day Dolls

I don't know if you've seen anything about this project on the internet, but it's a worthwhile cause so I thought I'd help to spread the word.

images courtesy of Silver Pebble

Each doll will be auctioned separately with his or her respective trousseau on Ebay, beginning next Thursday, 7th March and ending on the evening of Sunday 17th March.  All the money raised will go to Comic Relief.

images courtesy of Silver Pebble

You can go here to see the Facebook page for the dolls and visit Silver Pebble's blog post to read all about it.

a crewel decision

Good morning!  I have a little problem.  Don't worry, I'm not going to start telling you about my piles or my acne (thankfully I have neither), this is a needlework related issue.

Ages and ages and ages ago, a couple of years I think, I bought the kit below.  It's a crewelwork kit made by DMC.  I started stitching.  I got as far as you see below when...

Some of the threads ran out.  I've ran out of two blues and a green, but still have a way to go as you can see.

I wrote to DMC asking what brand they used so I could buy more.  They ignored me.  I emailed again.  They ignored me.  I took swatches of the threads to craft fairs to try and replace them, no luck.  I gave up.  Recently, I decided to try again.  I hit t'internet.

I ordered Appleton wools in a swath of shades of blue.  Have I used the word "swath" correctly there?  Is it even a real word?  Anyway, my choices were close, but no medal.  Have a look:

I have no local supplier of crewel wools and so I was relying on what I could see on the screen and I think we all know how inaccurate that can be.  Since taking these pictures, I have bought some more wools and I managed to match one of the colours, the bluey/green you can see half done on a leaf in the picture above. 

Now, the sensible thing to do would have been to send off my swatches to the shop and asked them to match them.  But I've lost them.  Anyway, the stitching is crap.  I'd just learnt to embroider and took long and short stitch very literally, I KNOW I can do better now, I've had practice on a project which I've never even showed you (I will soon!).  My question is... do I rip all this out and start again or will my linen be trashed?  Or, do I ditch this and start again on a new piece of linen?  It was pre-printed but I have the outline on the stitch guide which I can trace.

Someone make a decision for me please!

Wipocalypse February

So it's time for another WIPocalypse check in . 

Let's start with what I finished for January:

My Wips
2. giant granny square blanket - 20/01/13
10. Small vintage embroidery - 07/01/13
15. Bathroom curtain - 03/01/13
16. Picnic napkins - 04/01/14
17. Wiggly bags - 04/01/14
crafts /projectsI have supplies for
48. Lavendar sachets from hankies - 13/01/13

So what have I finished this month?

crafts I have kits for
26. Mosaic house number kit

24. punch needle

34. Scraperboard rabbit

crafts /projectsI have supplies for
53. Red scarf with beaded fringe

59. Decopatch

So that's 5 WIPs from a total of 61 done -  8%.  Overall I've done 11 from a total of 67 - 16%.  I'm dropping behind a bit...

So which projects have I made progress on but not finished?

My Wips
1. The Mackintoshesque window

9. Dancers cross stitch

crafts /projectsI have supplies for

58. Crochet fat friends - 1 down, 7 to go

Which leaves me with:
My WIPs
3. Cotton granny squares - originally intended to be a blanket, now a footstool cover
4. crochet rug
5. crochet Yoda
6. crewel Jacobean pattern
7. Crewel fire guard
8. Beaded embroidery dress
11. Necklace kit from Spellbound
12. Necklace kit mum bought me
13. Tea wallets
14. Alphabet chart
18. Chair covers
19. Sewing machine mat with thread catcher
20. Ungar #2
21. Fleece baby hat
22. Applique tea cups

crafts I have kits for
23. Enamelling25. Lace making
27. Mosaic tray kit
28. Beaded santa ornament
29. Silk painting
30. Origami
31. Hessian reindeer
32. Lynette Anderson needle case
33. Silhouttes cross stitch
35. Latch hook kit
36. Beaded lillies

crafts /projectsI have supplies for
37. Clay + Pebeo paint
38. Cathedral Windows
39. Tatting Course
40. Beaded Boxes
41. Sharp crochet hook
42. Extruding clay
43. Hammering wire
44. Bead loom
45. Lino cutting
46. Friendly plastic
47. French knitting
49. Lunch bag
50. Chair covers for mum
51. Jacob's quilt
52. Beaded bird panel
54. Crochet cardi
55. Crochet bag
56. Wedding memories box
57. Mega chunky cowl
58. Crochet fat friends (the other 7)
60. Lucet
61. Crochet hat for me in Hug
62. UTEE
63. Hat for Samantha
64. Embroidered tablecloth
65. Kitchen curtains
66. Bunny jewellery - charm and ceramic beads
67. Paper beads

29th December 2012 = 67 projects.
26th January 2013 = 6 completed. 6 projects total. 61 to go
26th February 2013 = 5 completed, 11 completed total, 50 to go.

I suppose in the interests of honesty, I should add on some new WiPs.  Not quite sure where they came from or how they managed to get started/supplies bought for them, but there we go. 

a1 - Skill Builder sampler BOM
a2 - And Sew On... BOM
a3 - Daisy crewel alphabet sampler

I fear this list may grow...

Next update: 27th March.

A skirt that is too small and obscenely short

Oh yes, that is what I made.  My parents bought me a place on a basic dressmaking course at All Things Crafty and I went along a couple of weeks ago, no idea what to expect.  Well, OK, clearly I realised it would involve a sewing machine and the making of a skirt, but I didn't think I'd be able to do it.

There were 10 of in the class and our sewing skills ranged from nothing to ... well, to me!  We all made the same skirt using different sizes of the pattern.  I used the size 16 pattern as the other 14s had already been taken and as we were only making a muslin, it didn't really matter.

We started with a lesson on how to put in a covered zipper.  It was a new technique to me and it's a brilliant one!  I'll be trying to shoe-horn this into bag projects in the future.  See how neat it is above on my unironed fabric?

And it works!  After that we moved onto the skirt pattern.  We had the instructions and she let us get on with it, helping where needed so we could all work at our own pace.  Mine turned out to be pretty speedy.  I finished early and was the first person to have finished a skirt in that workshop!  Top of the class makes a NICE change.

I hung it in my window so you could see the construction.  This is the front.  I sewed the two darts, apart from that, the front is a one-piece construction.  The waistband is far to small for my liking, but as the skirt is too small (a size 16!  Please let that be a sizing mistake!!) it doesn't really matter.

The back is made of two pieces with the zip in between.  I hadn't noticed that the pieces were mirror images and so mine features a very nice dart on the outside of the skirt.  Design decision!

I loved making this skirt and amazed myself that I could do it.  I really wanted to make a skirt when I got home, but checking the skirt patterns in books and magazines that I have, none of the sizing was right, they just didn't do skirts wide enough for my hips.  Now, I'm no stick insect, but neither am I obese.  I am overweight, but at 5 foot 1, I'm not a plus size and I don't think I'm larger than the majority of other women - what are these pattern writers thinking??  You're only allowed to make clothes if you're slim and straight up and down?

I got on the internet and found some books that I thought could help.  One of them is amazing, I'll tell you more about it when I've had a go, but let's just say I didn't think pattern making was that achievable...

FSNI February

Good afternoon ladies!  Something unprecidented is happening today - I'm getting my hair cut.  OK, so I've had my haircut before, but it's only been 2 months since my last appointment, instead of the usual 2.5 years!  My hairdresser may faint...

Yesterday afternoon I spotted that Heidi had belatedly put up the notice about FSNI - I think she lost track of the days, I'm the same in February, it's so short that it confuses me.  I jumped right in as I had some serious hand sewing to get done.



It's my gorgeous nephew's first birthday next weekend, I can't believe it's gone so fast.  We're going down to see him and I had no idea what to make him until, at the last minute as ever, I found a pattern I had won in a giveaway and knew I had to sew it up for him.  It involves this

and this

Please try not to notice the terrible wonky stitching.  I think it was that floss (and it's not an excuse!) as I then did the green bit and that's not wonky...  I didn't get all those animals embroidered last night either. 

The cow and horse were done earlier in the week.  I had terrible problems with the horse's mane and it's still not right... but Jacob will be 1, something tells me he'll be more interested in seeing what the horse tastes like than scrutinising the stitching.

I'd also finished the sheep and the rabbit earlier in the week.  That sheep is so cute!

I'd also already done the rooster but I did the pig last night.  I'm not happy with his spots, they're too small and there's too many of them.

I sewed the duck whilst watching 999 Park Avenue and the chick and the barn whilst watching Hoarders: Buried Alive.  I definitely think I'm a hoarder in the making.

Now I just have to get these bad boys sewn up, I'll share the pattern details with you when I show you the finished product.

The next Friday Night Sew In is March 22nd but I'm bound to forget so someone remind me please!

You little ripper

Good morning ladies.  I'm here to show you my second block form the And Sew On paper piecing BOM.



If you don't know about it, go and visit Kirsty at Quiet Play to find out more and join in.  I already posted about this block a couple of weeks ago when I completley ballsed it up, but I thought I'd show you again.

I'm new to paper piecing, so unpicking is bound to happen.  I discovered that unpicking often ripped my already perforated foundation paper.  The solution?  Washi tape!  The back of my block was covered in it!

If you've been paying attention, you may remember that a recklessly ripped open seam resulted in this...

You can also see a second mistake in the photo above.  See the blue flowery block?  See how the top isn't level?  I sewed it on the seam line.  No idea why, but I did. 

Here's a close up of the damage.  Thanks to  Fiona and Kirsty I was able to put it right.  Fiona very calmly gave me the solution but in my panic and hear tearing out I just couldn't get my head round her advice which was "resew the seam".  It took Kirsty telling me to remove the paper that made me realise how right Fiona was!  Duh. 

So I patched her up and sewed the blocks together again.  She's a little puckered around the silver part of the seam ripper, but I don't think she's bad.  The two blue blocks to the right don't match up, but that could be the seam that's being ripped!!

Here she is with my best bud - real life ripper.  And no, I didn't mess up lining up the handle of the seam ripper - it's an ergonomic design and is meant to look like that!

Bring on block 3!


I have stolen the following idea from Chrissie, it's a corker of an idea so I show no remorse at its theft, thanks Chrissie!

Related posts
block 1 - Measure Twice
block 2 - disaster

Fat Bunny

Don't panic!  This isn't a sales post about my online shop Fat Bunny Designs (he he, see how I sneaked in a link there?), it's a post about a... well a fat bunny!

This fat bunny!  I made her from a pattern purchased from Amigurumi Barmy by my FIL for Christmas.  It's a well written pattern, in the sense that the pattern works really well, though the English leave a LOT to be desired.  I can't help thinking that if you're going to sell your patterns you really should get them proof read.  Incidentally, I'd be happy to provide that service for any pattern writers out there!

She's a diddy little amigurumi, about 5" high and has a lot of stuffing inside to make her nice and fat, just like my real-life bunny Tiff.  I think I'll call her Mavis.  Not Tiff, she's already called Tiff, I mean this other fat bunny.

I did her ears, muzzle and flower in blue as I like blue.  I made her smile too, the pattern has her with a sad mouth, but I don't like to see sad bunnies.

1 Fat Friends pattern down, 7 to go...

Les fleurs des perles

Oui, oui, cette poste et en français aujourd'hui... or maybe not, I spend all week speaking French and need a break at weekends!  It does concern something French though - French Beaded flowers. 

I recently signed up to write reviews of craft books.  I mean, I have hundreds of the things, so I might as well pass on some opinions to those of you who might occassionally buy craft books (or be a hoarder-in-training like me). 

I was contacted by Vive Books who have a small but expanding range of craft e-books, downloadable from the site through this link.  The books are available for immediate download after payment.  I will tell you right now at the beginning that I was given a free download in exchange for a review, however all opinions are mine, I was not told what to say.

 

I reviewed Bead Flowers and Wedding Bouquets by Katie Dean.  The file is pretty big but the download didn't take long.  The book is interactive, which means that you can click on the various links in the pages to go to that page.  For example, I was in the "gerbera" section.  I was told to use a certain technique - if I clicked on the name of that technique, I was taken to the page of the book dealing explaining it.  Very useful in an electronic book like this. Each technique also has a video to watch to take you through the steps.  I didn't make use of this feature as I have no sound on my computer!

 

I'm going to get the negatives out of the way first.  Firstly, French beaded flowers are made from seed beads, little tiny seed beads.  I took the Gerbera instructions to the bead shop to buy the relevant supplies.  I was told I needed 1876 of colour 1.  Hmmm, I've never seen seed beads sold by quantity, it's always done by weight so this was not helpful.  I guessed.  I was then told to string half those beads onto the wire - I have a full time job so didn't have time to count out 938 seed beads!  Instead I counted out 100, measured them in my thimble and poured out that amount 10 times.  Incidentally, I did a rough calculation and 1g is roughly 125 size 11 beads...

 

The picture above shows my measuring cup and the stringing process.  1000 beads is quite a lot!

 

Counting issues over, I got to work.  Making the flower wasn't hard, it was a little fiddly at times, but stringing the petals was easy enough.  The hardest part was stringing all those beads onto the wire, that took a couple of hours in total.  I perfected a kind of poke-the-wire-at-the-beads-and-hope-they-jump-on approach which works until you're down to a couple of hundred.  I have, however, invested in a bead spinner which should arrive before I try the next flower on my list.

This is the gerbera, and as you can see it's made from two layers of outer petals, 2 layers of inner petals and a black centre.  Colour choice plays a big part in this craft, I didn't have much choice as I was buying from a shop, next time I'll buy online and have a much wider choice.  The outer petals should be a lighter version of the inner petals (not the centre, that's black), but I think my shades of purple were a little too similar.

Not the best photo as I seem to have moved the petals when I put it down, but I wanted to show you the stem which is bound in florist tape.  I think I'd strengthen the stem more next time.  And there will be a next time.  I want to try more of the projects in the book, and possibly make them into a bouquet to display in a vase.

The bouquets shown in the book are simply stunning, the instructions are excellent, very easy to follow and have step by step diagrams which help no end.

I'd give this book 10 out of 10, I think the only think I'd baulk at is the price.  This particular book is priced at £17 which seems a lot to me for an e-book.  You do have the facility on the website to download a sample though, so you can see what you're getting before you pay.  To download a sample of this book, go here.

Other book topics covered are Cardmaking, Beadwork, Quilting and Applique, Cross Stitch and Embroidery, Sewing, Cooking and, rather incongruously, African Drumming.  You can browse the categories here.

Thanks for all the help on my last post.  This issue is now fixed.  I had tried sewing again, but it just wasn't working.  An over night break followed by a rethreading seemed to do the trick.

 

Damn those dogs

Feed dogs that is.  Yesterday I was having a lovely time sewing.  I'd done some blocks (more about that later) and had moved on to making a present for my nephew's first birthday.  I thought about free motion embroidering a design, so swapped my foot and lowered the feed dogs.  I had a play but changed my mind.  Swapped the foot back, lifted up the feed dogs...

Wait.  They haven't moved?  Wiggle the switch a few times... nothing.

Take off the needle plate and manually lift the dogs.  Put the plate back on, sew, birdsnest.  Fabric sucked into needle plate.  Whirring.  Bad.

Broken. 

What the hell am I going to do????

craft class - mould making

Well hello and happy Sunday!  I quite like Sundays, until it gets to about 4pm, then I start feeling like my weekend is running out...  How much I wish we were rich and I could just sit about making stuff all day long.  I really should have married a millionaire like my mum advised, I just couldn't find one!

Last weekend me and my wonderful mum went to another craft class at The Bead Shop Nottingham.  They've just released the workshop schedule for the next few months and we've been happily plotting what we're going to learn next!  This workshop was on mould making.  No, we had no idea what that was either, seemed like a good enough reason to go along!

This is one of my finished moulds.  It's actually a faulty one, if you look closely you can see the impression isn't that great.  The thing is that we made moulds, played with polymer clay, then filled them with resin so they had to stay at the shop whilst the resin set.  Mum went to fetch them on Friday (along with the actual mould making supplies) so I'll show you next week.

I'm not explaining very well, am I!  Basically, you use a two part compound.  It's a bit like blutack, but not as dense or as sticky.  You take a blue blob and a white blob and mix them together.  You then have roughly 5 minutes before it sets hard and can't be altered.  We used a selection of buttons and bits and bobs the tutor had bought in.

Above are the polymer clay things I made from the decent fleur-de-lis mould.  I pressed silver clay into the mould, then I tried lilac, then I did another lilac one and very carefully cut around it so it leaves a free standing shape.  The other one is a flower button from one of the moulds my mum made.  I pressed the silver clay in first to form the centre.

I love this mould.  It was cast from a rather horrific looking gold-coloured plastic button, but wow, what a difference a bit of clay makes!  As you can see, I made one in silver, then experimented to make a two tone button. I'm looking forward to getting hold of this mould to play with it some more.

You can also use the moulds with resin, and I'm going to give them a go with UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel).  I'll be sure to show you the results!

Oh, if you're wondering what all this is for, well I can use the moulds to make custom buttons or bits and bobs for jewellery making.  You can cast pretty much anything and coming up with a use for them will be half the fun.  I'll be back before long to show you the actual compound, the successful moulds and the resin experiments!

another giveaway win or two...

Oh yes, I've been a lucky lady!

First of all I won a giveaway held by Sara at Crafts of Texture before Christmas.  The email was a bit out of the blue, but I was delighted - this is more of a book to read than to make things from and I look forward to settling down for a good read.  Thanks Sara.

Then there came the mystery bundle.  Mum handed over my parcels last week and one of them was this bundle of Summersville.  I knew I hadn't ordered it (though I'd love to as I love this fabric).  It had a Pin It and Stitch card in it and a bit of internet sleuthing lead me to the original giveaway post!  I'd completely forgotten I'd even entered and hadn't been contacted to say I'd won.  I'm not complaining!  Thanks Pin It and Stitch.

Mum also handed over another parcel.  This contained these gorgeous, cute little Candy packs of Marmalade from my lovely friend Nancy, look how she's mounted them on that beautiful patterned card!  I don't think it's any secret that I love Bonnie and Camille's fabrics.  Thanks Nancy, you're a gem.  Sorry about putting in the photo upside down though!  I only just noticed...

And finally, this is one of the "giveaway wins" that secretly involves me paying for my "win".  I want to join in the Skill Builder BOM at Pile of Fabric, by that I mean I do intend to join in (though I'm late!) but haven't yet had time.

I was thoroughly inspired by all the loveliness over at Made By Chrissie D so I ordered some Kona Solids from The Village Haberdashery who had by far the best price I could find (£1.75 for a FQ, US readers, try not to have a heart attack, that's our reality!).  The arrived quickly and had been labelled up with the name of the shade, nice touch!

Having ordered the FQS in 9 shades of blue, the half metre of orange and the half metre of sand, I discovered I'd bought the fabric requirements for a different BOM!  I'm going to try to make this work though, I'm planning on adding in scraps of blue patterned fabrics, and orange if I have any left.  It's a year long BOM and it's quilt as you go, so I plan on using FQs of patterned blue for backing and I'll top up my stash throughout the year.  Yes, I might already have made a start on that...

Fingers crossed that I've found time to sew and can show you results of the first blocks soon!

fluffy, loopy, gluey

Good morning!  So last week I showed you the beginnings of my attempt at punch needle.

It turns out that watching back to back episodes of Silent Witness is conductive to punch needle.  Because I finished it.  It's not the greatest punch needle in the world, but nor is it the worst (probably, I can't actually admit to having seen worse versions, I'm just hoping they're out there).

The red inner border isn't very pronounced, despite me sitting and teasing out loads of loops.  There were long loops, which I cut, and there were loops in the wrong place.  I just pushed those to the side and hoped for the best.

It's such a nice texture.  It sort of feels like a rug.  Mr CA announced that his sister used to do this when she was young.  I was doubtful.  After a long discussion it turned out he was talking about puff paint (?!?).   The finished design is about 5" high and I intend to sew it into a little zippy bag to store my punch needle tool, needles and threaders in. 

I still don't understand the science of how this works, and I don't trust that it won't all just pull out if I catch a loop on the front.  So I covered the back in beading glue.  This is the back by the way! 

I enjoyed this.  I'm going to do it again... There's a punch needle in Some Kind of Wonderful by Anni Downs which I might recently have accidentally bought.  I mean WON!  Sorry, won.  I did win it Mr CA, you know I haven't bought ANY craft supplies/books/magazines for years, I'm just very lucky... I'm off now to hide the large rabbit scraper foil kit I bought won on Saturday (Wilkos, £3 if you're in the UK and interested).