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Thrifty crafting

2 hours to make a birthday present and no cash *  =

 

A monkey bag.

Bag made from an old cushion cover = £0.00

Monkey made from thrifted woollen blankets = £0.01

Monkey's t-shirt made from a tiny piece of Molly's old t-shirt = £0.00

Lining made from Ikea fabric which cost about £3 a metre = 25p ish.

Total cost £0.26p.

I'm off to the big smoke (London) tomorrow to spend the weekend with my sister

Just me on my own.

Woo-hoo !

And there will be no men, just Harve and the dog who don't count because we can boss them around and misbehave to our hearts content.

As if we would.

Here's hoping you do a bit of misbehaving this weekend too.

* I like to save my money for wine.

xx

Baby Robot Shoes and Why Great Grandmas *Rock*.

 

For Wilf (warning - this link contains a swear word). : )

Because somebody has to try and restore his dignity.

Although the more I look at him, the more I like it.

Every stitch stiched with love.

Hedgehog softie with a pocket

If anyone has half of this tutorial cached in their bloglines feeder, I do apologise. I hit the save button halfway through by mistake, and then finished it and for some unfathomable reason hit the delete button

In other words I'm a bloody idiot.

So, I will try again...

You will need,

4 rectangles of fabric, 2 plain, 2 patterned, measuring 4" x 3" or 10cm x 8cm to make the softie.

1 rectangle of patterned fabric measuring 4" x 5" or 10cm x 13cm, this will be your pocket piece.

Black embroidery thread.

Scraps of brown felt.

Fold over the pocket piece ( you won't need this until you are ready to sew everything together), then stitch the plain and patterned softie pieces together along the 4" sides like so,

The piece on the left will be the front, on the back piece leave a 2" gap for turning. 

Press open both your body parts and print off hedgie template so it's about 4" (10cm) tall. If I had half a brain, I'd know how to do a pdf document, but I don't, so sorry about that.

Pin to the front piece and stitch all around close to your paper pattern. This acts as a guide when it comes to stitching your softie together (you only need to do this on your front piece).

Mark position of eyes and nose, and then remove your pattern.

Sew features (I used brown felt for the nose, but you can embroider if you like)

 

Cut small strips of felt for the spikes as stitch in place as shown.

Now assemble your pieces right sides together, with the folded over pocket sandwiched in the middle, and the front piece on top.

Pin and stitch right on top of your previous sewing line.

Trim off excess fabric, and the back should look like this ( I forgot to take a photo of the front),

 

Turn right side out through the gap, stuff and stitch closed.

Keep the pocket at the back to use as a birthday money receptacle (alternatively, Molly uses hers to keep her lip salve findable at school)

 

Or turn the pocket around to the front and use as a sling for taking your baby brother to the park.

 

 

Have a great weekend !

Personally, I'm off to raid the Sherry cupboard.

To the person

who invented school..

I GET DOWN ON MY KNEES AND SING YOUR PRAISES LOUDLY !

Not that I'm one to gripe about my kids (well, I am actually), but bloody hell, that was the longest seven weeks of my life. Crappy crappy weather and scrapping kids are more than a mere mortal can take.

Anyhoo, they are back to school now, and I can slowly feel my very rattled nervous system recovering, so we'll move onto happier things. I'll be back on friday with a tutorial for this little chap.

 

I hope you had better weather where you are.

Byeeeeee !