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Mother's Day Gift Tutorial

Perhaps she'd like a little fabric house ?

Mind you, I didn't make this one for my Mother - my Mother associates 'handmade' with being too tighty arsed to buy something, and anyway she'd rather have twenty quid to go to the bingo.

Template,

I've written the measurements for mine, but you can enlarge if desired, particularly if you are making one as a softie as shown at the bottom of this post.

Place two layers of fabric right sides together ( I used quite a stiff calico for my inner fabric), pin and stitch around the template leaving a gap for turning as shown

I forgot to take a pic after I had sewn mine silly me, but after you have stitched, cut out leaving a small seam all around. Turn right side out and close gap. Now machine stitch along the line of every junction (is that the right word ?) in other words where the base meets the walls,the back wall meets the roof, and where the roof bends, these points are marked on the template as solid black lines. This will makes it easier to fold your house when it comes to sewing it together. (If you understand what I just wrote there, you're a bloody genius, but you'll see what I mean when I show you the next pictures).

Next..

Embroider any little details you wish to,

Can you see my machine stitched junction lines ? the one above is very wonky but that doesn't matter it's an old wonky cottage.

I only embroidered through the top layer of fabric, so I could draw some housey details inside (at Molly's request, this house is for her)

Next stitch (I used ladder stitch) the walls together, and then just the back section of the roof . For fastening, sew a length a embroidery thread to the roof and a little button to the front and wrap your thread around to close. Like so -

Stitch a little birdy button to the roof if you have one.

A little pink hamster lives in this one

but you could fill yours with foil wrapped chocolate hearts or diamonds or anything you think your Ma would like.

Alternatively make one from felt and use as a pincushion, or make a larger one as a toy for a child (and, handily, because they're nice and soft, you can also throw them with great force at a child and you won't do them any serious damage).

Just cut each part of the house out of different colour felt or dyed felted blanket and blanket stitch together. Don't forget to stuff it of course otherwise there will be no fun in throwing it.

This one's called Brian

he has a big heart.

I hope you have a fun weekend everybody, back soon.

Oh I nearly forgot, a few people asked for the crochet flower pattern, I got mine from The DK Pocket Encyclopedia of Needlecraft ISBN 0 86318 302 6 , so I'm afraid I can't put the instructions up here. There are some lovely tutorials on the web though, so if I were you, I would while away an hour or two trawling the net tonight (with the obligatory glass of vino of course).

Ciao !

Lavender Baby Tutorial

Template first

You will need a small amount of felt for the ears, fabrics for the face and body, and some plain light cotton fabric. My baby pattern is about 4" or 10cm high, but make yours as big or small as you like.

Cut a strip of fabric for the face (my piece measures 4"/10cm x 9"/23cm) and body (5"/12cm x 9"23cm) and pin and stitch together along one of the long edges.

Next cut a piece of plain cotton ( I used an old sheet), slightly larger than your sewn together fabrics and pin together around the edges.

This is my first tip - when making softies out of cotton fabrics, I always back them with a plain piece of cotton, this gives your toy more strength and avoids that lumpy look when you come to stuff it.

Next, pin your pattern piece to the fabrics and stitch all around close to the edge of the pattern. You'll be doing this for only the front piece of baby. 

Cut out about a quarter inch away from your stitch line.

Next, pin and stitch the ear strips in place.

Now flip your baby over onto to the remaining fabric so right sides are together, and making sure your head and body seams line up, pin and stitch together. Don't forget to leave a gap for turning. Sounds obvious I know, but I've lost count of the number of times I've forgotten to do that Goddammit.

Cut out and snip carefully all around for maximum curvability.

Turn right side out, stuff, putting in a teaspoon or two of dried lavender if desired, and stitch gap closed.

Baby should now look like this.

And now for my second top tip - shape the ears when your softie is at this stage, that way you don't have to deal with itty-bitty ear shaped bits of felt that are very tricky to pin and sew in place. Just cut a straight line to the length you want and then round off the corners. Simple huh ?

Embroider the face, add a little hair, and your all done.

Have fun.

And have a lovely weekend too.

Mousey and his bed

Make him as big or as small as you wish...

cut two body pieces and two ears from felt - preferably wool felt as it's sturdier.

place the ears like so

and then fold the front of mousey to the back of mousey, sandwiching his ear like this

pin and stitch

and you should get this.

Next, stitch a little tail into place, you can cut a small strip of felt or use embroidery thread.

Place right sides of mousey together, pin and stitch leaving a gap at the bottom for turning.

Turn the right way round, stuff, embroider his nose and eyes...

and hey presto ! - a mouse is born.

Next his bed, use felt or I made mine from a strip of woollen blanket

fold along line A, pin and stitch the sides to make the pillow end, and then applique some little pieces of cheese to t'other end as shown.

I also sewed a little line of decorative (wonky) stitching to stop any fraying, and to look pretty.

Now fold along line B, pin and stitch sides and then turn the right way around.

Ha ha ha..

this way around, it looks like a monster. Hmmm.. he could be a monster for holding tissues maybe ?

Put a little stuffing into the pillow and stitch closed.

If you want to make this with your children, it can all be hand stitched, or if they're getting on your nerves you can let them use the sewing machine and hopefully they will stitch their mouths shut at the same time ( did I mention that we're ONLY half way through the school hols ? ).

Have fun !

Easter birdy tutorial

You will need

Yellow felt or blanket

Small amount of white felt

scraps of wool felt for legs and hair.

Fabrics of your choice.

Fray check.

Embroidery threads for eyes and decorative details.

Enlarge to whatever size you wish and cut out pattern pieces.

Now, cut two out two head pieces from your chosen fabric, I've used an old woollen blanket, or you can use good quality felt.

Next, stitch two strips of fabric together to make a piece large enough for the body pattern ( or you can just use one piece of fabric, or maybe some patchwork ? ). Repeat for the other side.

Stitch the body and head together, and then cut out and stitch the beak, and little white circles of felt for the eyes, to the head.

Repeat for the back, but without the beak and eyes. Obviously. Unless you want your Mama bird to have eyes in the back of her head, which is a very useful thing to have when you are a Mama, as we all know.

Finish the eyes with a bit of embroidery, and then pin and cut around the body pieces.

Next, pin and stitch the wing piece to two layers of fabric, wrong sides together. Cut out close to the line of stitching and a apply fray check. Repeat.

Cut three little strips of felt for hair, and two strips of felt for legs, and along with the wings, pin and stitch to the front body piece.

Cut a tail piece from felt, and then snip along the dotted lines to make feathers.

Stitch onto back piece first this way.

And then bend back on itself and stitch this way, so the feathers are pointing up .

Next, pin and stitch your birdy front and back pieces, right sides together, leaving a gap for turning.

Turn, stuff and stitch gap closed.

Now, pin and stitch your pocket piece to two layers of fabric, right sides together, again leaving a gap at the top for turning.

Turn right side out, handstitch top hem to close gap,

and then handstitch pocket to Mama's tummy..

Phew, this is turning into a mammoth post..... must get a coffee....... o.k, now the egg and baby.

For the egg, cut one piece of felt for the front, and two pieces slightly overlapping, for the back, like this,

Pin and stitch all the way around. Turn right side out, and embroider if desired.

Pin and stitch your baby pattern to two layers of felt, turn right side out ,stitch on a tiny felt beak,and embroider eyes.

Pop baby into egg

and egg into Mummy's pocket ( personally, I think pockets are a much better idea for incubating eggs/babies than wombs) .

Tah Dah !

This tutorial is a little thank you to everyone who reads/comments on my blog, and to those people in my e-mail box who I haven't replied to yet for being so patient.

Please feel free to make as many as you want as gifts, or for any charitible event, but not to sale or I'll be sad. And mad.

Molly and I have plans to make Easter Bunnies for  her teachers tonight. I recieved a copy of Julie Arkell's book from Loop last week, it's quite a small book , but I find it wonderfully inspirational, so we are going to try and make some little creatures like hers. I'll post photos when and if I can - school finishes tomorrow. 'Nuff said.

Baby boots... Crash ?

Here goes, I'm going to try and do this but my computer keeps crashing, if there are any glaring errors I'll put them right asap. Here comes a poor quality photo again, I still haven't sussed out what's wrong with the scanner.

Enlarge to whatever size you wish, just measure the length of baby's ( or Mama's ) foot.

Cut 4 boot pieces and 2 sole pieces as shown. Now do the same for the lining.

The easiest way to do this is to lay your fabric right sides together, and then pin and cut out together.

Pin and stitch the sides of each boot ( right sides together)

And then stitch the boot to the sole as shown, don't forget to mark the front and back centre points on the soles - it makes it a lot easier to position correctly.

Now turn under and press a small hem at the top of each boot and it's lining.

Now slot the lining into it's boot with wrong sides together,

Finish off with a decorative stitch to close

and maybe some yo-yo's. There's a great tutorial at Heather's. 

I suspect Mummy's have been making booties like these for their babes since time began, so I'm not taking any credit for the design. In fact I just changed the shape slightly from a pattern in a 1920's book, so have fun and do with them what you will.Love them, sell them, I shan't mind at all.  :  )

I'm planning on having the shop ready on Tuesday, there will be some small bears ( boys and girls ),a bunny, some purses, and some odds and sods.

See you then !

Have a sooper dooper weekend.

xxx

Ruby's dress

I'm dreadfully sorry for the crappy pictures, but my scanner isn't working. I'm not sure it ever did, in fact it probably just needs plugging in, or switching on, or something - who knows ? Certainly not me.

Anyway, one crappy quality photo....

I'll zoom in a bit, if that makes it easier to read ?

This is a 'stitch- around' pattern, so cut out your paper pattern pieces, but NOT your fabric yet.

To avoid any nasty teeny tiny hems I've made the dress reversible, so you will need two squares of fabric cut large enough to accommodate your pattern pieces plus hem allowances .

Put your fabrics right side together and pin on the pattern pieces.

Now machine stitch close to the edge of your pattern where indicated. Don't forget to leave the side opening for turning, and don't stitch around the neckline on both pieces.

Without removing the paper pattern, and leaving a small hem all around your stitching, cut out your two pattern pieces. Not the neck bits though, the neck bits come next -

For both the collar and the dress, cut out the necklines ( which shouldn't be stitched yet) without leaving any seam allowance.

Turn the collar the right way round, press, and topstitch all around if desired,

and now sandwich it in between the two layers of your dress.

Pin, baste, and machine stitch together.

Now, turn your dress the right way round, and slip stitch the turning gap closed.

Fold in half, to match A to A, B to B, etc ...

So it looks like this.

Starting at the bottom hem, slip stitch the side seams, picking up only the top layer of fabric - in this case the orange fabric..

Once you've reached the sleeve hem, turn inside out and repeat, this time just stitching through your other fabric. This will give a nice neat seam on both sides.

At this point, the dress could easily be made into a coat instead, just leave the gap for turning on the bottom hem so it's not visible. ( I wouldn't mind a coat like this meself actually ).

But if you still want a dress, just stitch the back seams in the same way, leaving a large enough opening to fit your dollie thru'

Attach buttons and sew little loops to fit, and then add whatever buttons and bows that take your fancy.

Dah, dah !

Ruby won't model for us today

She says she's too shy.

Back on friday. Bye-bye.

xxx

Raggy flower tutorial

You will need...

Small amounts of hessian backcloth and good quality felt .

a rag-rug hook or small pliers (or probably even eyebrow tweezers will do the job).

strips of fabric, somewhere around a half an inch wide (ish)

Brooch/pin back.

Method...

Cut your fabric strips into approx 3" lengths, I've used one of these gadgets which makes it a lot quicker

a piece of 1" wood dowel with a bit gouged out, if you know any wood-cutterly types, it should be easy enough to make one.

You just wrap your strips of fabric around it and snip snip snip through the channel.

Either that or just roughly guess the length, it doesn't really matter.

Draw a circle onto your hessian, bearing in mind that these flowers get big - my outside circle has a diameter of 2.5" and I've ended up with a flower almost twice that size (the one I made last week turned out enormous and very heavy, more suitable as a paperweight in fact).

then, mark smaller circles as a guide if you want to use more than one colour.

Before cutting out, stitch around your outside circle 4 or 5 times- this is very important, otherwise it will fray like buggery, and then cut a good half an inch away from your stitch line .I cut it far too close to the stitch line on this one, but just about got away with it.

Now, using whatever tool you've managed to find, work from the centre outwards, inserting your hook and pulling the fabric through, like so

This method is explained far better here , under the rag rugger link on the left, (this is also where I got all of my equipment from). Leave just a couple of hessian strands between each strip and work in circles out towards the stitched edge.

The back will look something like this,

Cut a circle of felt to the same size as your hessian circle and stitch together. Apply your brooch back and there you go... easy.

OR...

If you can't get your hands on any of that equipment, just cut two circles of felt- one slightly bigger than the other, and mark the smaller one as before ( if desired)

then, giving your fabric strips a little twist in the middle, stitch onto your felt pieces, again keeping the strips nice and close together.

Work from the centre, outwards.

Trim the larger felt circle to the same size as the smaller one and blanket stitch together to give a nice neat edge. Attach your pin/brooch back as before.

This second method is just as easy and quick as the first, and both are fun to do . The hook technique is particularly fun for children to do as there are no stabby sharp needles involved. Molly has made quite a few of these now, she loves to choose the fabrics, in fact she choose the colours for the second flower. Light pink, dark pink, orange. YUM.

Do let me know if none of this makes sense, I don't mind, I'm used to people telling me I don't make sense.

I'm off to the shops now, wearing my new corsage to brighten up a very grey English day.

Ta-ra chucks.

Woollyness

Dyeing woolly blankets.

You will need a 100% wool blanket, and one (or more- see below) tins of Dylon multi purpose dye *

Tear the blanket into manageable sized pieces - I normally tear it into eighths.

Dunking two** pieces of the blanket at a time, I follow the basic manufacturers instructions here (click on the link for multi-purpose dye).  However, although I mix the dye up and add to a large pot of water as written, I then veer away from any exact instructions.

The amount of water that goes into my big old pot varies, and I usually forget how long the blanket has been simmering away, so it ends up cooking for longer than specified .This doesn't matter though, wool is only supposed to get 10 mins dunking on a gentle simmer to avoid any shrinking, but we want the wool to felt as much as possible, so leave it for longer, say half an hour (ish).

When done, remove from the pan , allow to cool, and rinse as instructed.

Look at the state of my poor wooden worktop. I am a bad woman.

Do not throw away the dye bath as instructed - that would be a waste, but use it for dyeing your next two pieces. You will get a paler colour, which is what makes it fun - you don't how it's going to look until it'd done.

You can repeat this process, using the whole blanket, depending how pale you want to go. Just top up the dye pot with boiling water if neccesary.

You can also add further dyes to your dye pot for interesting results. In this case, for the first two dips I used Dylon 'Coffee' and then threw some Dylon Black into the pot, to get some lovely black/ greys,

Bottom up ( as the actress said to the Bishop)

Ist dipping with black

Two further dunkings to produce some lovely greys

Ist dip with Coffee

2nd Coffee dip.

At the top is some creamy white blanket which I left undyed.

All ready to be made into teddies, kittens, puppies and elephants etc.

* I use Dylon as it's pretty much all we get over here, but I'm sure this method can be used with other hot/cold hand dyes as long as you follow the manufacturers mixing/rinsing out instructions.

** If you want more of the first colour, you can put 4 or possibly more pieces in at a time, try it.

Have fun. Do let me know if you give it a go , I'd love to see what colours you achieve.

Update... Please read Karen's comment below, re colourfastness. I have hand washed some of my woolly fabrics, with a very mild detergent, and had no problems. But Dylon do state that colourfastness isn't guaranteed with the all purpose dye, and to wash separately. Thanks for pointing that out Karen. : )

Bracelet tutorial

Sew together thin strips of fabric to roughly these dimensions.

You can make your piece longer if you want to make lots of bracelets, this size will make four.The width is about right to fit most wrists.

Cut a piece of stiff backing fabric to the same size, and then pin, wrong sides together.

Cut a 6" x 0.5" (15 x 1cm) inch strip of card, pin to your fabric, and then stitch around it.

Alternatively, if you don't want to bother with a template, just mark out your lines with a ruler and a 'vanishing ink' pen, see below.

Use whatever stitch takes your fancy.

Next, cut close to your stitching line, and then gently fray the edges.

Gather together your bits and bobs, and let your creativity run wild and free.

Sew a button (without a shank, so it sits tight to the fabric) at one end, and a length of braid at the other. To fasten, just wind the braid around the button, firmly, several times.

Dah dah !

Now I have to go shopping for my little girl's birthday tomorrow. What could possible be nicer than shopping for little girls ?

Pink and sparkly - here I come.

All dressed up

O.k, here goes

Adjust this basic pattern to fit your softie, I usually go a bit bigger than I think I need to - you can always gather the top when applying the ribbon, if it's a bit big.

Put your two pieces of fabric right sides together and pin pattern into place

stitch around pattern piece, not forgetting to leave a gap

cut away excess fabric as shown ,  turn right side out and stitch gap closed.

Stitch your chosen ribbon to the dress, making sure you get a nice snug fit across the shoulders.

Attach buttons, lace or anything you desire, I've also stitched along the bottom hem to give a crisp clean edge.

Side 1

Side 2

As modelled by Tibbles.

Happy weekend and happy sewing everyone !

: )