its not all about sewing...

Its not all about knitting as my boyfriend would say! It's a sunny sunday afternoon, the first of the year, and the sweet smell of banana loaf cake is filling the flat! yummy xx

hearts, buttons, ribbons and lace galore!

Truly a few of my favourite things... bunting, hearts, buttons, lace and ribbons! These hearts are quick and easy to make, and can be strung together like I have in these pictures, or simply one heart on its own hung on door knobs, cupboards, picture hooks can transform a room and give it that country, shabby chic feel. The material used for these hearts were scraps rescued from my local charity shops. The patterns are pretty on their own and could easily be left plain, however for this project I have sewn buttons and ribbons to the hearts for added texture. I have also experimented with different stitch settings on my sewing machine to add detail, although I think its difficult to see from the pictures. I made a similar string of hearts for my mum for her new house (a beautiful, huge, old, shabby chic, country house) using vintage red and cream striped material...I have to say that I'm jealous now as I prefer those to these ones that I have kept, so I think I'll have to make myself some more! I will post some pictures of those along with a few other things I have made for my mums house once she is in and settled. xx

Hello again, so I'm writing this at 2am, its one day post-night shifts and I can't sleep... so i thought I'd blog instead. This hot water bottle cover comes from the Cath Kidston book "sew"and was one of the first projects I did when I got my machine to Bristol. I think it's been my best make as I have used it almost every night this winter. The cover has a wadding layer to both retain heat and prevent burns. I then stitched a grid pattern to create the padded effect. Once you have cut out your template you can use it over and over again, and the covers are fairly quick to make, although sewing all those lines to form the grid was a little time consuming. They make great christmas presents, just at the right time of year when everyone needs a nice hot-water bottle!! xxx

bunting

It was my sisters birthday (happy birthday kate!) at the beginning of February and I knew she was still trying to decorate her room at uni so this bunting would make the perfect gift. In an uncharacteristic surge of organisation I got going on this bunting a few weeks early but it turned out to be a very quick project and I managed to make two stretches of this bunting in one go... one for kate, one for me (my perfect kind of present giving!!) I made this bunting with much of the same recycled fabric as the cushion cover from the last post. I decided to use just one or two pieces of each fabric design on each stretch, which gives a less ordered but more vintage look. The great thing about bunting is that it can be used in so many different ways; home decoration, christmas decoration, events, garden parties etc etc... and I think it's many uses gives me a great excuse to make loads of it!! xx

welcome...

Hello, So my new years resolution was to get crafty, and I started early, in the spirit of all things handmade I took a leaf out of kirsty's book and made my christmas presents... I will put some photos up soon. However I think I over did it a bit before christmas and I never wanted to see material or thread ever again... and combine this with the fact that I broke my last machine needle I haven't done much since xmas. However I have jumped back on the "craftwagon" today and spent my day off today making a patchwork cushion. The first photo is the patchwork pre cushion. Part of my resolution was to rescue and recycle old material, so most of the material you see has been rescued from charity shops, making this a very cheap and ethical little cushion. The Cath Kidston material you see are actually free off-cuts that you can request in the shops as tester samples, so although not quite as ethical, still economical, and also so cute that I couldn't resist! the other pictures are the finished cushion sat on the chair in the corner of our room, it is 50cm x 50cm so quite a good size cushion to be used on its own as a centre piece, or to snuggle up to on a sofa. This cushion took about 3 hours to make, so easily achievable in a day off. 

Because this blog is new I will soon start to post the backlog of projects I have already finished. xxx