Fabric Doorstops

Didn't get any further with the padded christmas trees, instead I started making some rice-filled doorstops to take to the market on Saturday.  I first made these doorstops when we moved into our present house.  All of the doors are self-closing which really drove me mad at first, and rather than changing the hinges, I made some doorstops using fabric from a Moda charm pack. This time I've used Denim and a cream calico drill fabric as they hold their shape better due to the heavier fabric weight.

I added the pink gingham heart using bondaweb & then I used a close zig-zag stitch to go around the edge of it.  The only snag with this fabric is the colour transfer as it is a really dark denim.  I think I'll have to put a label on it suggesting that whoever buys it should put something underneath it.  Really don't want any claims for carpet cleaning!

Shouldn't have those problems with this one.

Another view of the same one:

Not sure which of the two I prefer, I think maybe the denim has it, but that's likely to be because I love my jeans. Each is about 4" square.

As I've said they are filled with rice (1kg filled each nicely) and just topped it off with some toy stuffing to fill it right to the top.  Useful and kind to bare feet too.

New Invention Wanted

Please, please can somebody invent a pin which knows the difference between fabric and flesh!!!

Halloween Bags and Padded Fabric Christmas Trees

I have been busy with my crafting today - probably because my son is still off school today (they won't let them back until 24 hours after the bug has gone) and he has spent most of the day watching the Disney channel on TV - a good reason to vacate the living room!

I made 2 more Halloween bags which unfortunately will be the last I've exhausted my stash of orange cobweb fabric.  I think I'll see how they sell at the market this weekend and then next year I'll know to order more fabric.  I bought this fabric from Fabricworm who are based in the US.

You may also be able to see the padded christmas trees I've been trying to make.  I haven't been able to find a pattern anywhere for what I wanted, so have been playing about with scrap fabric and shapes.  Strangely enough the first one I made was the brown one (out of an old pillowcase) and it seems to have come out a better shape than the red one that I made afterwards.  I'm still not happy with the overall effect, but rest assured that when I get the pattern working I'll put it on here so you can all have fun making 3D padded christmas trees.

Blue Camouflage Backpack

Well I did finally manage to finish one bag today.  The blue camouflage backpack that I've been meaning to make for ages.  Its in a drill fabric, so needs no backing.  I've also covered all the inside seams with white bias binding to neaten them up.

I also managed to cut out the pieces for making another 2 halloween bags, so hopefully tomorrow (children's health permitting) I should be able to get on with making some more bags.  Oh no, did I say that out loud? Hopefully fate is not listening - erm No, I have no plans tomorrow at all!!!

Tempting Fate

I had to say it, didn't I!  An hour and a half after tempting fate by blogging that all my children were finally all well and healthy, the school phoned wanting me to pick my son up as he has a tummy bug! 

I give up, from now on I'm determined never to make plans for a day of crafts - or if I do I'll keep them firmly in my head.

Back To Crafting

Carnival over, children at school.  Time for crafting.

Today I aim to make some more little backpacks.  I've already cut the front and backs of two out of blue camouflage, I just need to cut the rest of the fabric, attach a zip and make some piping then it'll be all systems go on the sewing machine.  Wish me luck, will update later to let you know what I managed to get done.

Fingers crossed for Sunshine.

Carnival day is tomorrow - finally!  We are all keeping our fingers crossed for fine weather and hopefully come 3 o'clock tomorrow we'll be walking down the high street in all our finery.   At last count there were over 40 children in our group, a complete nightmare of organisation for the wonderful mums that have organised & co-ordinated it all. 

Will hopefully take a few photos of the costumes and also let you all know how it went. 

More Craft blogging to follow next week (with hopefully the unicorn tutorial that Sam has kindly agreed to write!) 

Carnival Costumes update

Today I made the wings for my own carnival costume. 

Guess what I'm going as! 

Other than this all I need for the butterfly body is dark clothing and as I'm participating in the night-time carnival, I plan on wearing my daughters flashing pink headband that we bought in Florida.  The fact that it has micky mouse shaped flashing heads is besides the point!!!

I made the wings in the same way as the fairy wings (check out my earlier entries), but covered them with a lightweight red silky fabric and added decorations and sequins with fabric glue. 

Today we also went and collected the cardboard unicorn that my very talented friend Sam has made for my daughter to ride.  Hopefully I'll be able to convince her to do a tutorial for it and add it here.  Watch this space.

Some Fabric Life Improvers

Todays crafting - a shopping bag and a handbag pouch from some lovely fabric I bought from Ikea.  It was quite a thick fabric with a large pattern, so I wanted to make something to show off the pattern.  This is what I came up with:

A lovely big shopping bag.  I've stitched the handles on with a square with a cross in the centre of it to make sure that it will take a lot of weight. 

I hate wasting any scrap of fabric, so I used the piece I cut off the bottom to make another handbag pouch.  This time lined with white cotton, and using a cream zip.

I use a handbag pouch all the time. I just loop it around the strap of my handbag and fill it with my keys and mobile phone, and then when my phone rings, I just follow the strap to find my phone before it stops ringing!  A small idea, but one that makes my life a lot easier.

More Little Bags to make

Just got some gorgeous Halloween fabric delivered, and thought I'd make some more little bags with it.

Have a look at my earlier pages to find the tutorial to make them.  The only difference this time is that I used Bondaweb to stick my designs to the bags, and in the case of the pumpkin I used a close zig-zag stitch around the edge just to make it look a bit neater. 

The inside of the bags:

And now a photo of the back of the "Trick" bag

I know its a bit early for Halloween but when I received the fabric, I just couldn't resist using it straight away! Does this mean I'm addicted?

Fairy Costume Tutorial - Part 2 - The Wings

Following on from yesterdays fairy costume tutorial, here is a photo of the fairy wings I've made. 

Unfortunately the photo is not a very good one, as I found it quite hard to get a decent picture of the wings, but hopefully it gives you the general idea.

To make them, you will need:  Some thickish garden wire, white netting, ribbon or coloured netting, sequins and fabric glue.

First of all I placed some string on the floor in the shape/size of wings I wanted.  This gives you an idea of how much wire you will need.  Each side of my wings are about 45 inches, so I needed about 8 feet of wire in all.  These wings are the right size for my daughter who is 6 (but is the height of an average 9 year old!!!)

Find the centre of the wire and taking each end at a time, wrap it around about 2 inches either side of the middle.  Repeat for the other end.  This should leave you with a big figure of 8 loop. 

Hopefully you can make out from this photo what I mean. 

The next step is to bend the frame into the shape of the wings.  You could also just as easily create dragon or bird wings by altering the shape of the frame.

I then cut a piece of white net large enough to go around the frame, with plenty to spare as I wanted the wings to have some gather in them.  Sew around the edge of the frame, gathering the excess net up towards the frame as you go.  You can then decorate it as I have done with sequins attached with fabric glue.  Tie the ribbon or coloured net around the middle of the wings, and let the ends hang loose.

To make them wearable, I used some extra coloured net to create two loops for my daughter to put her arms through and tied them in amongst the middle ribbon.

So all in all a quick, cheap and cheerful way of making a costume.

Fairy Costume Tutorial

As I've already mentioned our village carnival is coming up and our local school is taking part, so lots of the mums have been busily crafting and creating all manor of costumes.  My contribution was to make fairy costumes.  These are actually pretty simple to make, but they look really effective, so thought I'd share them with the world!

Fairy skirts first

This is what we are aiming for!  Firstly get a length of elastic, long enough to go round the waist of the would-be-fairy, and knot the ends together to make a big circle.    Next work out how long you want the skirt to be.  You will need to cut strips of net double this measurement, and about an inch or 2 in width.  I've used coloured net which was bought ready-cut from our local scrapstore, but I think this would look equally good with just white netting.

Fold each strip in half, and lay it under the elastic waistband.  Take the tail of the strip and pass it through the loop in the top of the strip so that it creates a knot around the elastic.  I should've taken a photo at this point but was rushing to get it done.  Have a look at this next photo which will hopefully help.

Continue knotting the net strips around the elastic until you've covered the whole of the elastic.  Try on the skirt and adjust the elastic as necessary.

You can also create a matching headband by plaiting long strands of the same net and knotting the two ends together.  Just like this one.

Along with a white t-shirt and a pair of leggings for modesty purposes, the main part of the costume is complete.  Tomorrow I'll take some photos of the wings I made and add them to this blog.  Hope this made some sense, would love to hear from you if you make these.

A Rest from Carnival Chaos

Have spent the last week or so making fairy costumes for the village carnival (photos & tutorials for them coming soon) so decided to take a bit of time out to make something a bit different.  Had some gorgeous funky orange heart fabric from Fabric Rehab that I'd yet to use and so I decided to make it into a small rucksack.

All it took was a fat quarter of fabric, plus some piping cord, bias binding and a zip from an old cushion that I had in my stash.  It didn't take too long to make, and I think the only thing I'd do differently is to add some firm interfacing to make it hold its shape a bit better.  Also I tidied up the inside seams with white binding as I didn't want to line it & the inside seams looked a bit messy.  Found this quite tricky to do, but with a bit of patience I managed to make it look fairly presentable. 

Made the straps from some bias binding sewn wrong sides together & the top and bottom straps are separate pieces, joined together by velcro which I think you can just see in the top photo.

Distraction over, now its back to fairy wings!

New Website

Phew!  Have just finished redesigning the shop website.  With lots of new photos and a complete new design, I'm hoping to attract lots of lovely new customers.  Let me know what you think.

Camouflage Lunch Bags

Just finished making some camouflage bags and thought I'd upload a couple of photos of them.  Am using a slightly thicker drill fabric which has meant the bags are a bit sturdier.  Which in my opinion is a good thing as they are aimed at boys & having 2 boys of my own I know how quickly boys trash lunch bags!

Much more suited to older boys than the lunch bags I've been doing up until now.  As if to prove the point, my eldest has decided he wants me to make him a wallet out of the blue camouflage, ready for him to start secondary school.  Yippee, another trip to the fabric shop!