Uh oh its the summer holidays!!!

I usually get involved with some sort of summer holiday kids activities, this year I'm somewhere new! I'm in St Melons (Cardiff-ish) Beacon Centre all week playing with felt and buttons haha! Here's what I've made today. I'll hopefully have a whole load of pictures of the kid's makes by the end of the week so shall share if they allow me =)

I was inspired after seeing my friend Math who has a plastic back cover for his iphone that looks like a cassette tape.

Each of the shapes was seperately cut out and stitched down. I also used buttons for the screws and main tape shapes.

Then lastly I used a blanket stitch around three edges to join the front and back together.

This was me setting up for the class! ooh gotta love a good craft table!!

Have you ever made something that's disguised as something else? Please share =)

Rockabilly Baby

I was asked to do a custom order for someone at Alley Cat Ink. A vintage spotty dress for a little girl. I thought it'd be fun to make some children's vintage and I'm loving how it's turned out. Kids clothes are so easy to make and relatively quick too. I choose a lovely sleeveless vintage pattern and cut out some red and white spotty fabric.

Next I marked and stitched up the darts.















After I put the darts in, I overlocked all the edges and then sewed the pieces together. Below is an action shot of sewing the facing to the front bodice.

Ironing all the seams out is an essential for dressmaking =)

For the skirt part, I gathered an oblong shape along the one edge and stitched this to the bottom of the bodice.

Overlocked and stitched up the hem.

To finish off the neckline I added a vintage daisy chain trim.

 

To fasten at the back I stitched on 3 big vintage red buttons and a ribbon loop to hold them together.

And this is the final project! Hope she likes it.

cushions for who?

I was asked, after making the traffic cone cushions for Droneboy Laundry, to make some for Who? clothing. I still haven't met Scott, but I like the simplicity of the logo and the site has some fun stuff for the boys! Its a skate lifestyle brand that's relatively new but have loads of different styles of tees and hoods etc already listed on there shop page. I especially like the tie-dye tee! Anyhoo back to the sewing!

I've recently been given a lovely pile of screens from my good friend Kate, I don't think she realises quite how much of an amazing gift she's given me but I'm super grateful.

Scott had said he wanted the cushions quite large so I made up a screen with the image about 70cm long. Here's the film work in the exposure unit just waiting for my screen to dry!

Just after you expose the screen you have to wash out the unexposed emulsion so it doesn't set in the screen. Then let it dry and boom you're ready to go!

Unfortunately my camera was playing up and I deleted the cutting out and printing photos. Oops but here you can see me putting the things together! Curved edges are the one thing I do pin to death, I can be quite lazy with the ol' pinning usually, but a mega curve like this you can't not, it just won't fit.

Once you've sewn it up make sure you notch around the seam so it won't pull on the stitches when you turn it inside out.

Then you can stuff the monster! The golden rule is to cram in as much stuffing as you can, a limp under stuffed plush always looks lame haha.

Lots of stuffing!

They're fun to make although a little long winded but I'm pleased with how they've come out. Good bold design helps :) nice one Scott.

You've Been Framed

So this week has been more about looking after the cat and getting him sorted. My sister's cat Zorro came to stay with us about 5 weeks ago and after 3 days managed to escape out the cat flap and that was the last we saw of him for 4 1/2 weeks! He'd come down from London and people kept saying maybe he'd tried to go home which wasn't helpful! But he was sat on the kitchen table last Saturday morning when I got up. We've been to the vets quite a lot this week getting him checked out and sorted with antibiotics and painkillers; he had a weird limp :(

So in between all that chaos there's been a slowing down on the craft front. I have managed a few bits so I thought I'd share them now whilst enjoying a lazy Sunday at home.

I picked up some old annuals for the Green Living Festival workshop that I took part in a few weeks ago and had a brainwave of other fun things I could do. My first project for them was picture frames. So I got the ol' Mod Podge and Stanley knife out the box and set down in front of the telly yesterday having a fun Saturday play afternoon!

I used a pack of cheap Ikea frames that I'd picked up ages ago ( one of those stupid shopping moments when you don't want to come away empty handed; yes I realise I'm being a slave to consumerism). They had a good wide frame though which I thought would be better for showing off the comic strips.

Check out how lovely the two colour screen printed pages are.

I used the craft blade to cut around the edge of the comics and shape them to the frame. I used the Mod Podge to stick the strips and to varnish over the top. The one I have leaves a lovely matte finish but you can get others in different finishes. It's good that you can finally get it in the UK, I've always seen so many lovely projects on crafster.org using the stuff and have always wanted some; pretty  pleased with the results so far.

Finished frames. I ended up making four different ones; it was great that they used to use different colours for the two colour prints to keep the annual interesting and define different stories.

There was a final story in one of the books that had a full colour 'Tarzan Jane' story that I couldn't resist using too.

After my last embroidery piece I wanted to do another screen print/ embroidery mix up. This time I used the carousel horse repeat that I'd printed onto a pink and white polka dot fabric.

I think it needs just a tad more before its finished but I thought I'd share anyways :)