Vehicle Doorstops & Link to Tutorial

You may remember that I had these doorstops printing in Simply Homemade a while back:


Well I’ve had them returned and am going to have a giveaway with 3 of them.


All you have to do is to become a follower (or already be a follower) of my little blog, and leave me a comment, with your favourite way to travel. If you have a preference for which doorstop you’d prefer, just add that to your comment too & if possible I’ll send that one to you.
These are all sent unfilled so entries worldwide are fine.  I will draw a winner on 6th April (Good Friday & my MIL’s 65th birthday so a good day to celebrate!)
But – if you aren’t lucky enough to win one of these, then you can hop over to the blog Its all about the fabric, where the lovely Emma has asked me to write a tutorial for how to make appliqued doorstops.  You can check out how I made this doorstop

and can make your own appliqued doorstop.  While you’re over there, have a browse of Emma’s blog.  It’s fantastic, full of inspiration and loads of ideas of things to make.
If you don’t win, and you can’t really be bothered to make your own doorstop, I also have this VW doorstop up for sale on The Fabric Marketplace.  Click here to go and check it out, and while you’re there, have a look at their lovely packs of small pieces of fabric, which are just perfect for making appliqued things.
Phew, I think that’s all I have to share today – good luck with the giveaway & enjoy the tutorial on Emma’s blog.
Sally
xxx

Happy Mother’s Day & New Sewing Machine Feet

I was lucky enough to have a sewing themed cake made for me today by my 11 year old son:

A patchwork cake – genius! It tastes absolutely gorgeous too.

This afternoon I’ve been having a play with the new sewing machine feet I bought from ebay last week.

I needed a Teflon foot for sewing on oilcloth, and while I was looking at the ebay shop I found these other two feet.  A piping foot & a bias binding foot.  Before this I’d been using a zip foot to create binding, but I found I never had enough hands to hold the piping inside the binding, stop it falling out from under the zip foot and at the same time feed it through.  The binding foot is great in that it feeds it through straight, and doesn’t slip from beneath the foot. 

I wish I’d found these feet sooner – it would’ve saved me a lot of time & trouble.

Daisy went away on a school residential trip last week and needed a wash bag to take with her.  I had an old piece of oilcloth that we used to use as a tablecloth (before it got bolognaise spilt on it & I couldn’t get it off) so I decided to make her a bag from the unstained bits.

Looks ok from that angle doesn’t it – the only problem is that I seem to have overestimated the size I’d need.  Here is another photo with the glue stick to show you the scale of the bag.

It’s giant!  More of a suitcase than a wash bag!  Luckily Daisy wasn’t bothered, and said at least it’d fit her towel in it too. 

I’ve now cut a couple of inches off the template and will have another try next week!

Sally

xxx

Marvel Lunch Bags now in my shop

Finally I’ve managed to add the marvel lunch bags to my shop. 

A really bright and cheerful lunch bag, with a white lining and black button.

A brown and grey lunch bag, with character names on it.

Another bright colourful one with lots of superheroes on it.  The background is grey and white.

And finally another one with lots of superhero names, but this time in bright comic colours.

These are completely unique – I am planning on making just one more of each style, but they will all have different buttons.

They are all completely washable and tumble-dry-able.  I just throw my children's ones in with their uniform wash at the end of the week, and give them a quick rub over with the iron before they’re ready for a Monday morning.

I’ve also added them to my Etsy shop (Click here) so if you are overseas and would like one, you may like to order through that.

Sally

xxx

A trip to the seaside

I thought I’d share a photo showing what we did today

Not bad for the UK during early March!  But I’m not sure that the sea was quite warm enough for paddling, just look at Daisy’s face in this close-up

Brrrr!

Hope the sun shone for you all this weekend

Sally

xxx

Marvel comic book lunch bags

I’ve just switched off my sewing machine after finishing these lunch bags, but I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to show you all:

They’re so bright and cheerful, just perfect for an older boy (or young-at-heart husband!)

I’ll be adding them to my shop over the next couple of days, but if anyone would like one before that, just send me an email and I’ll put it to one side for you.  They cost £11.99, and are completely washable and tumble-dry beautifully.  My children have been using their ones for the last 2 years and all I do is throw them into the wash at the end of the week – no more smelly lunchboxes!  As the outsides are made using good quality cotton, they last really well too, the ones we use still look as good as new, even after 2 years of weekly washing.

Fun and practical too! 

Sally

xxx

Some Lovely New Fabric

 

I saw this Marvel Comic fabric on Fabricworm the other week, and just had to order it:

I think they sent it superhero post too as it arrived really quickly – USA to UK in 6 days – impressive eh!

I was planning on making some lunch bags from it, however my teenage sons have other ideas, they’ve both chosen their favourites and are hinting quite strongly that they’d like a wallet each.  I will be making some of my washable lunch bags though, so if anyone would like to pre-order one, just drop me an email and I’ll reserve one for you.

I have actually been messing about with more free-motion embroidery and thought I’d share my first attempt with you:

Not a great photo, but hopefully you get the idea.  Prior to this I’d been appliquéing fabric to make the shape, but this time I coloured in with the sewing machine.  This photo shows it a bit better I think:

 

Next time I’m going to try out some of the built-in stitches on my sewing machine to see how that would look. 

Have a good weekend everyone

Sally

xxx