If we took a holiday...

 Hi lovely people. I've been a little quiet as I've been away on holiday.  I won't bore you silly with loads of photos of my time away, but I will share these few.

 Beautiful Peak District where we spent our time in a little cottage in the country.

 We did lots of activities including visiting these guys (the highlight of my week)at the Tropical Butterfly House

 

 Following our holiday with four boys we could do with a little holiday to get over this one, infact I'm looking forward to getting back to work for a rest!

I did manage to sneak in a little bit of crafing whilst away, I did make a start on some new crochet squares, you can't tell here but they are tiny, and will take me an age to complete anything substantial but I have had my heart set on owning a springtime throw from the Cute & Easy Crochet Book (Nicki Trench).  I'm making these all in merino soft baby cashmere silk, so when it's finally done it will also have cost me a small fortune.

Whats the betting I give in and turn them into a cushion?

I've also been dipping my toes into cross stitch again, something I've not done for ages.

It started with a charity shop haul of these Cross Stitcher Magazines for 20p each.  I love them lots and have since subscribed!

A couple of them still had the little free kits included, untouched so on my Summer holiday I sat and made cross stitch Christmas Gift Tags, yes I'm mental!

In the last magazine there were patterns for Ice Lolly Bunting, I adapted it to make this, I thought it might make a nice greeting card.

And whilst I was on the cross stitch roll, I made a couple of these bookmarks, not for the easily offended...

I sent them out to a couple of foul mouthed blog friends (Annie& Alex) and they were well received, I've since been asked to make several more, I'll have to get my needle back out!

So that's me, I'm looking forward to spending a few hours catching up on all your blogs and makes. I have several hours of soap operas to work my way through, not to mention a pile of ironing bigger than me... oh hell I could do with a holiday!

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~ 

Miniature Disasters and Minor Catastrophes

After a particularly stressful week I came home to this yesterday,

the wind has been 'blowing a hooligan' as we say and my poor tramampoline (it's what the kids call it) took off and squished my lovely willow fence. It's going to take many hours digging posts out and fixing, maybe next weekend!

Luckily to cheer myself up; I had taken today off work and my lovely friend and I hot footed it to the Metro Arena in Newcastle to the Pins and Needles craft show; it was fab!!
We spent many hours traipsing up and down the aisles and spent a small fortune on beautiful treats, our bags were groaning with goodies and we could barely carry it all towards the end.
I'll not bore you with it all (and some of it is for pressies) but here is a small selection of the beauties I got.

Piles of new and vintage fabrics

There was a quilting exhibition (no photos allowed) and an exhibition of masterpieces in wool and fabric (photos allowed), check these out, the detail was just incredible.

...did you recognise them?

We took a needlecraft workshop at lunchtime to make a little 'Sleepy Ewe' using a stumpwork technique called a Slip. It involves lots of french knots and they take ages so it's not anywhere near done, I'll finish it this weekend and show you, it's so sweet!

I have made a few more candles this week. I made one for my Mum for Mother's Day and a couple for an order for a friend.

I ordered some more scents, one of which is Baby Powder, this smells of babies bums, yum yum!

I am awaiting delivery of packing boxes but once they arrive I will be able to post out to those that have asked for them I will be in touch soon if you are still interested.

You know how busy I have been, and you know I have a cushion fetish, well I found this delight in Pene's shop on Etsy, it's made from Cath Kidston fabric and I fell in love with it.

As I rushed to her shop to snaffle it up, those beautiful handmade cards also fell into my shopping bag, but they were just too lovley to leave behind. If you have not seen Pene's lovely makes pop over and have a look she has a 15% discount running until Easter Monday, details here.

Anyhoo I will be back soon with more makes, and as it's my 1st Blogiversary next weekend I am planning a lovely giveaway, watch this space.

~ ♥ TTFN ♥ ~

Fabric Purchases

I have been a little fabric happy these last couple of weeks. Most of what I have bought though has been a bargain in some way. Fabric Rehab were selling off little discount bundles for £2 each and the materials were mainly scraps ranging from little 5” squares to almost full fat quarters. I ordered a few of these packs and was delighted with them, here is the range of what I got, many nice fabrics in there Alexander Henry and Michael Miller type stuff:

Following on from that Fancy Moon were offering a 10% discount on their new online store so I bought a few half metres from them (see sidebar for their store – type in kandi to get your 10% discount). (The tattoo fabric was from ebay).

The Cath Kidston sale started at the end of last month and I ordered myself a new handbag and some bits (well, I couldn’t help it) and I also ordered some of their lovely cotton duck:

Now I feel guilty as I have too much fabric already and should really use that up first but it’s a bit of an addiction of mine.

I have made another makeup bag from some of the owl fabric from Fabric Rehab, there were only small patches of this fabric so I had to incorporate it into my bag rather than cover the whole thing,

I love these owls.

As I use up my new stash I will be sure to show you what it turns into (If I can bear to cut into it!).

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~

Lovely New Online Fabric Store

I recently found a lovely new fabric store and made a small order to give them a try.

I was really pleased with my purchase, want to see:

How lovely is she, its an Alexander Henry fabric and I adore it, I think it may end up as some kind of bag.

They have lots of lovely funky fabrics and the postage prices are staggered which I like. When I received my order I was pleased to see that they are local and they offered me a 10% off code. I contacted them to ask if I could share it on my blog and they gave me a special one just for us, it is 10% off and will work until the end of August, how good is that?

Here are some of my favourites;

I have added a link to my sidebar for the time being and you can click through to their shop from there, the code to add for the discount is kandi (it is case sensitive).

♥ Back Soon ♥

Little Shopping Triumphs and Little Disasters..

Friday lunchtime I popped out to a craft shop about 20 mins from where I work (Dainty Supplies, Washington, Tyne & Wear). I needed a couple of zips and ended up coming out with a little stash!

I just had a little luck at the fabric and came away with a few fat quarters to add to my pile. Once home I spent an hour sorting through my fabrics and ribbons as it was becoming a real mess, I knew there was stuff I had bought but I couldn’t find it so it was time for a proper tidy up. Nothing constructive came of it other than seeing fabrics that I had not seen for ages which gave me a few ideas.

Today I set to making more makeup bags with my spotty fabric:

After this I did a couple of hearts from my scraps bag, using the template from the Tilda book and this is my first official sewing disaster, I am prepared to take the shame though; look at the state of this!!

I stuffed it with stuffing and lavender though so at least it smells nice, I think I'll stuff it away in the back of one of my drawers as a scented drawer pad - note to self must try harder!

Back Soon