Thirfty bargain

I had a trip to Hebden Bridge today to see some lovely crafty people and of course while I was there I went into a couple of charity shop! This plate just begged to come home with me!

Getting organised!

This is a scribbled together list of things I have to do/find out/think about and make for BCTF in April. I am spending today going through all of the material available and making it into cohesive sets of lists - oh as well as firing off emails to various people as I couldn't remember my stand number*! Yes I lost the piece of paper it was written down on!

*N53 :)

Introducing* Quilty!

Although he has been introduced before :) Just not with a voice and actions to match!



Tara thought it would be good for Quilty to have a voice and say hello and who am I to argue! She also thought it was funny when I mentioned that even though he is small, he might still qualify as a lap quilt.

Erm, maybe not! Quilty has grown ever so slightly since then and his wobbled bits from the video have been nipped and tucked. I'm slowly making more hexipuffs to be added to quilty but I need a sustained sewing session to get them all sewn on and it's not just happening. Good job it's a long term project hey!

Mending Monday :)

I actually did some mending and adjusting on Friday but it's Monday now so I'm going with Mending Monday as my title :)  When I put the Christmas decorations away I found another bag of clothes that needed altering (some have been there for a couple of years!) So I decided to get busy and redo some of them.

I bought this skirt at a jumble sale two years ago and all it needed doing to it was the hem taking up. By 15cm but still, it was only a hem!

I decided to go fancy with the hem and did a triple hem :) I went very carefully and slowly so that it wouldn't wobble too much.

And here it is modelled - not a great photo but you get the gist!

This dress only needed the buttons changing on it - done in 5 minutes!

This dress was more of a problem. The patch you see in the photograph is a result of a previous Mending Monday but I'd developed two holes under the arms that were a cross shape. The dress is made of a light cotton so tears easily if a hole develops and that is what happened here. I LOVE this dress and have had it for about six years so I don't want it to break just yet. I mended the holes by lining them up as best I could, pinned a similar fabric behind the hole (right side out) and sewed like hell over the top of it with my machine! It has worked so far but I've already seen another small hole - better get to it before it develops into a much larger hole!

I also covered up a corporate label on a thick canvas bag that Matt got from a conference in December with some pretty fabric but I haven't taken a photo yet. It needs some pretty buttons and trim adding first.

Do you mend clothes? Do you alter clothes? Is your mending pile as large as mine?

Sunday Snippets

I made some robot garlands.

I tidied my craft room - the desk really is tidy, honest!

I turned 35 and my sister sent me this cool card she made :)

I contemplated stealing these pillowcases from my mother in law but I think she might notice they are missing!

I modelled my newly shortened skirt - more on it tomorrow :)

52 books in 52 weeks - part one

I'm giving myself another challenge this year and it is to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I do read a lot so it is something I think I can achieve. I do have weeks where I don't read anything at all and weeks where I will read a book a day (I'm a fast reader!) March and April will be slow book reading months as I will be panicking about attending BCTF and hopefully the weeks afterwards I will be busy with orders :) I still think I can read 52 within the year though - fingers crossed!

I will probably end up at the start of each month listing the books I have read in the previous month but I may do this once a quarter instead - depends on how I am feeling! I do have a board set up on Pinterest that will be updated as soon as I have finished a book so you can see how I am getting on with the challenge on a book by book basis! I'm not very good at reviewing books (although I have to write a review of the book I'm reading at the moment for Waterstones!) so I will probably only say a few words about each book and leave it at that.

The first three books of 2013 are my favourite books ever. I first read them when I was in my first year at university (a friends dad was an English teacher and was reading them with his kids) and I have read them every year since* I love them and no matter how many times I read them I still find I love them. The first one can be hard to get into but read 100 pages and you will be hooked!

Again, 1984 is one of my favourite books although when I read it this time it didn't seem quite as harrowing as the first few times I read it. It could be that as I was reading it, our current government and it's leaders sprung to mind a few times! We are not quite at Big Brother ruling us yet but some things really struck a cord with what is going on now in the UK!

I saw this book when it first came out but didn't buy it until Matt saw it in a charity shop recently :) It's another young adults/older kids book and I loved it! Very well written with a good plot line that draws you in - the main character is fully believable too which sometimes doesn't happen in this kind of book.

I buy a lot of books from my local Post Office as they sell books for a local charity for 50p (paperbacks) or £1 (hardbacks) and it's great to browse the shelves as you are standing in the queue! I like thrillers and say that they make up about 50% of the books on our shelves. This one was good, easy to read and the plot was very twisty turny. When you thought you'd got a grip on the plot something would happen and you'd realise you'd got it wrong! It didn't happen enough though to put you off finding out what happens at the end as can happen in some thrillers.

So, they are the books I've read in January and I'm already halfway through my next book :) I found this challenge over on The Sewing Directory so if you too want to join in then leave a comment over there!

6/52 - only 46 more books to read! Do you have any book recommendations? I have thousands of books (literally!) but I am always looking for more!


*except for last year when I was only allowed to read books that I hadn't read before. I missed reading them though so that is why they were the first books of 2013!

Robots in the craft room :)

Matt bought me a Spidercamp Bunny of Purity for Christmas and when he bought that he also bought some robots :)

They are sold with the proviso that you guess how many robots you will get for $1.39. Spidercamp thinks about 19 but we actually got 22 :) As soon as I saw them I knew what I was going to do with them - a robot garland (well two actually)

I asked the girls to colour some of them in but after a while they got bored so I continued where they left off.

I hung one up in the craft room to take these photographs but I think I may have to give one to each girl instead of keeping one myself!

Sunday Snippets

Sledging fun on a Monday off from school

Snow bunny - we cheated and used a jelly mould!

I decided I needed to tidy my craft room!

A custom button heart for a lovely customer :)

I came to the conclusion that I have too many notebooks - all but 4 are blank!

If you tilt your head you can see the heart shaped holes in Anya's bagel.

Keeping busy at ballet

Multitasking while watching Nanny McPhee

My first piece of craftivism

I wrote about #imapiece the other day and here is my finished piece. It's not perfect as this is the first embroidered piece I have done with words (I'm normally a straight stitch kind of girl!) but I think it works.

It reads 'Live simply so that others can simply live' The quote really appealed to me and I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be the one that went on my piece. It needed something to make the words jump out and as I was out and about with my sewing box, the only thing I had was sequins. Not sure they work with the simple quote or not - maybe buttons or ribbon would be better?

I may keep this one for myself and make another to send off for the installation. If I do I will embroider the words onto a piece of white fabric and then attach it to the patterned fabric as the wording kind of gets lost! Also if I get chance then I will send one to my MP - if not then he will get a photograph of the work with an explanation of why it is important to me.

Have you made one of these? Ever used crafting for good? I have a few ideas of things I can do in my neighbourhood using craft and it's quite exciting - maybe only to me though!

Wordless Wednesday