Sewn flowers

Hello again!

Here's a project I put together last night to cover up an unsightly gap in our kitchen. The idea was sparked by a Cath Kidston book that had appliqué flowers.

Very short term I considered hand cutting out the felt flowers by hand.

Then I came to my senses and realised that the Big Shot is the ideal tool. It took about 20 minutes to cut out all the pieces. They were then ironed onto the fabric and embroidered with detail.

Easy peasy and nice & quick!

12 Days of Christmas - Day 10

 Today's project: a Soft toy owl! I found this tutorial online which is only for personal use but I thought I would share the link with you. This would make a lovely a gift for adults and children. You could fill it with rice to make a heated owl or lavender for a yummy scent.

 I printed out the template provided on the link and then cut out my Spice Cake fabric.

 The first sewing job was to join the tummy to the rest of the body. Each side of the belly was sewn on and then the gap at the top was sewn up.

 Turned out the right way it looked like a rather unpromising pyramid!

 The beak was folded down and I embroidered with orange floss to secure the bright beak.

 I filled the inside using an old (clean) fleece dressing gown. It's great to reuse things and stuffing is pretty pricey in my opinion.

 It was then possible to sew up the bottom. I ran a running stitch all the way around and then gathered the cotton to pull everything central.

 Lastly was the base. This had been cut from fabric but needed a card insert. I punched a piece of Soft Suede cardstock (to match the fabric) with the 1 3/4" circle punch.

 This was glued together using the self-adhesive sheets. I stuck the glue to the fabric so that it was really easy to fold up the excess onto the top.

 This was hand sewn on to give a solid base for the little owl to sit on and hide the gathered bottom.

 Finally some button eyes were added (from the Neutrals button collection). Voila! A simple and quick soft toy. You could always make the eyes from felt if you wanted to make the toy for a young child under three.

It took less than an hour to make this little owl, including gathering and setting up materials and my sewing machine. Lovely!!

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4

Hello and welcome to Day 4 of the 12 Days of Christmas series I've put together. Today is a quick and easy gift to make for girlfriends/female members of your family.

 

I started off using some Spice Cake (pg110) fabric.

 The Circles #2 die cut me 6 circles at once.

 Next I roughly sewed in running stitch around the edge of each circle. Running stitch is just in and out/up and down until you reach the part where you started.

 Next, pull the thread tight to make the fabric gather to make a puff ball.

 Tie a knot and sew a button over the rough edges to hide them. I used Naturals Designer Buttons (pg176).

 Here are all 6 circles laid out. I then sewed this to a piece of 1/2" elastic to form a bracelet.

Here is the finished gift! A great stocking stuffer or heartfelt gift for a dear friend.

Earbud pouch

As my cofidence with sewing has grown I thought I'd try something a bit more tricky. On my third attempt I have finally made a pouch I am pretty happy with using the Twitterpated fabrics:

I used a tutorial by Erin Erickson which you can read here. As the project is so small it comes together in less than half an hour. At least my third one did.

Here are my other attempts:

Attempt 1:This was a failure because the wadding I used was much too thick. The fabric here is Candy Cane.

 Attempt 2: I am not happy with this as it's not really circular. It just looks peculiar!! The fabric here is Delicate Doilies.

Still, I can definately see my skills improving so that 's a good thing.

Coffee cup holder

As some of you know I've started a new job at a well known coffee shop. Since I will be drinking there even more regularly I thought it would be a good idea to have a reuseable coffee cup holder.

 To make it I used one of the disposable cupholders as a pattern and cut fabric and wadding out around it leaving a good seam allowance. The fabric I used is the yummy Twitterpated fabric. I may have to order another pack as I've sewn through mine in no time!

On the close-up picture you might be able to see that I added some quilting vertical rows to hold the shape well. I decorated it with Fun Flowers die cuts from the same pack of fabrics. The Big Shot is just great if you are cutting out fabric as you get detailed shapes that would take me hours to cut out by hand.

Today I am running my first 5km race. I hope it goes well as I've never done anything like that before....

Sewing Machine overload

The past week or so has given my sewing machine such a workout it doesn't know what's hit it! I've got the bug it seems, so old clothes have been repaired and I've been rummaging through sale rails to find bargain t-shirts to cut up.

Here is my first one to show you. It was made with a XXL mens t-shirt so that I had fabric spare to gather.

 Here is a back view. My DH was such a darling and said that it looked like I'd put my top on back to front when I showed him but I am sure that's just his mad humour. At least I hope it is!

 This second one was an XXL long-sleeved t-shirt which I altered to make it 3/4 length fitted sleeves. Not the most flattering photo of me but I was attempting to cook dinner whilst I took this photos so speed was of the essence!

 The excess length that was cut off the body part was sewn on as pleating down the front. I couldn't resist using some Baja Breeze satin pleated ribbon too!

This dream-like photo gives you a bit more of a close up. I am not sure what happened with the lighting there but hey-ho!

Tote-ally loving it

Recently we increased our "flock" of one chicken with the addition of 5 new chickettes. Teenage chickens if you will.

To celebrate I thought it would be good to make a bag with this lovely fabric from Stampin' Up!

 I've been using it as a handbag this past week and it's surprisingly roomie. It's made from a fat quarter folded in half.

Here is a close up of the pocket:

 You can see I sewed a length of Victoriana lace and added some teeny little buttons in Blushing Bride.

Since I lined it I'll show you that too!

I made this in less than an hour and am really pleased with the result. I hope you'll give the fabric a go soon!

Sew loving it

EDIT: Apologies for the lack of post yesterday. Blogger must have had a fit or I am losing my mind. Maybe a bit of both. Don't despair I have many more posts scheduled for this week!

Hooray hooray another sewn project.

Although I am not a good seamstress I do like to have a go and these Twitterpated fabrics have really caught my eye!! They are so cute when they are together I can't help myself.

I bought the tote bag plain and sewed HEMMED strips across it. Yes, I even hemmed the fabric. Don't get too excited at how I've changed because I didn't hem the embellishments!!!

Here is a close up of the embellishments:

These took no time with the Big Shot to cut out. Then it was just a case of snipping some Marina Mist, Pear Pizzazz and Blushing Bride ribbons, picking out some buttons and adding a key embellishment. I know the keys are not available at the moment but it looked so cute laid out there that I had to sew it on!

Really simple and took maybe an hour. A lot of that time was spend unpinning the bits I had pinned in error!

This would make a lovely gift for a friend, sister or cousin!

Rustic Valentine

Here is another Valentine that I created to take part in the Colour Challenge this website.

I seem to be having a week of using some random bits in my stash. I found this gingham card in the bottom of my 'red' file and thought it looked nice.
The hearts were punched out then fixed with removeable adhesive so that they stayed in place while I used my sewing machine to run 2 rows of straight stitching on it.
I managed to squeeze an extra bit of stamping onto the envelope using markers to make it two different colours. Fingers crossed my Dad gets brownie points from my Mum with this card!