Birthday bunting

I learnt a valuable lesson this weekend, don't ever get overly confident with your crafting skills. While most crafting projects are in practice simpler than they look, some seemingly simple projects may not be as straightforward as they appear!

My friend had organised a bake off for her birthday and I'd offered to make bunting. It looks really easy, how much work can it be? I told myself.

Well for one, I'd not factored in the time it takes to cut all the little triangles of fabric, then the time it takes to pin them all to the bias tape! A few hours of cutting and pinning later, I was eventually ready to put the sewing machine to work. Most of the instructions I found online recommend a straight stitch but I just couldn't make it work with my machine so I had to resort to a zigzag stitch. There was some swearing and cursing as flags folded themselves in two and I managed to sew one through both layers before noticing - nothing a seam ripper couldn't fix though.

I finished the bunting well in time (there was a moment where I thought I'd never be ready!) and my friend liked her bunting so all's well in the end. The silly thing is, I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished product!

A not so monstrous sock-monster

After Christmas and all the presents making, I always have this urge to make something for me. So I've embarked on a big(ish) knitting project which will hopefully become a retro jumper. That will take me at least a month to make so to keep myself entertained in between knitting sessions, I need quick and easy craft projects.

I'd never tried my hand at sock monsters so I thought I'd give it a go. First I had to convince hubby that his unwanted Christmas socks would be best recycled as sock monsters. Once I'd accomplished as much, I set out to make my monster but me being me, I turned it into a cat, a not too monstrous one. I guess I just can't do ugly... well, not willingly anyway. 

It was both easier and harder to make than I initially thought but the result isn't so bad. I'm not sure hubby's convinced that that was the best use of his unwanted socks though...

Pretty cushions part II

I haven't done any crafting during the Christmas break, very unlike me, I know! well actually... not really! Not only am I a compulsive crafter, I'm also an insatiable bookworm and this year Santa got me a Kindle. So I have spent the largest part of the holidays playing with my new toy and reading, no, gobbling up, the Millennium trilogy (loved, loved, loved it!) and "We need to talk about Kevin" (very disturbing read!). What can I say? With the move to Bristol and the pre-Christmas madness, I hadn't had a chance to read a novel for over two months, I was a very famished bookworm...

Getting back to work, it's been reporting time all round and I've spent the whole of last week with my nose in spreadsheets and graphs. On Friday I was actually getting nauseous from all those numbers and I knew it was time for some heavy duty detox. Crafting seemed like the perfect antidote.

I still had two cushion covers for my studio to finish and after a healthy walk in the sunshine with some friends, I got to work. I managed to finish sewing it all right before the day was about to turn to dusk, leaving me with just enough daylight to take some pictures and post them on here.

The first cushion was heavily inspired by a Cath Kidston pattern in her sewing book. I like the finished product, it's rather cute and dainty, isn't it?

It took me a rather long time to decide what I was going to make for the last cushion. But then I remembered that I have these iron-on embroidery templates about all things crafty. And since this is for my crafting studio after all, I figured they'd be perfect. So I set out to make a patchwork cushion with empty blocks that could be embroidered with images of crafty objects. Nothing too challenging except I'm no expert embroiderer. But hey, it was a good opportunity to perfect my skills :-)

Unfortunately, the image doesn't show all the embroidery work in its full glory, but I'm sure you'll get the idea.

I wish I could say that's my cushion making adventures finished for a while but earlier this week I came across a pattern for a super cute owl cushion and I just can't resist, I have to make one...