Happy Birthday Nan: Felt corsage broach and card

It's my Husband's Nan's Birthday next week, I wanted to make her a unique card which was a little less grungy that my more recent creations and a little more chintzy but I also wanted to send her a gift. I needed something that was easy to post, and so I reached for the felt and beads and came up with this corsage broach;

 

I have to admit I've really missed sewing, I made one sock monster and got halfway through a Shelf Elf at Christmas before we all got poorly and then Christmas cards and tags took over.

 

Somehow along the way I started designing a card around the broach, using a slightly glittery floral paper, prima flowers and paper lace, and punching two holes in the card to allow for the Broach back to be fastened inside the card.

 

Before adding the prima flowers I was starting to doubt myself but I think it works in the end, not sure my sewing is good enough to unleash this sort of design in the shop just yet, but if you can't make a special effort for family and friends who are you going to make it for?

 

 

Quiet book: Sandcastle page

The first completed page of Miss L's quiet book. This page was made from one of Stephanie's templates at imagineourlife. If you are thinking of making your own quiet book and need inspiration, it's well worth a trip to her site, she has some really amazing ideas - definitely a leading authority on quiet books.

I pretty much stayed to the pattern, although I did use slightly different felt colours to the ones suggested: I used cream for the sand, natural for the castles and tan for the doors and windows and the roofs. I changed the bucket colour to pink to make it more girlie with red rick rack stripes and swapped some silver cord for the handle instead of the felt. And I accidentally cut 2 extra 'towers' - but all the more for the kids to play with, lol!

It turned out perfectly, now just to work on the other pages :)

Spiderman Spiderman, wears a mask and ... jumps off my furniture

Oh dear, it's been 2 years but it looks like Lightning McQueen (from Disney Pixar Movie 'Cars') is no longer the biggest idol in our house. Make way for the Super heroes!

.

T-shirts, Wellies & backpacks are slowly but surely evolving and mutating from images of Cars with eyes to a certain red/blue suited web slinger and his friends! And while he still loves anything with wheels & will always be a petrol head more and more of his games seem to include wrestling his sister and jumping from the furniture to shouts of "Spiderman!" ... often followed by long explanations from me explaining that Spiderman is a goodie and doesn't intentionally hurt anyone or damage property.

.

Ultimately this has lead to requests for a Spiderman birthday party and a Spiderman dress-up costume for said Birthday - unfortunately his Birthday isn't till November, but trying to be the ever-prepared-mother that i am, I started Pinning Spiderman Party ideas and came across THESE simple but soo cute super hero mask templates by Jessica over at Cutesy Crafts and I decided to make the Spiderman mask as my weekend project, I ended up made 2 so he can play with a friend or his sister :D

Needle not required: Tea-Towel Apron

I've been meaning to make one of these for a while, and projects are piling up around me .. but I had 10 minutes to myself this morning and decided it might be cathartic to tick something off the list - and this was a quick win. I had intended on sewing this but decided to challenge myself and make it entirely no-sew, making it a suitable project for complete novices or more confident crafters looking for a super quick project.

I'm not an overly 'girlie' girl, but I really liked this tea towel when I found it, the 'keep calm and...' formats are quite popular at the moment, and as a lot of my baking tends to be cakes I thought it would be nice to turn it into an Apron.

Tutorial: Child's knight costume tabard made from a tea towel

This was the first part of my son's St George's Day Knight's outfit which was made at short notice and with a few items I picked up from our local supermarket. A tutorial for the Cowl shown below is also available.

This design has arm holes, fastens at the back and is also reversible. I'm also working on a simpler 'hand towel tabard' tutorial too, as I sort of made this up as I went along.

I found this pack of red and white teatowels quite reasonably at the supermarket, I used the middle one as it already had red stripes, and it came wrapped in this handy red cotton tape which I also used, however its probably easier to use a plain white towel and then add your ribbon (cotton tape or even red fabric paint) in the right places afterwards. The other two teatowels I've saved for other projects, or they might just end up in the kitchen drawer.

What you will need:
1 Tea towel (with red stripe or plain white)
Red ribbon, or cotton tape
Velcro
Hemming web
An existing T-shirt (for sizing)
4 Silver buttons (optional)

1. Take your subject and wrap the teatowel around them to check if it will fit. Place the teatowel right side down, and bring the two sides into the middle. Press the fabric to keep in shape, and turn over.

2. Now time to cut the arm holes and a dip for the neck. I used an existing T-shirt to work out the size for the arm holes (once hemmed these will be larger - perfect for growing room) then I cut a triangle out of each corner giving the garment a sort of 'house shape, unfold and pin a hem in the V shaped void. Copy the neck line of the t-shirt onto the middle of the front and cut. Now pin your hems.
.
.

3. If you have an over locker, use it to seal the ends to stop fraying, otherwise use hemming web or, as I did, use a close edging stitch to bind the ends. 

4.  Lay the garment out flat, lay the red ribbon/tape horizontally across the centre allow for a good 1 inch overlap at either end and cut, cut a matching piece of hemming web and sandwich this between the tea towel and the ribbon, folding over the ends. Iron to secure, as per your web's instructions. If you are using a plain tea towel attach the vertical line of the cross in the same way, running from the neck to the bottom.

5 .Line up the arm V slots and overlap the top tabs, pin and sew together.

6. There are many ways you could choose to fasten the back of the tabarb; buttons/toggles/drawstring, but I went with Velcro straps. To make the straps, I took two 6 inch sections of the cotton tape, hemmed both ends (making them about 5 inches) then cut two 3.5 inch sets of Velcro (male and female). I used sewing Velcro but the new iron on kind would be much easier. Attach the 'loop' piece of the Velcro to the end of the straps (leaving 1.5 inch free), repeat on the other strap. Line up your strap with the 'scratchy' Velcro in two places on the back of the garment, attach the Velcro to the tea towel in these places and attach the corresponding strap directly opposite.

7. Technically you can finish here, but I decided to add decorative buttons to the corners of the straps - I quite liked the idea of the back being decorative, and as it turned out this made the whole thing reversible. The buttons were probably the most expensive part of the garment though, costing as much as the set of 3 tea towels (shhh don't tell Mr S).

This is the back of the tabard on my son - still plenty of room for him to grow.

And that's it, pop a grey top underneath and you're away (to a land of castles, dragons and Damsels in distress.

Tutorial: Child's knight costume cowl

I made this as part of my son's St George's day Knight outfit the rest of the items are also available as tutorials.

He was determined he wasn't wearing a helmet, so I decided to make him a 'chain mail' cowl. Originally I considered knitting one but we were on a tight deadline and quite frankly I can't knit anything that isn't rectangular, so instead I cobbled together this which is simply made from 2 grey flannels. To give you an idea of size, my son is 3, although you can make alterations to fit a larger child. 

What you'll need:

2 x Grey flannels

Sewing thread & needle

Hemming web

Iron on Velcro (2 inches)

1. Cut off all tags and labels. My flannels were 30cmx30cm and cost £1 each from tesco.

2. Put both right sides together and chalk on your "hood" shape. The easiest way to do with is to use the outline of an existing hood - this way you will also get a good fit. You'll see I've extended the hood outline to the corner of the flannel, this will form the back of the cowl and give the hood a flared out look.

3. Now to form the hemming. You can either: sew directly on the chalked line, cutting the excess leaving a 1.5cm hem and then use hemming web to seal the hemming down, or if using a sewing machine, leave room to double over the hem sew this first before joining the two fabrics together. I decided to cut the hemline out and then sew. KEEP THE EXCESS CUT OFF FOR LATER.

4. My sewing machine is currently broken, so I ended up hand sewing the hood outline. This worked out well as when I reached the top existing hemline of the flannel I was able to blanket stitch the two edges directly together, which gave the front a nice smooth line with no overlap (see above, inside left, outside on the right).

5. Turn inside out and check stitching. Now turn back and start using the hemming web to seal down the internal hem on both sides. This should stop the towelling from fraying. That's the main hood done, just the front fastening to go.

6. Remember that excess 'cut off' we kept from earlier? We're going to use this to form a 'chin strap' close at the front, to keep the cowl on when it's wearer is chasing dragons :) Because my flannels had this ribbing detail I simply cut this out from both pieces to form my straps (if your flannels are plain, you can always cut and fold some of the toweling for this). Blanket stitch the edges to prevent fraying. Now cut male and female Velcro to fit the strap, leaving a gap the width of your hemming web.

7. Cut two pieces of hemming web to the width of your strap (outlined above in red).  Having worked out where the chin will go, mark this on the inside of the cowl on both sides (I was lucky his chin was where the ribbing detail was). Sandwich the web inbetween the 'strap' and the chalk 'chin' mark, keep to the width of the web to allow room for your velcro. Firstly take the 'scratchy' side of the Velcro, this needs to be facing outwards (so little faces don't get scratched) iron it into position as per Velcro instructions, now take the 'loop' side of the velcro and apply this to the inside of the opposite strap. If unsure, try the fastening out a few times before permanently applying.

And there you go, all done! Time to check it fits! You can add some elastic around the neckline or instead of vecro straps make a drawstring close.

St. George's Day - Knight's Costume

JJ's nursery let us know the other day that on Monday they'd like it if the kids could come dressed as dragons, knights or princesses for St. George's day. It was quite short notice and as he's is not into dressing up and refuses to wear anything 'fancy dress' at the moment apart from his cowboy hat - there didn't seem to be any point in buying an expensive costume just for one day.

So with a little imagination and a small amount of resources I made him this outfit, complete with Tabard, Cowl and Shield (the shield is currently still in progress). It was all completed within a few afternoons, and I'm even making a second outfit for my daughter - in between toddler wrangling, naptimes, bedtimes, and meals :D

It was quite easy and cheap to make. The main resources that went into making the outfit were; a tea towel, a couple of flannels and some red cotton tape. :D

The cowl is a separate garment to the tabarb so that it can we worn with or without it, and tucked under the tabard or sit ontop, and I added detail to the straps on the back, which are adjustable and there's still plenty of growing room for my little man.

The cowl can be worn down as well as up, and the tabard reversed. You could even add a crown for a 'King Arthur' look.

Here is the Tabard and Cowl tutorial:

Brooch: A Tinkerbell in Paris

Like most people, I spent the lead up to a few days in Eurodisney with the kids sewing this Tinkerbell brooch for my daughter (ok, ok so it was me who ended up wearing it as a bag charm, but the thought was there). I have to admit its far from perfect, I didn't have the right skin or dress colour in felt to match the proper Tinkerbell. But for something basically whipped it up in a few hours the day before and finished on the way to the ferry, its not too terrible. 

I took the above photo to prove she travelled all the way to disneyland with us (although it was impossible to get the castle and the fairy in focus in the same shot on my little compact, lol). Not bad for a first attempt, but hopefully some lessons learned and a nice momento of the visit.



Brooches: The ladybirds and the bees

Today I've been sewing in the garden, while watching the kids make mud piles, and 'carpetting' their tent with grass. These cute bumble bee and ladybird badges for the kids were quite straight forward to make, and again, only using things I already had in the cupboard - just need to get brooch backs, once completed I'll share a tutorial on how to make them.

I also replicated the process in miniature and made some mini clips for my daughter, just waiting for the glue to dry, before road testing them :)

Brooch: The Owl, the Moth and the Sequins

I'm at home today with 2 under-the-weather toddlers... well, considering the scene of devastation that is my living room I think they are feeling much better now ... and so we are somewhat housebound. Later we're making chocolate brownies, but first I kept my hands busy with this cute little craft.

I had a few charms left over from old projects, and when browsing around for new blogs to follow I found these fab Owl Brooches at Ellie's Treasures, what a great way to use all your felt scraps, AND I had a cute little owl who was in desperate need of a new home - rejected from the heirloom bouquet collection for (according to Mum) looking 'too much like a skull when looked at upside down'.

Although my design is completely different, as this is a bit of an 'homage' to Ellie's owl's I'm not going to go into to much depth about how it was made (although with a little craft experience it's not too hard to work out). I created this brooch using only items already in the house, raiding the craft cupboards and even resorting to rumaging around the long forgotten pot of spare garment buttons and ziplock baggies of sequins.

I experimented with the layout a bit, I originally cut the brach structure out of felt by eye (although this eventually was covered with sequins), then was rather indecisive about whether I really needed a moon (covered button) when the moth (technically a butterfly bead, but this is night ime after all) looked so pretty and brought out the silver of the Owl, so I ended up doing both.

I don't have the neatest hand stitch, and insist on using doubled thread - because essentially I'm lasy and hate re-threading the needle, but I do enjoying sewing little projects like this, it's quite relaxing. I have to admit this project was also a lesson in using sequins, as I'd not sewn with them before, took a few tried to get them overlapping in a suitable manner. I'm included photos of the back of the stiting panel and the eventual back of the broach to show how this can hide a multitude of sins. If I had been making this for a gift, rather than just for fun, I would probably have bought a proper brooch pin for the back, but a safety pin works just as well.

Not quite sure what I'm going to do with my little brooch now, if I can be parted from it, it may end up as a present for a special person. Was just so nice to do something non-wedding related for a while :D

Ring-a-ring-a-ring-cushion

I was feeling rather uninspired by the choice of commercial ring cushions on the market - holding the rings will be my 3 years old son's 'special job' at our wedding and I wanted something equally special for him to carry.

Quite by accident I stumbled across Tintock Taps's beautiful white, floral heart shaped ring cushion made for her sister's wedding and suddenly had the inspiration I was looking for. The cushion was originally based on Amy Butler's Snow Mum Pillow tutorial I loved the 3D nature of the pillow and the way the rings could nestle in the centre.

As my dress is going to be Ivory I started out using ivory felt, cutting and hand stitching each petal in turn. But started to feel the colour looked more dirty than ivory.

Given that the wedding theme colour was supposedly 'cadbury's purple' (and at this point no single item purchased or made for the wedding featured purple) I decided to shop around for the right shade purple felt and see how that worked with the concept.

One evening's stitching later, I had finished the main flower. It looked so stunning as it was that I choose to create a round cushion that would almost 'hide' underneath the petals, rather than the larger round or square. Then I started experimenting with ribbon and central pearl colourings white being my first thought, however once the rings were added I felt this was too much contrast.

In the end purple on purple provided a subtle enough background to the ring (which, after all are the main event!) I used two lengths of 4mm purple ribbon, which were attached at their middle under the central 5 point petal. Two of these strands will then be used on the day to attach a ring each side - which 'should' come apart when the bows are gently pulled (well, that's the plan anyway).

To give the cushion a flatter base once the cushion was half stuffed, I drew the centre in with a felt covered 'button' - made from a circle of cardboard wrapped in a felt circle which was gathered and stitched on one side, leaving a smooth button. This was then hand sewn with long stitches through the centre of the base and hidden under the central petal, and a purple pearlized bead added to the middle.

I'm quite proud of this little cushion, it was quite simple to make (thanks to Amy's template) and hopefully will add an extra personal touch to the ceremony!