Best friends and 'Softies Central'

Polly has been featured by Therese at Softies Central, best friends with her little mouse! For the link, click here.

So far, using the same body template I've made an owl, cat and a dog, what next?, any ideas??

Bella, in black & white

This project has been fun to do, it all started last week as a swap suggestion. The cat in question is black and white and called Bella. I had no fabric suitable in my stash so hot footed it down to the local charity shops, always my first port of call in these circumstances. Found the perfect material in the form of a blouse which I've chopped up, a very successful trip as I also grabbed a bargain pure wool jumper which has already been felted in the washing machine. The body template is the same as used here. The biggest problem I had to solve with Bella, was that she has some white patches. After trying felt, fur, and fleece, it was obvious some lace was going to work better. The lace is actually passed on to me from my lovely mother-in-law, it was used in her wedding dress. This is the first time I have used it, but am now inspired to make something for my niece, wouldn't it be lovely for her to have something made using fabric from her grandma's wedding dress.



Bella has her name embroidered on the back, so she'll never get lost!.



While she is waiting to be sent to her new home, she's just having a little snuggle in the felted jumper to keep her warm!.

I snapped three needles .....

... finishing off sewing this tote bag together!. My daughter wants this one to store some of her dolls in so I added a little butterfly to the pocket to pretty it up.





I have two project ideas in the pipeline before returning to softies, one involves this little collection of wet felted balls, there were more but my son has been nibbling on them and bitten chunks out (grrr!), the other project involves cushion covers for some spare pads I have lying around.

Question, what do you do when your husband rips his trousers?

Do you,

a. Point and laugh hoping to maximize his embarressment

or

b. Grab them before he puts them in his 'chop it up for oily rags' pile and make these -



Now, anyone who knows me will agree that I am a true 70's child in that I love brown and I love corduroy, so the two together were too good to miss. Simply by chopping off both legs, sewing across the bottom, adding lining and a strap and...voila!, two rather nifty bags. The lining for this one is a charity shop bought pillow case, cost 50p!, the strap is attached using some buttons I cut off a jumble sale bought coat. I blanket stitched the top edge and flap, finishing it off by adding one of my felt corsage brooches.



This one is all laid out ready to sew, lining is some fabric I already had, and I've covered four buttons to match. I did start stitching it together this evening but the pocket has a thick corner to it and I snapped my needle, so put it down and decided to eat chocolate instead!.



I feel like a bona fide blogger now with all this thrifting and making my first tote bag.

Knitting & Stitching

The school holidays are over and yet I am feeling like a car in need of new spark plugs when it comes to crafting, maybe I need a trip out!. Thankfully, with nursery day swapped to thursday for my youngest, I made it to the NEC in Birmingham for the Knitting & Stitching Show. Very successful day, bought lots of fabric and buttons...



more fabric, stocked up on autumnal colours and prints....



yet more fabric, something for the boys this time......



and yes, more fabric again!. Liberty prints at half price due to a slight printing fault.



Also, met and spoke to Julie Arkell on her stand. The work she had displayed was wonderful, I was in awe of it all. My budget only allowed some postcards, I already have the book, but I did ask her to sign the back of one of the postcards for me. I felt like such a groupie, but who knows when that kind of opportunity would come up again!.



Now newly inspired, am off to get on with some sewing, but why oh why have I only just discovered Bloglines?!, if you haven't already, sign up for it, it is fab. I would say it will save you time when searching around all your favourite craft blogs for new posts, but my list is already up to about 80. I also signed myself up to another site called UK Crafty Blogs, but have already taken myself off the list and deleted the icon from my blog. It seemed like a good idea at the time but the ranking side of it made me feel oddly competitive, and I'm not normally a competitive person. Nice idea but not for me. Right, next project.....bags, will post soon!.