Garden projects,

Hello!  Long time between posts again, I have been making and doing I promise, but just not been blogging about it.  To remedy this, here's a snippet from what I got up to during the summer.  We have a large back garden, but when we moved in, it was very overgrown and full of weeds.  Its been a gradual job but it has slowly been tackled and out of the previous wilderness, is sprouting a haven with decking, gravel and raised railway sleeper flower beds.  

 

In one corner, I had the idea (possibly courtesy of Pinterest) of making the gravel area into a boules pitch.  This has been a huge hit with adults and children alike, and as the area is 'L' shaped, there was a little space for something else...

 

Making use of a chunk of tree trunk, which I know will rot but can easily be replaced when it does, and some pebbles, a little game of tic, tac, toe (or noughts and crosses) insect style.  This has also been a hit (ps, I used acrylic paint on the pebbles, which had a coat of clear yacht varnish over the top, and the black is blackboard paint, as it was the only black I had in the house!)

My next garden project is going to be these...

Another Pinterst find, made from painted bricks believe it or not.  Am undecided as to what paint would be best though, any ideas?

Wire,

I have been playing with wire this week, something I've wanted to have a go at for a while but never got round to, wire for birds legs.

Love the way they look, but oh my goodness, harder to make than they should be!  Plus then you've got to get it to stand up without toppling over.

Cute though!

Offcuts!

I have been eyeing up leather offcuts on Ebay for a while, attempting to make an educated guess as to which would be the colours I was after (as in browns, grey, off white), and given I only need small pieces, took the plunge earlier this week...

...and here they are.  This bag is 100g in weight and was only cheap, less than £3, and the colours are just about perfect.  Now to see if the idea I have for them works!

Sewing Bee...

The Great British Sewing Bee has been a fantastic vehicle to encourage home sewers to pick up their needles and thread, and with Series 2 in full swing and Series 3 already recruiting, it was decided to give a sewing themed fundraising day a try at my son's primary school.

I am a member of the 'PTA', albeit on the periphery as I am often unable to volunteer due to logistical issues and other commitments, but I do stick my hand up if and when I can.  When the Sewing Bee idea was floated, we did initially want to go down the Softie route and make something from the book, but in the end it made sense to go with a simpler project, as when working with little ones, you really can end up spending the whole time just threading needles.  After a bit of googling, the often used idea of a finger puppet and an easter egg fitted the bill nicely, so I quickly knocked up my own version.   

The idea is to have different projects for different skill levels,

the chick being the easiest as we can just glue the eyes and beak on,

 followed by the rabbit, 

and then the easter egg for the parents to make which opens up at the back to house a bit of chocolate.

It's hard to gauge how well attended these things will be.  The last time I taught in school, I had a class of 31 year 9's, but they didn't have a choice, a captive audience!  We made ladybirds, from the pattern I put together for Whip Up, 

they finished them off the week after I was in but my daughter was allowed to take some photographs for me of some of the ladybirds.  They all did really well.

I will report back on the Sewing Bee, fingers crossed it is a Sewing Bee and not a Sewing Zzzzzzzz! 

Interview with Sewing Bee's Stuart Hillard,

Over the summer at the Festival of Quilts, I arrived at the Popular Patchwork stand and was lucky enough to meet Stuart Hillard for the first time and since then it had been on the back of my mind to ask to interview him.  A few months ago we managed to squeeze in a chat over the phone which I'm delighted to be able to share...

ME : Hi Stuart, and thank you so much for talking to me!  My questions are all Sewing Bee related, so here goes, where did you see the advert for the Sewing Bee, and what was the application process.

STUART : Well, I didn't actually see an advert as such, a friend mentioned it, which led me to go searching for more information.  The application process was lengthy, starting with a form to fill in, then a telephone interview, followed by a telephone technical test (for example, what is a french seam?).  Next, it involved a trip to London where we had to show samples of items we had made, then there was a screen test, and a live sewing test, along the lines of the technical challenge segment on the show, and finally a psychometric test.

ME : Wow, that is lengthy!  So, what is the set up when each episode was filmed?, is it a similar set up to the Bake Off where filming seems to take place at the weekends with a week off in between?

STUART : We're not allowed to give too much away about the filming set up, but what I can say is it is very intense.  There were few breaks between episodes and during each of the sewing tasks, when they say we had 3 hours, it really was just 3 hours, there's no pause in filming while a shot is set up.

ME : On the first show, the feedback about your dress was that the fabric print should have been pattern matched throughout, and May stated that there should be whole shapes running down the back seem.  Watching at home, the first thing that went through my mind was, ok she's made it sound like that's a really easy thing to do, but in reality, how simple would pattern matching actually have been?

STUART : Ah, yes!  To tackle the pattern matching, you would place each pattern piece individually on the fabric and choose key points in the print to get a match.  I could see on the day that was specifically mentioned as the whole point of the show was to test our sewing skills, but historically, fabric prints used in dressmaking don't often match!

ME : You seemed to get on really well with presenter, Claudia Winkleman...

STUART : Yes, most definitely!, I absolutely love her personality, presenting style and her sense of humour.

ME : And lastly, do you have any advice for the series two contestants?

STUART : Well, they are already filming and not far of finishing series 2.  Advice I would give is allow your personality to shine through with what you make.  You can buy clothes so cheaply these days, no-one needs to make there own, so if you are going to sew, it should reflect you as a person.

Choose patterned fabrics when the fit isn't an issue, and go for plains if the fit is important, but most importantly, have fun!  The Sewing Bee was intense pressure but also a joy to take part in.

A big thank you to the lovely Stuart for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat, roll on series two of the Sewing Bee, can't wait!