on the tray today

today I am making flower brooches ::

I love choosing the colours and laying them all out, ready to sew ::

yesterday I spent a good few hours on the computer and have re-jigged my etsy shop

... I also listed all my new felt colour groups on my website ::

AND I listed a GIANT felt rainbow too ... 24" square, 45 different colours....a felt fans idea of heaven!

shameless advertising

My favourite fabric shop, Fabric Rehab, started stocking my Make-Your-Own kits a little while ago and SewHip have done a feature on them!

I knew it was due so went to WhSmiths and very calmly stood in the queue & bought it but the minute I was outside I was flicking through the pages desperate to see it! I wanted to skip down the road telling everyone but I managed to keep myself quiet until I got home!

So if you fancy a little fabric shopping you can now add a little bit of felt craft to your basket at the same time :-)

back to work with a bump

I'm back to the normal routine of the day job...always a blah feeling after spending so many lovely days full of paper-and-string things...I've been trying for days to take a photo of the curtain I made for the workshop and it seems that taking photos of curtains is REALLY hard! so I decided to show the best photos I have ....

it's held up with a net curtain rod which was £2.49 from Wilkinson's and the fabric is from the stash....the drop of the curtain is the width of the fabric so it was a super quick curtain to make-less than an hour from start to finish!

winners announced

The freebie draw is now closed and I used the random number generator to pick 2 winners.

comments 78 & 69 were picked...

78 :: jazzalblue said...
I love the egg cosies and thanks for the tutorial. Happy Easter, Joy

69 :: Cyndy said...
OMGosh these are sooooo cute. Lots of work in them too!! Thank you for having a giveaway. Hugs, Cyndy***mingb***hems@ronan.net

I shall be emailing both the winners shortly.

Thanks again to everyone who took part....I hope you all had a great Easter break :-)

bank holiday fun

John and I are enjoying a very relaxing Bank Holiday...John spent a few hours in the garage whilst I did a spot of Spring Cleaning, closely followed by a lovely lunch and a few chapters of my book....

I've just added these fabric flowers to the website....they were all ready to be listed yesterday but the re-vamp took longer than expected!

ironing IS fun!

I managed to tick two big things off my to-do list today...the first was finishing the packaging & photographing my new iron-on appliques ::

Inspiration struck last night for the packaging and I have to admit I really enjoyed packing these up.

I've designed GIANT & standard size letters & numbers and you get to pick which of the 7 fabrics you'd like them made from! I bought the fabric for these back in January and I've been moving them on and off the to-do list ever since!

putting them on the website took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. but I think it was worth the hard work :-)

whilst I was stumbling through the inside workings of my website (always a dangerous thing...something always goes wonky when I do that!) I also listed my drawing pins (again, that's been on the to-do list for ages!)

I made a display of them on my pin board....

...which has found a new home near my stock unit.

All in all a very satisfying day...

a photo day

my monthly freebie can be found here
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I spent a lot of time today taking photos...

..of felt rainbows...

...of lots of felt piled high...

...of bundles of ribbons...

...and lots of new colour groups of felt...

I think my new photo table has helped a great deal!

april freebie 2010

this months freebie is so close to Easter (and a nice long weekend with plenty of time for sewing!) that I thought I'd combine a freebie prize draw with a free tutorial for everyone....

I have made 2 sets of Egg Cosies...Ribbon Eggs and....

....plain eggs.

There's a pattern below (right click the picture, save it to your computer and then print it out)


plain eggs are probably easier for beginners...you can use straight stitch, blanket stitch or whip stitch...which ever you prefer!

ribbon eggs are a bit more fiddly and would be better suited to sewers with a little more experience (cutting the egg outline is the hardest bit!)

I hope you would like to make your own egg cosies, it's great fun!

Now for the freebie part...

There are 2 prizes...one set of ribbon egg cosies ::

and one set of plain egg cosies ::

If you'd like to be entered into the freebie draw simply leave a comment on this blog post and I will draw 2 winners next Wednesday (7th April)

Rules & Things

1. only one comment per person please

2. I must be able to contact you via your comment

3. I will post worldwide

GOOD LUCK & HAPPY SEWING!

time well spent

making 9" rainbows ::

and tying them up with ribbons ::

*finally* unpacking my threads ::

making a start on my Photograph Table ::

Soon there will be a curtain over the window instead of the two pin boards and I'm hoping this little area will be good for taking my product photos...time will tell.

my haircut went well (thanks for the good wishes!) but it dried fluffy rather than curly so it needs to be washed again before I let anyone see it...

*advance warning*

tomorrow is Freebie day and there will be a tutorial/freebie pattern for which you will need :: felt, ribbon & a button or two

a hairy hurrah!

after a VERY busy 2 days at the day job I am Officially on holiday...I have to work on Saturday but I'm not back properly until next Thursday...woo-hoo! loads of days off but only 2 days of holiday used up.

Tomorrow morning I have a haircut booked at Toni & Guy ... curly hair is great at being ignored but right now mine is desperate for a cut...I love getting a new cut when it's long overdue, it feels so swishy and new...so much so I went to Boots and bought some lovely new products to look after the new 'do' (good timing because toni & guy is 3 for £10 and Umberto Giannini is 2 for £7 at the moment)

...I'll be taking some photos of Kate Humble with me as a guide ::

and hopefully it'll look just like that, but a little longer, and I'm more dark brown than blonde....but you get the idea!

...3 hours...

before ::

during ::

after ::

up close ::

a very ribbon-y post

all my boxes are unpacked and the shelves have been re-arranged to hold a mammoth delivery of ribbon ::

I was running low on some designs so contacted my supplier but lots of my favourite ribbon has been discontinued and only 'large volume' customers were able to purchase from their 'large volume' list ...

... so I did a deal (which was kinda scary and involved a ridiculously big $ number) and managed to buy a BIG bulk order (normally my orders are seen as small fry to these big suppliers)

I have bought LOTS of big reels of my favourite ribbons and that means I can offer bulk discounts to my customers ... it's all still available by the metre and the price has held at 85p a metre OR now I am able to offer 10m bundles for just £6.50, a BIG saving of £2

(it's always nice to get a bargain!)

I also stocked up on plain grosgrains which will be invaluable for packing (they will be listed on my website soon)

and I got a discount on 3 yard spools which means they are still only £2 each (even though the exchange rate is dreadful)

these are the new designs ::

I've also got a lot more velvet scallop ribbon (including a new colour!) still just £1.70 a metre OR 5m bundles for £6.50

if you're tempted or just want to take a peek most of it is on the website right now!

flowers

I'm not deliberately being a box unpacking tease...but I have no photos for you!

I spent all last night sorting through all the boxes and checking off the delivery note....and after work today John and I moved all the boxes to the workshop and I found homes for all the lovely new items...I will try *very* hard to take photos before work tomorrow, hopefully the sun will be out!
In the mean time here's a photo of some cutting out that I finished this morning ::

the men in brown (and beige!)

Mr UPS came today....

and dropped off 8 boxes full of lovely new stock! John's out all day and evening so I've left them at home so I can unpack and sort through them all in the lounge!

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Columbo yesterday was brilliant!

Face was a great Columbo, just like the original but with a little something extra....I'd highly recommend it if it tours around near you!