A little nervous

I can't  believe January is over, where did that month go? I know where it went in a blur of recovering from Christmas.

So what has been happening and why am I nervous? Well I have been busy sewing and doing crochet and I am nervous because I am going to crop tomorrow. I know what you are thinking, why nervous about going to crop? Well it has been a while, in fact I can't remember the last time I completed an actual layout. I have completely lost my scrapbooking mojo. So tomorrow is something to feel a little nervous about, while being excited to see the lovely ladies, who I have missed a lot.

So while I have no scrapping mojo I have actually managed to finish some projects (shock horror, I know). I made myself a very useful pin mug, I found the mug in TK Max for £1.99 (bargain).

I crocheted the cushion part, then got an old pair tights and cut the leg off. I filled this with fine sand and then wrapped the tights round a couple of times. This should hopefully stop the sand from coming out. So far it is working well.

The iPad cover that I made did not work out so feel, it is too big! So I need to rethink my design for this one and find a use for the too big one.

So I have been busy, wish me luck for tomorrow and I will let you know how it goes.
Have a good weekend x

Last post of 2012

So this is my last post of 2012 and what a year it has been both in crafty and non crafty ways. In non crafty events my lovely family has kept me busy, my DD is growing up fast and still fills me with wonder. We had an amazing summer spent in London sight seeing and watching the amazing events unfold at the Olympics and Paralympics. 

On the crafting side I am still enjoying my sewing classes and the crochet bug has definitely hit. Christmas was filled with sewing projects, I managed to make my DD two dresses that she can dance around the living room in and pretend that she is on Strictly Come Dancing. The new addition to our house Toby (DD's baby doll boy from Father Christmas) has a lovely wardrobe of a baby grow, two rompers, trousers and matching hat, all made by me.

My scrapbooking has suffered, it is much easier to carry around a hook and ball of wool in your handbag. I still plan to get to crop but my year is not starting off well as I will be missing the first one of the year as we still will be in London. I do plan to do the 365 photo project and I have already updated the app, this I hope will lead to more scrapbooking.

My crafty plans for 2013, to continue with my sewing I have already booked my next five classes. I was given a great book at Christmas called 101 Great Things To Do With A Metre Of Fabric, I took myself off to the sales and bought various pieces of fabric so that I can work my way through the book. I plan to find some new crochet projects and there is always the granny square blanket to finish.

So here's to an amazing 2013, let's hope it's a crafty one.

PS. Sorry for the lack of photos would have loved to showed off all my creations but as yet I still have not been able how to figure out how to add photos to blogger from the IPad. One day everything will be compatible (fingers crossed).

A whole lot of crafting going on.

Yesterday was crop day at Eclectic Keepsakes, I really do enjoy my time spent there, especially at the moment as I am not really scrapbooking (hadn't touched a LO since last crop). It reminds me why I like scrapbooking, also the company is good, it's a good way of exchanging ideas and as always the Lovely Karen had made very yummy cakes.

This months crop was a little different, as there was no class taught, instead we were each to provide a small kit that we had put together and then we would do a swap. Now as a girl who tends to buy whole sets of papers so that they match or kits that have already been put together, this did scare me rather a
lot, as did working to the budget of £5. My DH would readily confirm that I have great difficulty working to a budget. Luckily for me ATDML had their retreat last weekend and we were lucky enough to pop over and have a look at their shop and what a delight it was, so many papers to choose from, so many ideas for embellishments.

The first papers that I came across I chose, they were a mix of reds (favourite colour), blue and greens. Unfortunately I forgot to make a note of the name (I think I was just in denial about giving away the lovely new papers ;) I also came across some embellishments by Webster Pages called Designer threads dollies spring mix. Now these lovely things were out of my price range so I thought that I would have a go at making some, it took me all week but I succeeded. So I had a kit ready to go. We all arrived at crop and Karen asked us to put our goodies into brown paper bags so we did not know what was in them. They was great excitement in the afternoon when we got to choose a brown bag, like an early Christmas present.

Here is what I got in my brown bag, a lovely selection of My Mind's Eye papers, aren't the colours gorgeous. I would not normally go for this colour range, I tend to stick to very girly papers, but that is the beauty of this swap, it gives you something totally new to play with.

Guess who put together my brown bag, yes the lovely cake baking Karen, she also put together a lovely sketch for us to use.

So armed with the sketch and my lovely goodies I got straight to it and actually finished a layout to bring home.

I am really happy with the finished LO, it features a photo of my DH, which is something new as well as using a different colour scheme. I hardly ever scrap just him, most of my LO's feature my DD.

So in my eyes crop was a great success and I hope that Karen does the kit swap again sometime. Talking of Karen again, guess you got my kit?

It can be done

Yesterday my Mum and I attended a class held at our local sewing supply shop, a day of Mother, Daughter bonding. I was a little nervous as my sewing adventures are a little hit and miss and the free style embroidery that we would be attempting is more my Mum's thing. So with Grandad on pickup duty for school, off Mum and I went.

The class is held at Franklins our local sewing supply shop, it is also where I attend my sewing classes on a Tuesday. Our teacher was the lovely Alex Waylett, who introduced herself and made us all feel very welcome. In all there were four of us ladies eager to learn how to make one of Alex's gorgeous clutch bags.

So after all had been explained to us and we had rummaged in our supply bag in front of us, we then had to make an important decision, what fabric to use on the front of our clutch bag. Would we like an evening bag or a daytime bag? How would we be using the sewing machine to embellish it?
I found a gorgeous fabric that had a mainly circular pattern, in my eyes I would perfectly sew around the circles.

So once we had cut out all our required pieces, Alex gave us pieces of fabric to practice on. The excitement was rising, what could go wrong?

My inability to sew in the gorgeous precise manner that I had first imagined when I first picked up my chosen fabric. At this point I was thinking what on earth have I got myself into, I am not going to enjoy this at all, I can not perfectly sew around the patterns. Alex came over and gave me a couple of tips, firstly the foot that I had attached to the sewing machine so that I could do the free style embroidery was too tight against the material so that the fabric underneath did not flow as easily. I also needed to even out my speed, too slow leads to large stitches and too fast leads to too small stitches. So again I attempted to embroider around the pattern, at this point it hit me, it does not have to be perfect, if I do perfectly sew around the circles you would not actually see my sewing embellishment, also why am I giving myself a hard time, it is my first attempt at this. So with this in mind I started at the edge and began to sew around my circles and yes they are far from perfect but I love the effect that I have.

I also added some black sequins and orange seed beads to embellish further. At this point I am really happy, I can't believe how much fun I am having with the sewing. Time is ticking by so Alex starts to help us with putting together our purses. I chose a lovely deep purple to be the inside.

And this is my purse before we added the clasp, I love the padded feel it has.

Alex demonstrated how to attach the clasp on one side.

Then we attempted to finish it and finish it I did. I can not believe I finished a project in a day, a sewing project at that.

I am so happy with the end result and I can not wait to have a go myself at home, I even purchased a foot for my sewing machine that will let me do the free style embroidery. I am thinking of other things that I can use the technique on, maybe even somehow manage to use it in my scrapbooking, who knows, we shall just have to wait and see.

If you would like to see more of Alex's work click here

Crash & Burn

So my last post I was flying high, I had finished my basket and I was hoping to finish my dress that I have been making at home, what high hopes I had. Well I came crashing back down to earth, my dress that I was so excited about and that I thought was nearly finished has a major problem, it is too small! When trimming the material so that it fitted I had not factored in the seams allowances for the zip. I can't believe that I have made such a major mistake.

So on Sunday afternoon I was all for giving up on the whole sewing thing, but my lovely ever patient DH talked me down and persuaded me to go back to sewing class on Tuesday. I am so glad that I did, my teacher assures me that we can do something so that the dress will fit (hooray as I love the fabric) and I also completed my first dress, all that was needed was the hem doing so I have one finished dress that fits perfectly. Once I have ironed it I will post a photo.

So what about scrapbooking I hear you ask, well it is there I have a couple of pages from crop that I need to put on here. I don't think that I will manage my 100 layouts target this year, but there is always next year. Scrapbooking has taken a back seat, but while I have the opportunity to learn a new skill I want to make the most of it. Maybe I should think about doing some layouts that involve scraps from my sewing, what do you think?

This could be the start

So it is just under a week since I completed my basket and I am still riding high on the feeling of actually completing something, especially as it impressed my lovely ever patient DH.

As promised here is the link to the basket, it was created by Elizabeth Trantham and she very kindly put it on Ravelry, which is a great source of ideas and patterns for crochet & knitting. I love that the internet is such a great source of inspiration & also a great tool for learning.

So while I am on my finishing roll, my aim today is to complete the dress that I have been making at home to replicate what I have been learning at sewing school. My DH made sure that I had some time at the weekend to get a bit more done & I thought that I was doing great until I realised that I had actually done the seams the wrong way, so when I turned my dress the right way you could see all the armhole seams. So I spent most of Sunday afternoon unpicking. I must not let this get me down as I am still learning & as one of my friends pointed out, we learn from our mistakes.

So hopefully next blog post I will have a completed dress to boast about.
 Wish me luck x

In the mood to boast

I need to boast to somebody, so this will be short and sweet.
I finished something!!! I have completed a WIP (work in progress). Not only have I finished it, it actually looks like the photo on the pattern, hooray.
I have made a basket to put all my granny squares in. I will post the pattern details next blog post.