Day to Day

At the fair

Today was Bella's school fair and we spent nearly the full day there.  There was a whole heap of pocket money spent on little treasures, face & finger nail painting, fairy floss, biscuit decorating (plus eating) and all sorts of other things.

Plus, a few preserves & lemons bought for the grown ups.

And some funny eye things happening when we arrived back home:

It was a great day!

Spring cushion

After all that fabric sorting the other day I thought it was time to sew something, so I started on a spring cushion revamp for the sofa. 

It's only a small pillow, but I have two more larger ones in the works as I type.  I just did a simple envelope back and a varied length log cabin style design on the front, quilting each piece of fabric as I went.  The fabric is from the Botany range of fabric, so yummy and fresh.

I hope you're all having a nice weekend, it's just starting raining here.

'Little Stitchers' - week 1

We had our first 'little stitchers' meet up yesterday and started work on cute needle holders to house everybody's needles and pins when they come along to class each week.  We talked about the class rules - pins and needles in pin cushions when they're not being used and cutting out fabric on the floor, away from clothes and blankets.  Everybody learnt how to cut out a pattern, rule of thumb for thread length, knotting and threading a needle, running stitch and ending off. 

It was a really lovely afternoon and the girls were incredible - listening, stitching and getting so much done in the hour and a quarter that we had.  We talked about future projects and hope to finish off the needle holder next week.  

I received a lot of lovely comments on my blog when I first posted about the group and even more emails from readers asking questions about how to set up a group, etc..  Here are a few of the main questions that you asked, I hope that helps anyone that is still thinking of starting up a stitching group for children.  Honestly, our first session was amazing - I can't wait until next week!

Are you doing other crafts in the group?  No, just stitching projects for now.

How did you work out what to charge per session? I didn't - everyone is providing needles and scissors and I'm providing the other materials.

What sorts of projects are you doing each week?  Different things that involve hand stitching - a softie, a little bag and soon we'll start working on some Christmas decorations.

Where are you sourcing the patterns from?  Craft books from my personal stash mainly, plus the internet.

Will you share the completed projects on your blog?  Sure! I won't be sharing photos of the little people in the group, but will definitely take photos of the projects as we finish them and share the source of the pattern.

How long is the class each week? 1 hour + 15 minutes.

I think they were the main questions, if I've missed something just let me know :) 

Beauty and the Beast

Sponsored by Nuffnang

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about our Friday family fun night here before, where every Friday we have a food treat to share and watch a family movie together and/or play a board/card game.  Last Friday I baked up a big batch of crunchy caramel popcorn and we played a few games of Uno - which seems to our most favourite game at the moment.

We also had a pre release of Disney’s acclaimed modern day animated classic, Beauty and the Beast to watch (thank you Disney + Nuffnang) and hooray to Disney for finally releasing this after 7 years in the Disney vault!  Bella was especially excited as this arrived in the mail on Thursday and she was hanging out for Friday to roll around so that we could watch it. 

It’s a really lovely story about finding beauty from within and we loved it so much that we’re planning to watch it again this Friday!  I’m not sure if other people find this with children’s movies, but we tend watch the same movie over and over 5 or 10 times once we find a good one.

{Receiving the thumbs up from Bella} 

Now for some details, incase you’d also like to add Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to your own collection.  It’s available on Disney Blu-ray and Disney DVD (available now) and this will be the first time ever in high resolution (on diamond edition blu-ray and DVD value pack). It will only be available for a strictly limited time and has all new digital restoration.

It would be a lovely movie to pop away for Christmas.

Fabric storage

{New fabric for a quilt I'm about to start}

Fabric storage is something that I've struggled with for a while now.  I don't have a designated craft area, so my fabrics are scattered between my bedroom wardrobe and one laundry cupboard.  Every couple of months I have to pull everything out and reorganise because it ends up a giant fabric mess in there, mainly because I can never see all of my stash properly and I pull things out onto the floor to find a certain print and then just shove it all back in there, as fast as I can.

I've had THIS cool tutorial bookmarked for a while now and over the weekend I decided to finally put it into action and sort out my fabric stash properly!

It's made such a difference already.  I still have a few half yards to pop in there, but I can actually see my fabric now, rather than having 20 million piles on top and between each other.  I'm also working on setting up my sewing machine permanently in a bedroom corner - I just need to track down a tiny table at the antique store to hold the machine or talk Rich into making me one :)

Fabric car caddy

I made the cutest Christmas present today, for my nephew Oscar.  Remember the green peg bear that I finished off for him a couple of weeks ago?  Well, I wanted something to go with it and his Mum suggested a carrier of sorts to hold his hot wheels cars when they go out for the day.  I went searching on the net and found a couple of really nice tutorials, but settled on THIS one.

I then ordered some sweet vehicle fabric from Katie at The HeyDay Shop, which arrived on Friday.  I spent this afternoon sewing up the car caddy, modifying the original tutorial slightly because I wanted to showcase the car fabric, rather than add the numbers and an applique.  I also added ribbon ties to do up the caddy, simply because I didn't have velcro and was feeling too lazy to head out to the shops!

Katie was kind enough to send me a sweet wooden truck button from her private stash (thank you so much Katie!!) so I popped that inside as a little feature.

I really love how the caddy folds up, first in half to prevent the cars from tumbling out and then in thirds.

Oh, and the little cars in the photos above are just old ones that we had in the cupboard.  I'm going to buy some new ones to fill up the pockets for Oscar :)

I'm super happy that his presents are now all finished for Christmas this year and it feels really great to be giving something handmade too.

Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love

Okay, okay, this new book (Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love) was supposed to be part of my Christmas present this year.  I took the liberty of ordering it for myself and when it arrived I was not going to peek inside, but pop it up in the cupboard as a surprise for myself at Christmas - I know, hilarious.  

The package appeared in my letter box this morning and after a tweet (on twitter) about really wanting to open the package early, Janelle suggested that the package could accidentally fall open and then I could just glance inside.  I thought about that for a while and then ripped open the box, pouring over the yummy designs inside.

Bella's favourite is the little inchworm (above) wearing glasses and a bandana.  She's all hand stitched with felt, so I think this will be a great project for our 'little stitchers' group to work on in a few weeks time.

My favourite pattern is the darling sleeping pals project above.  I'd seen it quite a few times in cyber land and it's the one that enticed me to buy the book in the first place.  I'm really glad that I did because there are so many fabulous things to create inside.  Actually, I love ALL of the projects and can see myself having a hard time figuring out which ones to do first.

While I'm anxious to sew something out of my new book, I need to finish off a couple of unfinished projects first!

Tweet the owl.

I helped Bella sew an owl this afternoon.  You can read about it HERE on her blog :)

See and Sew

 A peek inside our most favourite children's sewing book - See and Sew by Tina Davis.  

My Mum bought this book for Bella a couple of years ago and it's truly gorgeous, full of the sweetest old fashioned illustrations and diagrams. Apart from the super cute pictures, it's also a very comprehensive guide for little ones that are learning to sew and full of great tips too. 

There are several chapters that include topics such as - sewing safely, basic sewing stitches, basic embroidery stitches, how to sew on a button and a great selection of projects too.  Each project includes nicely detailed instructions and the templates to create your design.

There is also a fabulous selection of lacing card designs in the back of the book, awesome for the beginner sewer.

I love the special area for *sewing notes* too.

My photos are a little dreary above, but I promise that if you're  looking for a little person's sewing book, you'll adore this one - and so will your little one.

Thanks so much for all your positive comments on my 'little stitchers' post too.  There's a very excited 9 year old that can't wait for next week's first class to roll around.  She's actually tucked up in bed as I type, reading several chapters of 'See and Sew' in preparation for our first meet up.

Little stitchers

I'm starting up a little stitching group for Bella and 4-5 of her friends, meeting once a week for just over an hour to sew, sew, sew!  It's something that I've been wanting to do for quite a while now, but never quite got my act together to organise it all until now.  

I've always been very passionate about children having the opportunity to craft and cook at home.  I feel it's an important part of their growing up and I love that feeling of nurturing their creativity and guiding them with certain skills that they'll be able to use for life.  My two are quite capable with a needle and thread now, so, to be able to share my skills and encourage other little girls to sew seems to be the next natural step.  

Some of the girls that will be coming along already know how to sew, but I think it will be fun and exciting for the tiny stitchers (beginner and advanced) to work on their projects together, chat, giggle (I imagine they'll be a lot of that), make mistakes and complete entire projects.  There's nothing nicer than finishing off a project and being able to admire your own work, while having the support of other crafty people around you to encourage you to start that next project.  

I have so many projects bookmarked for us to work on.  Our first one (next week) is a felt needle holder to house their needles and pins in and then perhaps a sewing bag to hold other supplies, a softie, Christmas decorations, embroidery projects, goodness, there are so many things on my list.

I'll be sure to share their finished projects here, as we complete them over the next few months.