His Name Was Michael...

A couple of days ago the fabric arrived for part of the Great Bertie Makeover. It's only the stuff for the cushions, but Oh My. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I've always scorned the Fat Quarter, who wants such an iddy bioddy piece of fabric? But then as i perused the eBay vintage/retro fabric sections, I came across my new man (sorry Arran). His name is Michael Miller. Hello Michael.






His fabric designs are of such utter awesomeness, that I just new I needed some in Bertie. Unfortunately, the £12 odd a metre doesn't really fit with my uber cheapness, but, lo and behold, there was the fat quarter. At around £3 a metre it's still not cheap, but it's almost the exact size of a cushion front, so whack some coordinating plain on the back, add a zip, and BOOM. That's one Michael Miller cushion right there, for about £4. SONIC BOOM.


I've also discovered Fabric Rehab. Like fabric? Go there. Now. Seriously. I got this gem from there:




I think a cushion was made out of it within about an hour of opening the package. I didn't even pre-wash which is seriously against my sewing beliefs.

I also made something with one of my caravan appliques! Ta dah:



It's a good job Ruby appreciates my crafts...

I am dying to start work on Bertie the Caravan, but I can't for the following reasons:
a. we haven't ordered any paint yet.
b. the fabric we have ordered hasn't arrived yet.
c. it's frickin freezing.

So desperate am I to do something caravan related, that last night I got down my scrap box, threw on some Naruto and got creatin'.


Large.


Medium


Small

They're Iron on applique's. I'm not sure what they're destined to ironed on to, but I think I may stick a few on Folksy, see if there's any interest. A range of caravan based items is forming at the back of my brain, I may be powerless to resist...

Hello 2011!

Hi there! Remember me? I used to be that girl who updated her blog all the time, but once her crazy daughter stopped having afternoon naps (sigh), couldn't squeeze in the time for posting. Well with the help of said little one starting school this morning (sigh), I am officially backski! And a couple of exciting things to start the new year with:

Firstly, for the second time ever, I made it onto the Hot New Projects category on Craftster.org with Ruby's new kitchen! If you haven't seen it yet, please go have a gander and take a moment to appreciate the many hours spent in the freezing attic putting this bad boy together. Thank you.

Next, like my new look? It's still grey and cold and miserable out there, but this background makes me think of growing peas and picking strawberry's and impromptu outdoor eating. On a gardening note, I'm reaching the big three-zero this year, so it's OK to be excited about the quality of my soil right? Right?!?

I was going to add some pictures here of all the things I made for Christmas (and there was blinkin loads) but I'm feeling new year, new crafts. So first project posted will probably be the needlebook I just finished for a swap on Craftster. I cant post untill I've sent it, but I reallllly want to keep it for myself. Luckily, it being the nature of The Swap, at least I'll be getting one in return, and the lady I'm swapping with seemss extremely cool, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing what arrives in the post.

Projects lined up so far this year include the Great Bertie Makeover, for which I ordered a pile of gorgeous fabric yesterday, much to RBS's dismay, and a set of washable nappies for my bro and his lady who've just had a gorgeous baby boy called Jamie. I'm pretty sure they're not interested in cloth nappying, but what the heck, I'm forcing my crafts upon them anyway. Any excuse to sew and research.

Right, I'm off for a cup of tea before picking up the munchkin. I hope everyone had a fab Christmas and New Year and are excited about what 2011 has prepared for them!

xxx

WARNING! Boring blog post ahead!

Another month, another lack of bloggage. I admit, I'm a bit ashamed. Especially after catching up at Weebeastie Creations . How pretty is this blog? I think it may be time to redecorate.

Anyhoo, from my rambling intro, you may have guessed I'm not that focussed right now. There are lots and lots of very exciting crafts on the go but they're mostly Chrsitmas presents so I can't share! Not yet anyway. There are one or two things that I'm working on that will be gifted in the next few weeks so as soon as they're done I'll pop them on.

Wowsers. Dullest. Blog Post. Ever.

Here ya go, hope this helps.

What a weekend!

Monday is here again, and I'm glad to report that I've had a pretty darn good weekend. Crafting, playing, eating, all the good stuff.



Saturday afternoon was spent at the awesome Central Bazaar, I had a fab afternoon, met some great new crafters and caught up with old friends, as well as selling quite a few bits and bobs! It wasn't as busy as we would have hoped, but Wrexham's only just beginning to realise that crafts aren't all about tea cosies and the W.I. (Although both of those things, in my opinion, rock). My Design Your Own badges seemed to be the favourite of the day, so I'll be making a bigger thing of those next time.


Me at my post.

Speaking of next time, I will be having a stall at the Ashfield Park Fun Day on Saturday 25th September, 12.00 - 5.00pm at Ashfield Park, off Crispin Lane, Wrexham, which should be something different! A fun fair, the Fire Service, North Wales Police and a host of activities have been organised in order to attract as many people as possible. I normally just stick to craft fairs, but a very nice lady called Dawn approached me on Saturday to ask if I'd be interested and I though why the heckaroo not. And it's for a good cause too. <3 good causes.

After chatting to another lovely lady on Saturday (honestly, the place was full of them), she got me thinking about the prospect of printing directly onto fabric. Now this may seem a bit sad but this was a huge moment of creative enlightenment for me. You can print. On Fabric. With your printer. Good golly miss molly.

My brain then went into a bit of overdrive: I can print out pictures of everyone I know and make them into teddies, I can make floating head Christmas tree decorations, I can print embroidery patterns directly onto fabric... I CAN PRINT EMBROIDERY PATTERNS DIRECTLY ONTO FABRIC.

As you can probably tell that was the biggie. I have a craft swap that has to be posted in one week and until last night I hadn't really started it. I wanted to do a Transformers themed embroidery hoop, but was having an awful time trying to get the design right. Lots of craft swearing and square paper hurling later, and the idea got stuffed into the bottom of my bag. Until now...



That is printed onto fabric! (are you starting to get an idea of how excited I am?) Here it is in the hoop ready to be embroidered.




My gosh. I'm having a LOT of fun sewing this baby, and am glad tonight's Craft Night theme is embroidery so I an carry on sewing and blag onto the girls about printing on fabric a bit more.

Right, not another word about it. In this post.

On a less fun note, I made myself put some stuff on Folksy today. I took about 30 (bad) photos of things I want to put on, and managed to get 8 on before I wanted to top myself. I HATE listing things on the Internet. It's not even one thing, I hate the whole darn process, taking pictures, touching them up, writing the descriptions, waiting for everything to load... eurghh. It's a good job I've already come to terms with the fact I'm never going to be a dot.com millionaire. So if you want to see 8 very nice but badly photographed and terribly described items of jewellery, have a look here

Wowsers, that was some blog post. Hope it keeps those bored at work entertained for a bit. Oh, and here's a picture of a dress I made from a man's XXXL t-shirt that I wore to go out with a very lovely fella on Friday night.



I'm calling it the Whoredry Hepburn dress. See what I did there?

The Final Countdown... Again

Less than a week to go to Central Bazaar and once again I realise I'm ridiculously under prepared. Why do these things only dawn on you when you're lying in bed and have no intention of doing anything about them? On awakening I've realised things aren't quite as bad as they seemed whilst dozing, but still lots to do.

I'm right now in the process of making some signage, and for once it seems to be working out first time... which is a bit worrying. I'm waiting for the printer gremlin to jump out "You may have designed them Jenno, but I sure ain't gonna print 'em! hahahahahahaha!"

If they do work out, they'll be loving pinned to my newly decorated pin board with some awesome button pins (which I've yet to make. Or buy). Next are some fabric badges. I realised I'd completely forgotten to make any in the furor of the film badges. So the craft night girlie's, although they don't know yet, will in fact be my Badge Brigade this week. we'll be singing some kind of working chant to help proceedings I think.

Crochet season is upon us again, woo hoo! I pulled out the project I've been doing since last winter and discovered I only had about 20cm's left to do which took about 10 mins. It's been in the cupboard about 6 months. Sigh. I've now started a cot bumper for thee soon-ish arriving nephew, which contains a lot of black... sounds erm, gross, but is in fact very cool! Will be making myself one as soon as it's finished. A blanket, not a cot bumper. I'm little, but not that little.

Ooh, Juniper and Roses has just come on the radio, my fave.

Right, back to work. Please, please, please come along to Central Bazaar this sat, 12 - 4 in Central Station, Wrexham, there's always so much beautiful stuff on display and you can maybe get a head start on your Christmas shopping! Also, mention this blog and you can have 10% off anything you buy from me, as well as a surprise, craft fair only offer I'll be revealing on the day. How good am I? That's to make up for the lack of pictures in this post.

Badges, Badges, Everywhere...

I have finally finished some badges! What I thought would be a couple of evenings worth of work has turned into a bit of a marathon, but it's lots of fun so I don't really mind. I managed to get about a hundred badges cut out Friday and yesterday packed up all my badge making kit (which is obscenely heavy) and carted it to my folks to make them up whilst Rubes was entertained by other grown ups. Unfortunately though, I didn't take enough badge parts. Oh well. I still managed to get about half done, and am going to embark on the rest this eve whilst watching some kind of cheesy/scifi violent film.

To the pictures! They're all themed, and here some highlights:


Do you recognise the references? I'm going to be selling these at next month's Central Bazaar for a measly £1.50 a set! Bargain or what? As well as these, there will also be some True Blood, Grease, Die Hard and plenty of Twilight ones. Oh, and I'll be doing design your own badges for £1 each! Can you feel your creative juices flowing?

By the way, my fave by far:

I really do <3 Sheldon.