Stylish Blogger Award

I’m feeling better today and have done a bit of research on this, so here goes....



Step 1 – Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award.

Step 2 - Share 7 random things about yourself.

Step 3 – Award 15 recently discovered bloggers with this award.

Step 4 – Contact these bloggers and tell them they’ve won the award.



1.

To start off with I’d like to thank Wendy for her nomination/award. As I have only been blogging for a few months and only made it public not long ago it is a nice feeling to think that someone is reading this and enjoying it. So thank you very much to her J

Please take a look at her work at www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk her blog is very popular and I’m not surprised when you see the lovely things she makes.



2.

§ I have just completed and graduated from 4 years at university studying conservation. This is museum and artefact conservation not wildlife conservation, the two very often get mixed up!

§ I passed my driving test about 3 months ago and got my first car 2 weeks ago. I am still getting used to the freedom it gives me to travel further than a few miles from my house for everyday life. I’m looking forward to driving to local fabric and bead shops!!

§ I love to read, when I was little I read all the time, now I’ve finished uni I’m back to reading interesting books rather than those about glue, bugs, dirt and mould.

§ I am a fan of fair-trade and think it is important that people buy this when it is feasible. I am keen to start using fair-trade fabric when I become better at sewing.

§ I like growing my nails and painting them.

§ Sewing or doing anything creative relaxes me. Sometimes it is hard to motivate myself to start, but as soon as I open up a few books or I look around my fabric drawers I get so many ideas as to what I can make.

§ I cannot knit to save my life! Every few years I make my mum re-teach me and it is a disaster. I have now accepted that I can’t knit and focus on sewing instead.



3.

This was the perfect opportunity for me to sort out my blog following situation, as I had many in my ‘favourites’ but now I am officially ‘following’ blogs, making it all look a lot neater. I have spent the evening browsing all the beautiful work out there and I hope you enjoy my selection. A couple of people had already been chosen recently, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to mention them again as I really like their work.


www.bitsandblobsbyamy.blogspot.com

www.dearestjackdaw.blogspot.com

www.dreamstardiary.blogspot.com

www.flossieteacakes.blogspot.com

www.kryshees.blogspot.com

www.mybelovdlylife.blogspot.com

www.pukkapinnies.blogspot.com

www.rafflesbizarre.blogspot.com

www.rosmademe.blogspot.com

www.satokosorigamijewellery.blogspot.com

www.silverpebble.blogspot.com

www.swirlyarts.blogspot.com

www.taylor-madecards.blogspot.com

www.totallyaddictedtovintage.com

www.zukiestyle.blogspot.com


4. So I got commenting! Possibly a mistake to type them all out individually!

I hope you enjoy browsing these, I am off to bed with a cup of tea to read my kindle. Have a good weekend. x

ooopps.... been shopping.

I have a few projects which I am planning to do so I  went online to choose some fabric. Well far too quickly I had spent enough money at fabricrehab.co.uk and that was with me being pretty restrained with myself!

I'm now very excited and can't wait for them to arrive.

Here is a little something I made last night to use as a pincushion.This was using some gorgeous fabric I bought from a new fabric shop in town. I have a few ideas to use up the rest of this fabric.

 Heart shaped pincushion

Lastly when I logged on today I was surprised to see I had been given a stylish blog award from Wendy at www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk Being very new to the world of blogging I had to do a bit of research about it. I will post my response and who I nominate in a few days as I have been ill with a sore throat and big headache :(

As soon as I'm better I will post up some exciting blogs.

Christmas present two

Owl shoulder bag

I am very pleased with this item. I bought the fabric specfically for this project and I was keen to get started on it.

The bag is the smaller version of the first bag I posted about therefore I was familiar with the techniques.

 Cut pieces ready to get sewn together

 Drawing the flap for the clasp

I wanted to make sure the design did not have sections cut off

 

Main bag and lining completed.

 

Attaching top band and strap

 

 Finished bag!

I really enjoyed making this bag, partly because the pattern is so cheerful, every time I was working on this I smiled :)

When cutting the fabric I utilised the design of the fabric. So for the strap I had the owls the right way up, and I cut the flap to show the two owls not cut in half.
I gave this to my sister on Christmas day and she was very pleased with it.
I enjoy working with cord it is a good fabric to work with as it is soft and easy to cut and fold and also it creates more durable bags than cotton alone.
I hope you enjoy the photos.

Christmas present one.

I made two items as gifts for Christmas this year.

The first was a secret santa gift for a member of www.craftsforum.co.uk.

Secret Santa gift

As I am quite new to sewing I was nervous about making this. I chose a pattern in the book Sew called 'Quilted Purse.'

This is a medium size, soft purse, with a button fasten.

New skills I learned were a buttonhole loop and quilting. I did the quilting by hand because I preferred it and was worried that if I had one layer of fabric and wadding, when I put it through the sewing machine the wadding might get stuck.

 Fabric cut and ready

 Attaching the top flap

 Finished bag

Open finished bag

This was a good little project. I enjoyed selecting the lining fabric to go with the outer pattern, and it looks like a pretty purse to keep things in. The quilting gave an interesting effect and did not detract from the design too much.

Cath Kidson bag

So, my latest creation was from a kit I got with the Cath Kidson book 'Sew'. It looks like a good starter book, has useful guides to the basics and is laid out well. In the book comes the fabric and accessories pre cut to make a bag.
This was quite simple to make and it was a lot quicker as I just had to pick up the components rather than cut them up.
I enjoyed making this and I learnt a few new techniques which were:

·         T-Junction seam - I liked this method as it was a simple method to add width and shape to the design of the bag.

·         Rouleau button loops. I did not like this, it was very difficult and I could not understand how it would work. However after a few days and many attempts I managed to do it. It does look good, but I will be avoiding this in future projects!

·         Button holes - I decided to do them by hand as I didn’t have any extra fabric in case I did it wrong. Hand stitching them took quite a bit of time but I like how they turned out, I need to work on making them neater however I think they are acceptable for a first attempt.

Too many projects on the go!

Firstly, I must apologise for the lack of posts recently. This is not a habit I want to get into, I am aiming to post at least once a week.

I have been rather busy with non craft events such as visiting friends and family and having people to visit me. It was very good to see everyone and I was sewing away on my many train journeys, so not completely slacking!

At the moment I am working on five different things, three are near completion and the others need some more work. So in a few days I should have quite a bit finished.

Finally completed my Secret Santa present for the craft forum (no photos until after Christmas, so not to spoil the surprise) A little bit late, due to snow and other extreme weather!

This is turning into a bit of a reflective post, but I am enjoying learning how to sew and make things. It is very satisfying to spend an evening making something and to sit back and think 'I made this'. I am also enjoying the hands on aspect. I have always been a person who enjoyed working with my hands and doing anything practical. Having studied for so long, it is so nice to handle fabrics, threads, to set up a sewing machine or cut out patterns.

I also have a new camera which is very exciting and I am looking forward to taking really good photos of the things I make.

The blogging thing isn't going as well. I need to do some research on how to improve my layout and background, and to post better photos. At the moment I am finding it hard to position images and text and it is frustrating that I cannot just type in Word and then copy and paste the text into the editor here.

So if anyone has tips or advice on blog editing please comment below!

I am going to finish a bag now. Goodnight.

Made a bag! :)

So I am very excited as I have finished my first bag!

This was a pattern I bought in America and I bought the fabric at the same time to make sure I had everything I needed, as the pattern was using inches and some wording was different to what I recognised.

The pattern was for two bags one large and one small.

I decided to make the large bag first as I was unsure of how big it was to be.

I started by washing and ironing the fabric. The bag would be made from a pattern fabric, a lining fabric and an iron on interfacing. The cutting took a bit of time to ensure that I was making the most out of it and not wasting any.

Pinning and cutting pieces

All cut and sorted!

Next I ironed the interfacing onto the pattern fabric. The bag lining was formed, and then the shape of the outer bag.

Lining section

Main bag done

Next I made the strap and had a bit of a tough time getting it the right way round. After the strap I attached the top banding and lining.

Sewing lining, bag and banding all together

Sewing the inner lining

Lastly the inner lining was hand sewn to finish it off. The pattern said to use a button for the clasp, but my shop didn't have any buttons I liked, and I thought a magnetic clasp would be better on this size bag.

Ta-Da!

Inside - a handy double pocket

All together this took about 3 days, but this was including working and other things. I really enjoyed making this, sometimes I found the pattern hard to understand until I actually did it. I discovered a few techniques to remember:

• ·         The cutting and pinning are just as important as the sewing, so don’t rush it.

• ·         Accuracy is crucial and a small mistake when cutting will show up later on.

• ·         I have become much better at unpicking now!

I used interfacing for the first time and found it very effective. When buying it I was concerned that it wouldn’t be good for a bag this size, but it has worked really well and anything thicker would have caused problems later on.

Overall I am pleased with how this turned out, I will be testing it next week when I go away to make sure everything is fine ;) . It would be good as an overnight or schoolbag as it is very spacious.

Enjoy!

Please add any comments or tips below. x