a finished project and a thank you

Shopping at the weekend I found this very beautiful cushion cover, and it was greatly reduced in the sale! So of course I had to buy it as it matched our bedroom, and then had to drop all other work in progress to make an inside for it. And I love it! I know I didn't have much to do with how nice it looks, but it was a nice project with a good result. And it made me smile. : ) And now something else that made me smile, my friend over at indigo blue gave me this kindness award, which is itself a very kind thing to do! Take a look at her blog and etsy shop, she makes some lovely things and I always enjoy reading about what she has been up to. I am going to pass this on to cathy at scrap4u as she has been supporting my blog since I started and regularly leaves kind comments which make all the difference to a blog as you all know. So here you go Cathy, thank you! : )

She did!

My sister bought me this lovely picture for christmas, it is actually printed onto fabric but I decided to frame it as I love it so much. This is it's temporary home at the moment until I can put a new nail in the wall for it. She also bought me a second image which I have the frame for but haven't put it in yet, I will show you when I have. Holly loved her pinboard and has already covered most of the space on it with photos/cards etc, every time I see it she has added things or moved them around! She has also added some of her own customisation, she did some lovely drawings yesterday (I love the little crab sooo much!) which we then put through her sticker machine and stuck around the edges. And the last picture today is one of my current works in progress, it isn't finished yet as I got distracted again with another project that I will show you tomorrow. : )

sticky fingers

I spent this evening on a project that has been in my head for a while now, and had lots of fun. I have been wanting to get Holly a pinboard for her room for all her random pictures/stickers/photos that seem to accumulate everywhere, and I found one on Tuesday. (I won't tell you about getting it home on my bike, and how my innovative sellotape handles failed miserably so that it fell onto the pavement, it would be too embarrassing). So I spent last night making flowers and a butterfly push pins, and covered some plain pins in felt colours to match her bedroom, hence the sticky fingers! I hope she likes it, she hasn't seen it yet. : )

here it is...

I finished one of my new items last night, and I am very pleased with the way it has turned out. So much so that I have already started a second one, which is all pinned ready to sew later tonight. I even managed to use a gorgeous felt ball as a fastening which I have had a set of for ages and hadn't found a suitable home for. The same goes for the lining, I bought the fabric at a craft fair I went to with my sister last September, and have been waiting for the right project to come along for it. As usual the design goes right around both sides. Anyway here are some pics: This one will probably be in my etsy shop soon, although I'd quite like to keep it myself!

busy busy busy!

I've had a super busy few days of sewing and have a couple of new ideas shaping up, which I always find exciting. So I have lots of pictures to show you, sorry that they aren't great, partly due to me taking them and partly due to the dull dark days we are having at the moment. Firstly we have a parcel all ready to go which contains one of my valentine pouches off to its new home. I had fun wrapping this one! Next we have work in progress one, in which I have used some gorgeous fabrics cut straight into the denim background and then overlaid some felt circles. I like the way this one is going, the extra patterns and pieces add depth and I am pleased with the colour combinations. And lastly my favourite I think, which started like this.. and has progressed to this... pictures of the finished things will follow quite soon I think as I am itching to get back to them! : )

Illustration Friday

jazmin velasco was kind enough to leave a comment yesterday and she mentioned that Illustration Friday's topic this week is 'stitch'. I haven't seen this site before so I've had a look, and here is my entry. Thanks for telling me about it jazmin! Now I just need to go and upload my thumbnail... : )

indigo blue very kindly left me a comment asking about the fastenings I use on my purses and what the inside looks like, so I thought I would add some extra pictures. I use a popper fastening that isn't too intrusive on the design and is also easy to use yet strong (and it's a circle!). In my etsy shop all my purses have extra pictures to show all the different angles as the design goes right around the purse and I use different compimentary colours for the linings. I did spend about an hour in John Lewis (while Holly played with all the buttons and a pink feather boa) trying to decide whether to get one of the hand punches that add fastenings for you, but in the end I went with the hand sewn ones as I don't want the fastening to show on the outside of the purse. Also my purses end up quite thick and luxurious once the lining is added, so I'm not sure if the punch could cope with that anyway. I shall continue adding them by hand I think!

here it is...

this is the finished article from the work in progress photo in my last post, soon to be added to the shop. I've also finished a new valentine's pouch/purse, similar but different to the first one, I quite like this new smaller size and I think I will be making more soon. Luckily the sun came out here on saturday so I was able to take the photos of the new items, we also went for a walk in the woods which was great, Holly loved squelching along in the mud and spotting all the different things we could see. Its back to rain here again now though, I just love getting wet on my bike going to work (yeah right)!! : )

circles everywhere!

I have had a marathon cutting out session over the last couple of evenings, turning over 40 squares of different felt colours into this stack of circles as my stock was very depleted. I love all the colours together! Then I had fun choosing ones for my latest project, wip below, which also made use of some of the fabric my sister got me for christmas. This will soon be a new pouch for my shop, it is in similar colours to my favourite one which sold before christmas. Sorry about the dark photos, winter light isn't very flattering, I have noticed already though that it isn't quite so pitch black when I cycle home from work on my bike, so hopefully it won't be long before picture quality can improve! : )

It was snowing in our house...

OK, not really snowing, but so much fake snow came off the christmas tree as I manouvered it outside that it felt like it! So Christmas has been packed away again for another year, it always seems to go so quickly. I now have no excuse for not getting busy with my sewing, and I did in fact get a bit carried away over the weekend and ended up with this: Not quite sure what it will end up being yet, I just enjoyed seeing the effects of overlapping and making something that had a lot of texture. I also spent a lot of time with my felt pile (how sad) sorting out my circles and getting ready to cut out another batch. And I took lots of new pictures for my etsy shop, so the update is coming on well there. One of the new pictures made it onto the front page of etsy yesterday, again I missed it, and haven't got a screengrab I can post here. Never mind. : )

first treasury of 2008

thank you to cutedesigns for including me in this gorgeous etsy treasury, it always makes me smile to find I've been included in one. At the moment I am undertaking to redo the main images of a lot of items in my shop, I am happy with the close ups I just wanted to add 'something' to the main images. Here is one of the new ones, I wanted to show what they would look like framed to give a better idea of how they could look: Next I need to do the same for all my small pieces and maybe the prints too. A new year and new look for my shop! : )

Happy new year!!

Happy 2008 to everyone, I hope you all had good christmas' and time off. Everything seems to be getting back to normal now after two weeks that have passed in a flash, and I have even managed to start some new projects. Our christmas went well except that I didn't feel too well for most of it, I've only felt better for the past couple of days really. Which is a shame but at least I wasn't bad enough to need to be in bed or anything. I've had some lovely times with Holly, watching christmas films, playing with her mountains of presents and some sales shopping too. We have visited family and had family and friends to stay with us, its been a bit of a whirlwind here but a very welcome one as we got to see and spend time with everyone we don't see enough of! And I might get my husband back a bit now too, he works in retail so christmas is his busiest time, I always forget how little I see of him in December. This picture is of the wonderful pieces of fabric my sister got me for christmas, which one shall I use first? Decisions, decisions. And here is my newly tidied felt stash, I don't think it will stay this way for very long, it already isn't as tidy as it was yesterday... And this is a new purse with a not-to-over-the-top valentine theme, soon to be in my etsy shop. And finally another work in progress waiting for me and my needle! : )