Its CRAFTfest time!!

Best of British Community Crafting event HERE  

Crafty Kids: the boy who knits

Noah loves his craft. His head is full of creations. He is definitely the most creative in the house (I come in second LOL)

He really enjoys knitting with his loom and made a beautiful scarf which I raffled off at the School Pamper and  Shop evening. He made £11.50, which enabled him to buy the Harry Potter wand he was after!

He can use normal needles though. He entranced the ladies at the local craft event after he plonked himself down and started with his in-over-through-off!

It was lovely to see - everyone was so impressed to see a 6 year old boy knitting away.

He does love an audience too!

This is his finished scarf - won by Mrs Rees from the school.

#proudmummy

Hatmaking: Workshop at the V&A with Bink Pearls and Swine

So I'm not and never will be a milliner, but I adore Binks creations and as soon as I received the email informing us that she was holding a workshop at the V&A, I bought a ticket. Immediately. Which is just as well as it sold out shortly afterwards. As did the extra day they put on. Fast forward several months, and it was time to go! Due to rail replacement services I had to drive to the next town rather than just hop on at Huntingdon, but I was at Kings Cross by quarter past 9, plenty of time to nip to Wasabi to buy some sushi for lunch, then make my way to South Kensington to the V&A.

The only thing that irked me about the whole day - I did not have time to have a mooch around the V&A. Theres a shoe exhibition on right now that I really wanted to see. Alas, not enough hours in the day, which is a fairly common whinge from me!

I chose the pink ship for some reason (my head was shouting 'gold, gold' but my mouth said 'pink')

We started off by sewing on ivy leaves, then picked our flowers. I went with a pink tinged white rose and just carried on from there. 

The workshop was so much fun and I got to meet a whole hoard of lovely ladies. 

So many beautiful creations.

Honestly it was such a lot of fun and I'll definitely do this again. 

Bagmaking: Swoon Harriet for the lady who sews

So here we are. Harriet. A pretty quick sew, but not an easy one as my machine did NOT like working with the faux leather. Its not been too bad in the past, but I think its had enough now and is refusing to play ball. I spent HOURS trying to get it to work, fiddling with the tension and the threads and the needles etc etc and it still isn't perfect.
As a result, I'm not happy with the top stitching on the handles, or the attachment of the base which looks messy as I had to restitch a few times which is a no-no for leatherette. Overall though I'm happy, but I actually wish I'd used foam not fleece to stabilise as its a bit floppy for my liking. Honestly I should know this by now but I wanted to follow the instructions as far as possible.

This is what it looks like with the zips open. You can see the contrast fabric at the sides.

This is with the zips closed

This is inside. There's a zipped pocket and a couple of slip pockets.

And slightly closer up showing the flip lock that I'm rather proud of (it took me ages to install this as I was trying to be ever so precise)

Fabrics used as below: 

Vintage Couturier in Cream by Robert Kaufman

Accents and zipped pocket in Fancy and Fabulous by Riley Blake

Lining in I'm a Maker by Art Gallery

Faux Leather came from Doughtys Online

Bagmaking: The Christmas Market

Its all been about making stuff for the christmas market for the last few months. I won't post everything here, but basically I've been busy:

(and if you would like to purchase anything that wasn't bought on the night, its all here: SheWearsRedFeathers)

Oh I also painted the dining room wall 'Botanical Beauty (green) in the midst of it all (Was a freebie from mumsnet - I just had to test the paint. Summary: its nice. I recommend. Valspar from B&Q)

Right, back to it. 

So the great Godmanchester Lights Switch on and Xmas Market was on Friday 4th December. I got prime (and v. hot) position at the back of the main hall. I even got to put my shelves next to the table instead of behind it, because they didn't have anywhere else to put the shelves, so there wasn't a stall to the left of mine. Hurrah!

This is what it looked like after I put everything out.

I was very happy with how it went. I made a lot of money, mostly due to parents from the two schools that know me, but hey, its not what you know!

The bag stand was pretty empty looking by the end of it all. 

This is what I wore by the way. My Alpine Lindy Bop dress. Very Festive :)

Crafting - making a cushion cover Family Tree (ish)

I just wanted to show you this. I made a cushion!

(I know - that's one of the least thrilling statements of the year) 

A good friend of mine is going through the adoption process and welcomed their new daughter into their home a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to make something special to celebrate this. So I thought I'd make a simple family tree cushion.

Then I saw this Amy Butler Lark fabric upstairs and figured I'd go family-tree ish, but incorporate the flowers instead.

So this is the back:

This is the front. Obviously I cut out some of the flowers and leaves. 

Then I appliqued them on using very very close zig zag. 

I used the linen from the background to machine embroider their names (youngests name is hidden as they cannot disclose it legally), and I then added midnight blue piping (no you can't really see it in this photo) to finish before sewing it all up. It does have a zip.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I think she is too, although its always a gamble gifting something handmade. 

Next up, more bags (sneaky peak of current commission below)