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!.

Polly & Patch

Do you remember my little owl Hooty?, well I was very pleased to find him featured at Softies Central the other day, thank you Therese!. A coincidence, as I had also been thinking about Hooty too. It occurred to me that the same body template could be used to make other animals just by using different felt or fabric applique, so I decided to give it a go. So far, I have come up with Polly the cat and Patch the dog, both have little accessories to go with them!.



Close up of Polly's little toy mouse.



And here is Patch, with his bone chew toy!.



When boy meets girl.......



Crafting has been thin on the ground with it being the school holidays (as has the sunshine!), but it seems I have a bit of competition. My husband took our daughter down to his studio to make a robot out of cardboard, our son wanted to get in on the act so decided that he was small enough to get into the robot!. He was ok, until he realised he couldn't actually get himself out, and started to panic a bit, but all's well that ends well!, one small boy released and one robot put away until another day.

Cat creation... (and something special!)

This week has seen yet more fun with felt, and using some of my current favorite fabric from Kitty Craft, I came up with this little one. The pattern is based on the 'kitty' design as seen as my buddy icon for Flickr, I have thought for a while that I should bring this to life as a softie. Front view, and a rear view to show the heart motif and how the tail is attached.


And now for something special...

For my birthday, my husband knew that there is one fellow blogger in particular whose work I admire. He made contact, and made a commission, which was then swiftly designed and beautifully stitched, all in secret. The first I knew of this was when a package arrived all the way from New Zealand, containing my very own doll, and here she is...!

She began her journey from Prairie Mouse (image courtesy of Prairie Mouse),


to my daughters bedroom (hey, I thought she was for me!). She is a lovely addition to our household, came with her own party hat and a tiny additional doll that fits in her pocket.


She is currently perched on my 'softie shelf' above my desk watching me sew, with a couple of friends to keep her company. A big thank you to both my husband, and to Prairie Mouse.



Addition to post, my cat has made its way onto the Cuteable web site here!

On a roll...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article all about crafting with fabric for 'Craft Business' magazine, a UK based trade publication. It was actually quite interesting to write and a project I would be happy to do again. It occurred to me while I was researching, that so many of the craft magazines available have specialized in paper crafts for a long time now. I would really like to see more fabric and sewing based projects and ideas returning to their content.

If you would like to read the article in full, here is the web site. You would need to register in order to download the latest issue, number 45, but it is a very interesting read, covering latest developments and news in the craft industry and is available online bi-monthly.

Edit to post - I've realised, that if you click on the above page images, they should pop up large enough to read, thus avoiding registering on the Craft Business web site. That makes it easier!