Mother's Day cards

With Valentine's Day done and dusted, it's time to start making cards for Mother's Day!

These are the two designs I've come up with; machine appliqued letters on upcycled pink linen, stiched onto the green check paper.

Here's the large one with "Mom" which is very popular with the Brummies around this neck of the woods. I have also had a request for "Mam" which is the Welsh equivalent.

If you'd like a mum, mom or mam card you can visit my facebook page or just contact me here :)

The large ones are A5 and cost £3.50, the small ones are A6 and cost £2.50.

(Postage is £1.)

Linking up to Handmade Thursdays at www.whitelilygreen.blogspot.com xxx

It's mine, all mine!

(Sometimes you make something, which is supposed to be for someone else, and you are quite pleased you went a little bit wobbly around the edges, because you really want to keep it for yourself.)

I had a custom request for a make up bag, so I made this.

I love the cherry fabric. It has a layer of polyester wadding (my new favourite thing!!) to give the bag some structure, and the spotty lining is upcycled from an old dress of Poppy's.

Why am I so afraid of zips? (And buttonholes - perhaps I have developing a fastening-phobia.) They always turn out fine when I pluck up the courage to put one in.

Anyway, I'm keeping this, and I promise to make a better one for my customer :)

Loving my new bag

It's the bestest bag ever!

My sister bought me some packs of small fabric pieces for my birthday. I've done a little bit of patchwork but I'm definitely no expert.

I chose 12 of the fabrics, and cut out 2 squares from each - 12 squares for each side.

And I stitched them together - remembering to reverse the pattern so that nothing was upside down. I felt very clever for thinking of that!

I decided to put a layer of wadding and used some turquoise fabric for the other side. 

So this project became my first attempt at proper quilting. It was rather awkward doing the middle stitching - not sure how you'd manage on a piece much bigger.

Here's the inside; I made the trim and handles from some old jeans. This is why the handles are quite short - I have pretty short legs!!

And I even made a tab with a buttonhole. I still have a completely ungrounded fear of buttonholing and avoid them wherever possible.

So, there it is - my new bag, it's not perfect but it's mine, and I made it all by myself without a pattern or even a proper plan.

Ready to be filled with sweet wrappers, old raisins, a biro which doesn't work, old receipts and an odd glove...

New blog header ^^^ Look up there!^^^

Last night I tried embroidering my signature with the sewing machine.

Just messing about but I like it!

Love is in the air...

 Getting organised for valentine's day with some machine stitched applique cards.

Hoping to get them listed in the etsy shop soon, meanwhile you can also find them on Shazronnie makes stuff on facebook.

Cath Kidston bag

 Last Christmas my husband bought me a sewing machine, and a copy of Sew! by Cath Kidston. The book came with the fabric to make the bag on the cover.

After a year of procrastinating - I needed more practice, I didn't have the right colour thread, I was busy making something else... I finally did it last night!

It went pretty well, although I skipped the buttonholes on the strap and just stitched it to the bag. I put the buttons on as decoration only.

I am pretty pleased with it, the fabric is nice and spring-like - a little reminder that brighter weather is on its way.

Pillowcase rescue; the mission continues...

I loved this lonely pillowcase when I saw it in the charity shop.

I just knew it could have a happy new life as a reusable carrier bag.

It folds up teeny weeny to sleep in the bottom of your handbag.

And I even made it a little pouch to keep it warm and snug ;)

(I am thinking setting up a pillowcase refuge in my sewing box, rehabilitating the prettiest and funkiest so that they can once again lead useful, appreciated lives!!)

Here is my tutorial  so you too can rescue a pillowcase.

Something slightly different...

I always wear a dress in December (we call it Dressember, you can find out more on facebook.)

So this is a dress inspired piece of applique, and the black fabric is made from one of my old dresses. I think this could be a lovely way of remembering favourite frocks. I'd like to say it was a self portrait but most of the time I'm not that glamorous!

Machine stitched Christmas card

Some fabric left over from the advent calendar, glued onto card then embellished with machine sewing.

Handwritten message and mounted onto a square card.

Advent bunting

I've had this idea in my head for ages - I'm not saying it's all my own idea, I'm sure it's been done before! 

I bought a metre of Christmas fabric and made 24 pockets (roughly 5 inches square) and stitched them at regular intervals along a length of bias binding.

The numbers are hand embroidered onto felt - oh, how I hate hand sewing!

And now it's strung around the hallway, ready to be filled with treats!

More machine stitching on card!

For a new baby; the letters are made from felt, and the gingham fabric is upcycled from a school dress.

Quick card - handmade Thursday

For a special friend's wedding anniversary.

This is simply a fabric heart glued onto card, then I ran the sewing machine around it.

Easy, but I think it looks very effective.

More handmade Thursdays at white lily green.

Sewing arty canvas thing - handmade Thursday

While browsing around a local craft centre with a friend I saw some embroidery / applique art mounted on canvas and selling for £100.

£100!!!!! 

Well, mine cost £2.24, plus bits and pieces from my button and scrap stash.

I wanted to make a "family" piece, something which celebrated the five of us.

When I'd sewn all the pieces together I simply used my glue gun to stick it onto the canvas.

And I'm really rather happy with it :)

More handmade thursdays at White Lily Green.

I love upcycling!

Making stuff for free is one of my favourite things!

Add my new found passion for patchwork and the upcycling possibilities are endless...

The idea for these trousers came from these patchwork shorts.

I cut out loads of 10cm squares from old t-shirts - ones with stains, holes etc. I just used the good parts!!

Then I used the overlocking stitch on my sewing machine to make 2 pieces of fabric. I drew around a pair of pyjama bottoms to get the pattern.

Why did nobody tell me making trousers was so easy? 

Just 2 pieces, 3 seams and a channel for some elastic :)

Poppy loves them; I only asked her to try them on and she won't take them back off!

(And I like them; they remind me of a pair I had when I was a student.)

Blog Post 201; you can win this upcycled cushion!!

 I thought it would be nice to have a giveaway to celebrate 201 entries on my blog.

So this morning I made this cushion...

 ...which used to be a very large man's shirt.

 The great thing about upcycling a shirt is that the button band is a ready made opening for the back of your cushion.

Just needed a little bit of applique made from fabric scraps and buttons.

Would you like to have this very cute cushion all for your very own? 

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before Saturday 17th September.

I will put all of the names into a hat and draw out the winner :)

Happy commenting!

Patchwork bedspread - a big ta-dah for my 200th post!

 It's the biggest thing I've ever made, and I am very pleased with myself.

I bought the fabric on ebay - 4 metres of flowery polycotton at £3.50 a metre. (From this shop if you're interested.)

I cut each metre into 16 pieces and ironed them into lovely 24cm square pieces.

(That took a long time...)

Patchwork would usually be much smaller squares but I was being completely realistic about both my sewing skills and my concentration span.

Highly detailed plan ;)

After much sewing I eventually had a very large square made up of 64 flowery squares.

There is a slight mistake in the pattern, but there are no prizes for finding where it is. (And while we're on the subject of imperfections we aren't mentioning any slightly wonky bits in this project, thank you.)

Wadded with polyester and backed with a king size flat sheet.

And here it is on my bed; it is making me very happy!

And it's also Handmade Thursday; more of that at White Lily Green.

Applique card

Yesterday a new family moved in next door.

Perfect excuse to make a little applique card out of that endless supply of fabric scraps.

Another bed cushion...

... my husband is complaining there's no room for him on the bed!

This is my first proper attempt at patchwork. I'd like to say it was done by hand, but the reality is that I am far too idle to spend a zillion hours handsewing teeny stitches.

I read my sewing machine manual, and lo and behold! A patchwork setting :)

It's still pretty labour intensive though - alot of cutting, ironing, pinning not to mention sewing.

I like that it is made from leftovers though, very frugal! I would love to make a bedspread, but I'm not good at big projects which require ongoing commitment. 

(And my husband might demand separate bedrooms if the marital bed gets any more flowery!!)

I'm so super-duper absolutely smashingly pleased with my new apron!

It all began when I borrowed this book from the library. I borrow alot of craft books from the library; it's like porn for hopeless craft addicts!!

But I actually decided I really, really wanted an apron like this. It's really a tabard, but tabard is a very uncute, non-sexy sort of word isn't it?

I had this cupcake fabric which I bought from ebay on a whim. What could be cuter than a cupcake apron to colour co-ordinate with my pink kitchen? I had to wait two whole days for some bias binding to arrive by snail mail - because I was too busy / idle to go to the haberdashery.

But - ta-dah! Here it is. I'm so happy, it's my current favourite thing. I really want to bake a cake, but it's nearly time for the school run.

I always wear stilettoes in the kitchen you know... ;)