Bunny, Dalmatian and Owl!

I've been at it again! I'm working my way through the Misfits book, one by one. You might remember, all the Misfits are made from recycled clothes that people have given me. When I get them, I sit and chop the seams out and take the buttons off - this leaves me with material that's ready to go (or should I say, ready to sew!). The only colour I'm seriously lacking is black - there's only so much of your own clothes you can justify chopping up! Have made a mental note to raid the charity shop for black t-shirts.

To give you an idea of comparative sizes, here's a piccie of all three creations together:

 The Owl? Was a pair of men's brown trousers! The Bunny? Was a red jumper and a patterned orange t-shirt. The dalmatian? Was a cream fleece. The spots on the dalmatian were painted on with black Dylon fabric paint. This paint takes a while to dry and to make it permanent, you have to iron it. This will be my first opportunity to use my Christmas present too: a mini craft iron with a spade tip! Had I thought about it of course, I could have painted the spots on the fleece before I cut the pieces out but hey-ho, I live and learn!

Ideally, instead of using googly eyes, I would like to use old buttons but at the moment my stash of buttons is very meagre! The bunny and the dalmatian noses are both recycled buttons tho!

Shep's spotty fleece jumper!

When we were last on holiday in Cornwall we stumbled across some spotty fleece which we fell in love with. We only bought half a metre each with the view to perhaps making a dog bed each. My fleece is red with white spots and my friends is purple with white spots. It was only after we got home that I realised that half a metre just wasn't going to cut the mustard! Now yes of course, I could still have made a bed had I joined bits together.....or traded my dog in for a smaller model! Then my mind turned to what else I could make with it. It wasn't long before I stumbled upon the idea of making a fleece jumper for him! Poor lad! I already had an offcut of plain red fleece, so if I could combine the two, the finished article should look very smart.

Luckily, I found a Simplicity pattern (9520) for large dog coats on eBay and the best thing is, there are 6/7 different styles you can make, so it's real value for money. I've never used an actual pattern before of the tissue paper kind, so it was a bit of a learning curve! I quickly realised that once I'd looked at the pattern, trying to fold it back in the manor in which it arrived, was nearly impossible and required at the very least, a degree in origami!

Once I'd cut out the relevant pattern pieces, it was all too evident that half a metre of fleece was not wide enough to take the largest pattern piece. Not to worry I thought, all I need to do is to make the back piece in two halves and to join them together. Yes it would mean there was a join down the back but if I lined up the spots, it shouldn't look like it wasn't meant to be there!

It took me a while to engage brain but once I had, I was really pleased I managed to work out how to put the sleeves and the neck in. I did manage to break a needle tho as I attempted to use the method of placing the pins at right angles to the direction of sewing. I had read somewhere that this was the best method as you don't need to remove the pins as you go, you just sew over them. I was a little sceptical and fearful! I couldn't stop myself from slowing down as a needle approached but even then, I managed to break a needle clean off. Needless to say, I won't be trying that again anytime soon!

So here is my little man in his new fleece jumper....poor Shep!

Apron strings!

I had a special request for a Christmas pressie. Please can you make me an apron....with flowers on! In my efforts to oblige, off we trundled around the local fabric store. I had researched fabrics online but am not brave enough (yet!) to order fabric this way, purely because I can't 'feel' the fabric and am worried I'm gonna buy the wrong thickness etc! Luckily, there was one flowery fabric that I thought would do the job admirably. It wasn't cheap tho and as I'd already decided to line the apron too with calico, I had to justify the cost; which I did by telling myself that I could make another apron out of the leftovers!

For the neck straps on this apron, I used two D-rings; this allows for the neck strap to be adjustable. I was gonna make all the straps out of the patterned material but I didn't in the end - only because I'd have had to have been extremely careful where I cut the strips from if I were to have any hope of having enough material left to make another one! I had both of the sizes of herringbone tape in cream anyway, which matches well. Choosing which colour cotton to sew it in was a little more tricky! In the end I plumped for a brown.

I was a little disappointed with my pocket on the front. Don't ask me how but it was a little smaller than I'd envisaged, so I wasn't able to sew down the middle of the pocket to divide it in two......so instead it looks more like a marsupial pouch! To reinforce the top corners, I decided to sew a square in each, which I think is decorative and practical!

I have a Cath Kidston apron that I was given as a Christmas pressie years ago and I absolutely love wearing it. I only hope that this apron is very special to it's owner too!

Chicken creation

Here's another creation from the Misfits book. I do enjoy making these little characters.

Normally, I draw around the template, pin two pieces of the material together and then cut around the lines I've drawn....then i try and machine sew them. Because the t-shirt material is so fluid (for want of a better word!), it is so difficult to sew....it stretches and moves as you sew, so it's almost impossible to sew along the lines without frequently lifting up the foot to re-align things. Had a bolt of lightening strike me, not sure where it came from but it was as if my solitary brain cell had suddenly woken up! Instead of cutting the templates out, why not just pin the recycled t-shirt material together and then sew it, BEFORE you cut it out. This made an amazing difference. It was easy to sew and turn the material and I had none of the problems I had before. RESULT!

The other thing I learnt when making said chicken? His head is made of two pieces of white felt. When turning felt the right way around....you need to leave way more than you think to be able to turn it through so as not to stretch the felt.

See, even this old bird can learn new things! Only trouble is, I am so old my brain doesn't have a very good memory....I believe they call it goldfish bowl syndrome!

Reindeer friends

You may remember a while ago, we made a 'prototype' reindeer (the red and white one in the photo!) with the pattern from Crafts Beautiful magazine. We just loved the pattern and wanted to treat ourselves by making a reindeer each, out of very special fabric. I went for yellow flowery materials and my friend went for more modern pinks.....I think this represents the age difference between us both... a mere 17yrs!

My sewing machine is a seasoned traveller now! If anyone has ever carried a sewing machine any distance, you will know that they get heavier and heavier the further you carrier it! So I invested in my troll! A little lightweight foldable trolley with wheels that has been invaluable, especially as I have only one fully functioning hand (had a operation on it recently). The only trouble with sewing somewhere other than home is that you need to think ahead and take everything that you might need, with you. As we'd chopped out the pattern pieces already, I left the material at home....you can guess what I needed? I had cut two body pieces out the same, instead of reversing one.....so back home I trudged - which was just as well, as i'd left the buttons at home too!
 

It's amazing how different the reindeers look in the different materials. We also stuffed these reindeers more than the 'prototype' and we're not sure whether that improved them or not! Stuffing them more certainly made it more difficult to put the buttons and the eyes on, as the needle almost got lost in the depths of the body! And who ate all the pies? The yellow one! He's definitely porkier than the other two but hey, his mummy loves him!

Christmas cake marathon!

We've been busy making one
large Christmas cake into four individual Christmas cakes!  Apparently, the cake I made last year was a little too alcoholic, so this year, I only added brandy every fortnight, instead of every week! Last years cake was a more traditional design with a santa on, so we wanted something a bit more modern this year. We saw a similar design to this on a google search and we thought we'd give it a go. I don't think we'd appreciated how many stars we would have to cut out! Patience, patience and more patience - especially when we were handling the very delicate snowflakes!

Being as I have not long had my arm out of plaster, I couldn't do any of the rolling out, so I amused myself making this little creation!  It a sort of snow-bird?  He's only about 4cm tall and he is rather cute!

Flower stitch attachment gadget!

 

This is our new toy! Looks like an instrument of torture but in fact, it is a little engineering gem! When you attach it to your sewing machine, put material under it and press the foot pedal...it whizzes off, turning the material as it sews. It sews with both straight stitch and zig-zag variations creating different patterns as it goes. (Tricot stitch works particularly well.) It was quite mesmerizing when we first used it. We have only played around with it once and these are the shapes it created!

There are three concentric sizes of shapes it can produce, the largest being just over an inch in diameter. With the combination of size and stitch, you can create various flower shapes. Apparently, you can create a circle of petals too (as in a daisy!) by using the transposition method but we only managed to achieve this once - more by accident and we haven't managed to recreate it - YET!

We tried both a solid colour cotton and then, the variegated gutermann thread that changes colour as you sew - the effect even when using the same settings, was quite different, in a good way!

 

 

 To prevent puckering of the material, they recommend you use either two fabrics together or use the stitch-n-tear stabiliser on the back. As we don't have any of that, we used a medium weight iron-on interfacing, this worked fairly well but we will consider buying some stabiliser when we're next able to shop! (being unable to drive with my plaster cast on my arm is rather inhibiting not to mention annoying!)

Reindeer prototype

When we saw this months Crafts Beautiful magazine in Asda, we just had to buy it! On the front cover was a beautiful reindeer made out of Tilda fabric. He was sooo cute, we were desperate to make one each! We immediately went onto their website to download the pattern and we were so disappointed when it said there was a technical error their end! We waited anxiously for a few days and finally, they sorted the problem and we were able to download said reindeer pattern!

We both wanted to make a reindeer for ourselves as soon as possible but unfortunately, my arm being in plaster sort of scuppered any chance of us going to Paulines Patchwork to buy some beautiful co-ordinating materials!   It also scuppered making them from a practical point of view, me being unable to use a pair of scissors or anything! But still desperate to make him, we decided we'd cobble together what we called a prototype! One where we could learn all our mistakes on!  So we grabbed three co-ordinated materials we did have (red!) and set about making him. 

 

Although he looks quite different from the one in the magazine, we still love him to bits! We think he looks rather Christmassy! We need to buy some bigger black beads for his eyes as the ones we have are not quite big enough. We still intend to make one each with nicer material but for now, we shall admire this one!

Sewing the base of the feet to the legs was quite challenging. We tried pinning it in position first but this made it rather impossible to sew. Then we tried tacking it in place first and this proved to be a better way of doing it. The legs have sand in the bottom. Normally, we'd make a little pouch to put the sand in first, then slip the pouch in the legs. This time, we just poured the sand into the leg and to our surprise, none of it poured out!



Bertie Bear and five more misfits!

Firstly, if I have been conspicuous by my lack of blog posts, it's because I have been on holiday for a week, then when I came back I had an operation on my right hand/wrist and currently have my arm in plaster! And yes, I am right-handed! Hopefully, the cast will be off on monday. So providing there aren't any problems lurking under there, I shall be back at my sewing machine as soon as! Meanwhile, I will attempt to slowly tap out a few blog posts about what we have managed to achieve!

On holiday, we assembled, stuffed and hand-finished various items. Firstly, we assembled Bertie! He is a bear I knitted in next to no time. He is knitted in one 200g ball of Marble Chunky wool. He's about 35cm tall when he is sitting, so he's really a nice size to cuddle! Marble chunky wool comes in a huge variety of shades and at just £5-£6 a ball, it's a reasonable priced wool. I've knitted a cardigan and a waistcoat in different shades and of course, being chunky wool, it knits real quick and is as warm as toast!

Then we assembled these five misfit animals: a frog, a sausage dog, a pig, and two snakes!

 

Have discovered that using old t-shirt's to make the animals with, means that when you stuff the animals, the material stretches - sometimes too much! The sausage dog had to have two operations after he'd been assembled, to bring his head back to a reasonable size! We love the snakes, made from a pair of old knee-high stripy socks. The pig is cute. The nostrils are drawn on with a black labelling pen. We did manage to find some Dylon black fabric paint for future animals, which apparently, once painted on, doesn't dry crispy! Bonus! As for the frog? Well, we don't like him very much! He stretched every which way possible when we stuffed him and so he looks nothing like a frog! He needs a little bandana around his neck yet but I'm not even sure that'll help with his looks!

Peg bags, baby bibs and an injury!

We're off on holiday this week but we had two sewing tasks to do before we leave and put our feet up - peg bags and baby bibs! Strange combination of 'must do's' but hey-ho! The red material in this baby bib was the leftovers from a friends' project. The terry towelling backing is pre-washed, as it is notorious for shrinking! When you cut it, it makes quite a mess with little white bits everywhere - my friends black leggings looked liked she'd been snowed upon!

This peg bag utilises both free-motion (for the lettering) and an almost satin stitch (close zig-zag) for the clothing on the line. I was so amazed by my machine which effortlessly tackled all the stitching without jamming once! Now whilst that might be normal for most of you out there, with my previous machine that was most certainly not the case! It used to jam up all the time and as it was my first machine, I thought that was normal!

Zig-zagging your way around curves is quite an art form! After a while you work out where the needle needs to be positioned, depending on whether it's and inward curve or an outward one. I still think that one pair of socks on the washing line ought to be substituted for a pair of Y-fronts but then that's probably my warped sense of humour at work!

Only one industrial injury today! I was sewing around a baby bib and didn't pull the glass headed pin out in time, so it stabbed me. This happens quite a lot but unfortunately this time, I automatically yanked my hand away, which made the pin go further into my finger and I ended up with a small flap and a bit of blood! My friend said at least I was sewing a red bib! She was quite horrified though when I continued to sew whilst holding a kleenex in that hand. Repeated calls to go and get a plaster were in vain! I thought, I'll just finish this bib first! And anway, the plasters were downstairs and we were upstairs, sounds reason enough to me! Suffice to say, with a bit of sustained pressure, you'll be pleased to know, I did not bleed to death and neither did I get blood on the finished article!

Maritime A6 re-usable notebook covers

Here are our latest creations. These are made from remnants of the maritime material that we used to make our lined tote bags with. We cut out the sailboat motifs and using bondaweb, attached them to the background material. We decided that a little row of bunting across the top, balanced the picture. We used a combination of straight stitch and free-motion, to stitch around the motifs in dark grey cotton - we find black can be quite unforgiving! We used wadding to provide an extra quality feel. We love the overall appearance and hope that other people will too. Have learnt that one should stop free-motion sewing when in the middle of a coughing fit - it doesn't make for smooth flowing lines!

The Badger!

Here's another creation from Make Your Own Misfits book - Wise the Badger! 

In the book it says to paint the stripes on his head with fabric paint but I've already decided I don't like that idea, so I sewed strips of black felt into position on the face before I assembled the head. I think this works quite well! Luckily I managed to find two white buttons the same for the eyes and my friend found a chunky black bead which is perfect for his nose. He had to have several operations when he was being stuffed though, as I'd obviously sewn to close to the edge and the stuffing was showing through! I do love making these, they are so quirky and so simple, each seems to develop its own character as you assemble it.

I have four more lined up ready to make! My friend and I are going on holiday soon and I thought it would be good to assemble a few whilst we're away! What better way to relax and have fun in the process! Talking of which, I've also knitted a large bear which will also be assembled whilst on holiday! So we'll go away with two dogs and come back with two dogs, a bear, a frog, a sausage dog, a snake and a pig! Tee-hee!

Mini breads - salt dough

We like most things crafty and here I've made some bread out of salt dough. 

I've made loads of salt dough items in the past and there's something quite therapeutic about making and modelling in salt dough. It's very tactile and I love the fact that you can virtually make anything out of it with a little imagination and patience. These little loaves, with or without the poppy and sesame seed toppings, look really authentic. The baguettes are so simple, just a roll of salt dough slightly flattened on top and then indented with a knife. There's even a mini pretzel! The loaves aren't coloured in anyway, just varnished with gloss polyurethane varnish which naturally changes the colour of the pale salt dough to this bread-look-alike!           

Belt bags!

These are some of our, now renamed - belt bags. They were called Designer Doggy Doo bags but after a comment from someone who thought that the bag was for picking up triangular poo, we thought we'd change the name! We think the little bags are perfect for a dog walk as they'd take poo bags, tissues, treats and your keys. But also they'd be good for an iPod or even as a purse. The karibiner means they can be clipped to a belt or to a handbag strap etc. My friend had one which she used on dog walks. Unfortunately, she left it lying around within reach of her springer spaniel, Bessie, who chewed her way through it get to the dog biscuit inside! Needless to say, I've given my friend another one and she's gonna keep this one well out of Bessie's reach!

Sharon the Sheep!

This is the cutest one so far - her name is Sharon and in case you didn't know, she's a sheep! The black face is an old t-shirt and the cream body is an old fleece that belonged to my friend's mum! True recycling at it's best! She's another creation from the Misfits book. She has a black button for her nose, which if I remember rightly, was a spare off a black cardigan. I decided she looked better with googly eyes! We used a black pen to colour her arms and legs but i think if I make her again, I'd make her arms and legs separately out of black material and then stitch them on afterwards - wouldn't want a child to suck on them and end up with black lips! 

Giraffe baby bibs!

Aren't these cute? Couldn't resist this giraffe material when I saw it and knew I just had to make some baby bibs with it. They are backed with pre-washed terry towelling and have used yellow plastic poppers as fasteners. Can't wait until someone has a baby on the way, so I can give them as a pressie!

Reindeer Christmas decs, a fish and a monkey!

We've been at it again, making Christmas decs, this time with reindeer on.  These have our Christmas spice inside still but as they are a little larger, we used a wider ribbon for the top.  We again stitched strips of red and green together to make the quilted backs.

 

Here's the fish, another from the Misfits book, he's called Goldie!  Luckily someone gave me some orange buttons that they had left over and I thought I'd never find a use for them!  But here they are as Goldie's eyes, just perfect!

 

 

And the latest creation?  A monkey called Maki.  He's made from the brown t-shirt we bought from a charity shop!  His scarf is a bit chopped off a scarf my friend decided she didn't really like!  His arms and legs are a little thin!  I didn't make the templates for him as large as the book suggested coz I thought he'd have been too big!  So now he looks like he needs to eat more pies!

 

 



A bag made from curtains!

What do you do if you have a pair of curtains that you love but unfortunately, are past their sell by date? Answer? Make them into a shoulder bag! This is what we were tasked to do by my friends mum for her birthday. The curtains were faded where the sun had bleached them, so it took us a while to figure out which bits to cut out! We wanted to replicate the pattern on both sides of the bag with a single poppy being central to the design. Then I was let loose with my free-motion! 

We cut out extra leaves and flowers and used bondaweb to stick them over the pattern that was already there. Then I free-motioned the outlines in grey, as well as the veins for the leaves etc. Grey is a lot more forgiving than black! We even free-motioned three little leaves which we then used to embellish the little pocket that the bag has on the inside. The handles are simply folded in half and stitched - though I did break a needle in the process! I had changed to a denim needle but hadn't realised the needle didn't fit right up into the needle holder - sometimes cheap sewing needles aren't always the bargain they seem!

The curtain material was quite difficult to cut out etc as it seemed to move around all on its own! You'd spend ages drawing a straight line and then when you went to draw the next straight line, the line you'd just drawn looked more like the rocky mountains! We got there in the end though. The telling time is when you slip the lining inside the outer material....if the two don't fit, then you really have a problem. We both heaved a sigh of relief when the two matched up without the need for any gathering - this was more by luck than judgement!

We then used a few stitches at the bottom of the bag, to secure the lining to the outer material and keep it in its place.

We love the bag and the little details on it, even though it took an absolute age to make! We think it's very special and we hope my friend's mum thinks so too.

I think we're making a habit of this but it's a good habit - no unpicking again!!!

 

Den the penguin!

Here's a little somebody I want you to meet! He is another creation from the Misfits book and he's called Den the penguin. He is fully recycled! We managed to find a sale rail in a local charity shop and took great delight in finding t-shirts of various colours for around 50p each! Not sure what the lady at the til thought when we bought all different sizes of clothes saying things like "oooh, that green will do for the frog" and "oh brills it's a size 20, that's loads of blue material, that will do the moose, duck and the bunny!" We were really pleased with our few items and left the shop feeling like the cats that got the cream! We eagerly took our new stash home and set about cutting all the seams out, so the material is now in 'ready to use' pieces.

So Den is creature number 5...only 30 more to go!

More Christmas decs!

We've been making some Christmas tree decorations again. These too have our homemade Christmas spice in. The backs are plain red this time tho as we weren't sure what they'd look like if we made the backs stripey. 

Though these might look simple and in essence, they are, they take a little longer to sew and a little longer to cut out. The hardest being the gingerbread man. Lots of curves to sew and lots of curves to cut around with pinking shears! When it came to closing the gap of the now, stuffed gingerbread man, we were basically asking the sewing machine to sew at the foot of Mount Everest - quite how the machine coped with the up and down terrain we don't know! We did change the needle position to the left but still we were asking the sewing foot to practise mountaineering!

Butterfly for grandma!

Isn't she beautiful! I made this butterfly today as a room decoration for a friend of mine who is decorating a room in her house for her granddaughter to stay over in. She has decorated it with a butterfly theme, so when I saw this pattern on Sew, Mama, Sew (butterfly tutorial) website I just had to make her! It took me a while to co-ordinate the colour scheme of the butterfly from my small stash of materials but I love the finished result! I only hope grandma does too! My butterfly is for decoration only (not a toy), so I didn't use crinkly paper or a bell. Instead I used a framework of pipe cleaners in the wings, so that when it's hung from the ceiling beams the wings won't drop down around the body of the butterfly - genius if i may say so myself, though it was a little tricky doing this!

And I'm very pleased to announce that there was NO unpicking again today - steady on - this is becoming a bit of a habit!  Long may it last!

Oilcloth, one industrial injury and no unpicking!

Today we conquered our fears and tackled the dreaded oilcloth again and made some mini tote bags! You may remember that last time we sewed oilcloth, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong! (sewing-with-oilcloth) The new sewing machine (named Reggie!) however, made sewing the oilcloth this time around, an absolute delight. It didn't struggle once! All it required was an increase in stitch length, masking tape on the bottom of the foot and our cunning little sleeve slipped on the free-arm to prevent the oilcloth sticking - job done!  (preparation-for-oilcloth-lift-off)

When we cut the pieces out, we use a Stanley knife and a metal ruler. We've just changed the blade to a new one, after I wrecked the last blade cutting some roofing felt to fit the roof of my rabbit Humphrey's hutch! So with new blade onboard, off we chopped! Then suddenly I saw blood on my knuckle and thought, where's that come from? Turns out I'd caught it with the knife and I didn't even know it! Not quite our first industrial injury but it's definitely the first one that I didn't know how it happened! Once we'd assessed that we didn't need to go to A&E to get the wound stitched and that we'd checked we had all our fingers and thumbs still, off we went again!

When we made the handles, we used an army of paperclips and small bulldog clips to secure the two pieces together - it was a bit like Blue Peter revisited! It was fiddly at first but as the oilcloth sticks to itself you can utilise that fact. The other trick is to not reverse stitch at the beginning and the end. If you did that you would end up perforating the oilcloth too much and this would then mean that the seam would likely pull apart if any pressure was applied - not good for a bag! This was the first time that we've sewn things without having to unpick a single stitch! Yes really! Eureka!

We're now all out of oilcloth so we'll have to keep our eyes peeled for some more.

Elsie's friends! (Slug, Bat, Wolf)

I think I'm addicted! I only got the Misfits book yesterday and that's when I made Elsie (previous blog entry). So today I set about making her some friends from the same book. In case you're wondering what they are - they're a slug, a wolf and a bat! Only 31 more creatures to make!

I am learning all the time with this sewing lark. Making these I 've learnt that when sewing t-shirt material, make sure you sew with a longer stitch length. Also, don't sew too close to the edge, the t-shirt material with it's stretchy nature, just simply comes apart....especially when you put stuffing in under pressure! 

Elsie the elephant!

Today I received a book in the post from my mum and dad - Bobby Dazzler's Make Your Own Misfits by Fumie Kamijo and Rosie Short. It was a lovely surprise and when I opened it and flicked through the pages, I knew I was hooked! I had to make one right away but it was soooo difficult to choose which one! I decided on the one called Elsie the elephant. I then set about finding old clothes to set about with a pair of scissors! One grey sweatshirt and one patterned t-shirt material top later - chop, chop! It says to enlarge the pattern by 200%, which under normal circumstances would be easy....only trouble is my scanner is not set up with my laptop, so the only way to enlarge the pattern was the old fashioned way...pencil, ruler and a few pages of graph paper! Yes really! Lots of measurements later and much scratching of head, hey presto, re-sized templates at the ready!
There's something quite cathartic about chopping up a few tops that you never looked good in - revenge is sweet and all that! It seems Elsie took on her own unique style as I assembled her. Not only are the colours I made her in, different from her sister in the book but I also changed her ears and her mouth! I used the patterned material for the inside of her ears and then I gave her a bit of a cheeky smile! I also used ladder stitch to close all the gaps used for turning and not, overhand stitch as it says in the book, purely because I think it makes for a much neater finish.  

I absolutely love her and soon she will have some friends!

New rooster pic!

This is my first bit of free-motion sewing with my new sewing machine. It was really lovely to be able to put the feed dogs down so the embroidery hoop doesn't catch on the darning plate - which is what happened on my previous machine!  

I like the actual design but am afraid the marks out of ten that I gave it, was just 6/10. Some of the sewing is good but some of it is a bit wobbly! All the pieces are ironed into position with bondaweb first. The tail feathers and the legs/feet are done with two lines of sewing, whereas everything else, is just one. I think two lines of sewing are more forgiving, as any slight wobbliness can be covered up on the second time around. I'm liking the colours but think the next one I make, I think I might try my red material with the white spots on. Also, I will try and sew a lot slower and see if that helps the wobbliness!

Birthday pressies for Isla - Dog bandana and dog bed

Isla is a soon to be, 4yr old Irish Setter who belongs to my friend. Her birthday is coming up so we wanted to make her soem pressies, as you do!   Firstly, we made her a bandana out of pink camouflage material and plain pink. The bandana is fully reversible. The top folds over to show the two materials and when you tie it, it forms a pretty bow. The usual bandana that you buy in shops is just simple a triangle, quite often it's only a single piece of fabric. We think ours are very special as you basically get two bandana's in one. We even topstitched the whole bandana for that extra, quality touch. And doesn't she look beautiful in it! She's a pro where being photographed is concerned!

We managed to source some lovely pink fleece with hearts on and we thought it'd be just perfect for a dog bed for Isla - yes we know, she's very spoilt! The bed was very easy to make. It's simple two rectangles, sewn together on three sides - the open end of the bed is closed with, white plastic poppers - simples! We did use a wide zig-zag stitchto ensure that the edges wouldn't fray. We know Isla loves her bed and here is a picture of her on it!

Lavender hearts and Reggie!

It's official, it's died! My 9 month old cheap sewing machine from Lidl's has been declared, totally knackered! My friend came over and spent ages trying to see what the problem was. I felt a huge weight of relief, when the machine was declared de-funct.....which probably sounds odd when this now meant that I no longer possessed a working machine and would therefore, have to spend some money on a new one! But the fact my friend had the same problems as me...meant that the problem wasn't to do with my lack of sewing experience! Not this time anyway!

So with us now being down to one machine between the two of us, we set about making lavender hearts. We managed to buy 500g of lavender off the Internet quite cheaply and just in case you're wondering....that's about half a carrier bag! I think I was a bit rash buying it, as half that amount would still have been more than we'd need to keep us going for a long time!

We made little pouches out of wadding, which we filled with lavender - a mere teaspoon or two per heart! We then inserted the pouches together with polyester toy stuffing into the hearts. We used two shapes of hearts to see which we preferred - one rounded and one elongated one (a Scandinavian-type shaped heart). We then tried various methods to seal the hearts; hand sewn with ladder stitch, a double or a single line of stitching with the machine around the edges, zig-zag around the edges...

Here is a selection of them in this photo:

 

Since making these hearts, I'm proud to announce I have a new baby! Don't panic guys, it's not Christmas and I haven't changed my name to Mary! The new baby is a Janome sewing machine, model number RE1318. We did a lot of research and you can't buy a machine with the same functionality for cheaper. Point's of note? I now have a machine that you can drop the feed dogs on...so free-motion sewing will be easier as I don't have a ridge of the darning plate to navigate over! This machine even has a needle threader on it - invaluable for an ageing fossil with varifocals! The foot pedal is also very good....you can control the speed very easily and sewing slowly is a doddle. It's a very sturdy machine as it has a metal chassis underneath the plastic outer shell...though it only weighs 5.8kg so it's on a par with other machines. And of course, I have had a little play on it and even hugged it twice! (Yes really!) We've named him Reggie, no reason behind this except my friend suggested it and it kinda stuck - which is rather odd coz the machine definitely has womanly curves! I can't wait to have time to sit and sew with him....I think we're going to be very happy together!

Apron frustrations!

It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I am frustrated beyond belief! My nephew has a birthday soon and as he likes cooking things, I thought I'd whip myself into action and make him his very own apron. So yesterday I researched various types of apron - I never knew there was so many! Then I looked through my material stash to see what would do the job. I was being a little tight coz I didn't want to buy any material especially for the job! So I'd decided on bottle green curtain material. It doesn't look as awful as that sounds! The material I chose for the pocket was the fat quarter I bought to do the Tibetan Terrier notebook cover I made recently (see recent blog entry). Having decided they went quite well together and that the overall combination was 'manly' enough, off I went into sewing oblivion! I was happy making this at first and the thought of doing lots of straight line sewing, seemed appealing and made me smile! That was until I started sewing! Stop, start, jam, re-thread, start, jam, stop, re-thread, start, stop....you get the picture! It looked clearly like a 'tension' problem as the thread kept snapping. I changed the thread, putting it down to cheap cotton! Didn't make any difference. So I changed the tension on the top cotton to a lower figure: this had no impact. Even tried zero in an attempt to bamboozle the machine! Nope didn't work. I took the hook race cover etc out as well as the bobbin (as it kept balling-up too) and blew all the cotton-dust out of there - only effect was breathing it all in and sneezing like a good-un! Though this cleared my tubes, it had no effect on the sewing machine's performance (or mine!). If I re-threaded the machine 40x, this would probably not be exaggerating. Quite how I restrained myself from chucking the machine out of the window, I don't know! Well actually I do know. My desire to finish what I'd started was greater than the desire to smash it with a lump hammer and also, the whole time I was thinking "What am I doing incorrectly? It is only a machine. It is only doing what I tell it to do. This machine doesn't have a mind of it's own and so it can't be trying to get one back on me! It must be something I'm doing wrong but who knows what!" KEEP CALM was my mantra, BREATHE was what I had to remind myself to do! And no I'm not some new age hippy chick but rather a worn out, frustrated and ever so slightly, dotty chick!

Despite the onward struggle to sew anything at all, I soldiered on and was quite pleased with myself when I managed to work out that the waist straps and neck strap had to be sandwiched inside the two layers - yes this apron is fully lined! When I turned the apron the right side out, I realised that I'd managed to twist the neck strap even though I took great care in getting it not twisted! Out came the stitch unpicker AGAIN! All that was left to do was to stitch around the outside...but this proved even more frustrating as it was this stitching that is visible. So I'm afraid to say I gave up temporarily and have enlisted my friend's sewing machine to finish the job! Oh ye of little patience!

PS:  My friend's sewing machine sewed the outside edge with no problems with tension, needle size or any snags!  Hmmm, me wonders whether my little trusty machine from LIDL's can't keep up the pace?  Lets hope it ain't broke...or i will be broke, buying another!  More sewing planned for tomorrow, so time will tell!

Christmas decs with bells on!

Time is marching on and dare I say the words.....Christmas is coming! You may remember me saying the other day that we picked up a strip of material from Paulines Patchwork which had squares of little Christmas pictures on. We weren't at that time sure what we were going to do with them but we bought them anyway!

So we sat down on the sofa with them in front of us and pondered! We banded around idea's between us. We knew we wanted to turn them into Christmas tree decorations and the first discussion, was do we use a picture on the front and one on the reverse or just one on the front? One on the front only meant of course you could make twice as many! Me being a Northerner, this two for one appealed to me!

Then we thought about the backs....what to do? We could do plain red or plain green but we thought that was a bit boring! Then we had a eureka moment! Around the edge of the pictures was a larger square of co-ordinating patterned material. If we cut the surrounding square into strips, we could then use the strips, coupled with our plain material (cut into strips) and sew them together lengthwise, creating a striped effect - genius! Then if we turned them slightly, we could achieve a diagonal effect on the back too which made an interesting look.

Next ponder was over whether we should add bells? As you see from the previous blog entry this created great interest to my friend's cat Mojo! We decided that bells made them more Christmassy as did the addition of our homemade, Christmas spice! I wish I could say I liked the 'scent' but I'm afraid it just reminded me of mulled wine and I don't like that much either!  
 

 

The funniest things about making these? Mojo, who insisted on being in on the act! And me, who gleefully took the pinking shears to the edges of these creations and making an extra effort to remember to move the ribbons out of the way...and then looking in amazement when I managed to chop straight through the ribbon that held the bell on!!! How on earth did that happen? Followed by a whoopsie-daisy! And so as always, out came the stitch unpicker! Once, just once, it would be nice to not have to unpick anything!

This could've been a CATastrophe!

This could have been a CATastrophe! I was all set up ready to sew our newly designed christmas decorations. I had noted that Mojo (my friends kitten) was lying on the same table that I was about to start sewing on. He's a very laid back cat and didn't seem to be at all bothered by the fact that my sewing machine was plonked in front of him. As what we were about to sew were small items, I thought Mojo could continue to lie where he was - if he wasn't bothered, then neither was I!                  

 

As soon as I started to sew though, Mojo became very interested in the fact that not only was I moving a piece of material around, it also had a bell on it! TOYS! PLAYTIME! Suddenly, this cat's paw shot through the machine and tried to grab my material. Several NO's later and much giggling (and taking of photo's!) he decided to try and climb through the machine - hilarious! Not wanting to encourage this, we pushed him back through. Then of course, Mojo the clever cat, decided to try and climb over the top of the machine instead! We discouraged that as well, so instead he decided that he might just road test the red cotton and see if it tasted of anything - chomp chomp! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

 

 

They say that curiosity killed the cat - well I'm pleased to report that on this occasion, it didn't! Mojo took himself off to lie on the sofa to recover his strength and to dream about this lovely new interactive toy his mummy had just bought him! To his delight he found the leftover wadding that we'd just been cutting out rectangles/squares out of for our christmas decorations. What better duvet than wadding! He wriggled himself under the wadding, closed his eyes and hey presto - a CATnap followed! He is sooooo cute, especially when he stretched himself out and turned upside down in his sleep! Pure CATisfaction! 

 

Drawstring pouch

Been looking after my niece for a few afternoons in the summer holidays. It was so good to see her take such delight in the contents of our sewing room! I think she thought she was in heaven when she saw our material and ribbon collection! She asked if she could make some little bags that were small enough for her to put the salt dough items she made the previous visit, into. Fortunately, she gave us a bit of advance notice, so my friend and I spent a little time yesterday making a template up and working out how best to make them. We used some old curtains and chopped them up, so as not to waste any good material! I think we ended up making about 5 prototypes, all of different sizes! The good thing about making so many of course, was that the repetition of making them burned the 'how to' into my mind - which is brilliant coz I don't have much of a memory! I did confess to my niece that we'd practised making them the day before and she was amazed that we'd done that just for her - bless! My niece did all the sewing herself, though threading the sewing machine needs some more teaching!

I explained the Frixion pen to her and I don't think she could quite believe it. I think she thought it was 'magic' that the iron made the pen's ink disappear. That was the only time she ventured near the iron, apparently she can't iron to save her life - to which of course I said that what she needed was PRACTISE! Tee-hee, don't worry auntie didn't make her do it! Last week I had my nephew for the afternoon and he ended up going home with two plasters on him, so I thought I'd better not let my niece near the iron...just in case! We managed to make three small drawstring bags (this pink one is the one we made yesterday!) and one larger bag. We think they're really cute!

One thing we did learn....when threading the ribbon through the material 'tunnel' in the top of the bag, we used a safety pin but if you pierced the ribbon just once, it would fray and the safety pin and the ribbon part company! So to counteract this, if you pierce the ribbon twice with the safety pin this tends to prevent this happening. We're always learning!

Tibetan Terrier Notebook Cover

My friend has a Tibetan Terrier whom she absolutely adores, so when it was coming up to her birthday, I decided I wanted to attempt something with a Tibetan Terrier on it. Her favourite colours are turquoise and lime green, so naturally I had to go in search of some fabric specifically for this project. Luckily we have a wonderful shop called Paulines Patchwork which sells material by the fat quarter as well as by the metre. It is so well organised in there that you have to stand and admire the array of colours before you set about finding that 'just perfect' material for the task. Not sure if I've said this before on the blog but it still remains true...it's like walking into a sweet shop without the calories! Yummy! I already have the lime green, so it was a case of finding a co-ordinating stripy material and a plain turquoise. And as usual, a rummage through the bargain section led to the purchase of a few oddments to add to my ever diversifying collection! When I leave that shop with material safely tucked up in a bag, I always feel like the cat that got the cream!

The next day I couldn't wait to get started on this new creation. We sat down and started a bit like Blue Peter...with pencils, scissors, paper and tracing paper in hand we set about creating a template for the Tibetan Terrier. The design was then drawn, reversed, onto the paper side of the bondaweb, which was then ironed onto the wrong side of the turquoise material and cut out. Meanwhile, we stitched the stripy material onto the lime green. We could have joined the two edges of the material (as in quilting) but we decided that we wanted it to feel like a quality item...no expense spared kinda thing! Then came the difficult thing....how to get the lines from the template to the material. Normally, I'd draw them on, lifting the tracing paper as I went but with this template it was proving more tricky. Then the common sense advisor (my partner in crime!) came up with the idea of using a pin to poke through the tracing paper along the lines, to leave an impression on the material - strange but it worked a treat! Then it was just a case of dot to dot! (Told you it was a Blue Peter job!)

Then it was just a matter of stitching on the lines - easy! Not! I ended up sewing most of it by turning the hand wheel round, stitch by stitch. I really wanted to free-motion it but was too scared to do it that way in case I messed it up! I will have a go at doing it on the tibetan terrier design another time when there isn't a deadline to meet! Now as for the cotton we used? We used the cotton that is multi-coloured (greens and blues as in this particular one) called Gutermann Sulky. Now we thought this would add a special touch to this pressie. In the end, we don't think it did! I think it would have looked much better had I'd stitched it in a plain colour, probably green. Unfortunately, we haven't time to make another one on this occasion, so we'll have to let it go as it is. I think maybe the multi-coloured cotton would better suit doing a close zigzag stitch, as in machine applique perhaps.

As always, we had to do one bit of unpicking! Had forgotten to account for the extra thickness that the wadding on the front and back cover adds to the overall dimensions of the removable cover. So when we tried to put the book in the cover, it didn't fit! A huge weary SIGH from both of us, especially as it was nearing 8pm at this point and we still hadn't had any tea! So near but yet so far! Got it right second time and hey presto, a pressie for my friend's birthday! Have had to delay posting this blog entry until her birthday though...just in case she reads this!