Thursday 14 February 2013

A Chef needs to Rest!

The rearrangement of our dining room table left us with two spare chairs. These two have arms on and don’t quite slide neatly underneath the table. We wanted them downstairs but still close to hand for when we have company so one now sits in the conservatory and one has made it into the kitchen. When I was pregnant I found that having a chair to sit on in the kitchen whilst the pots bubbled was a lifesaver and I now appreciate having somewhere to sit when there's no time to walk away from the stove but nothing much you can stir, flip, fry, bake etc. in that time. The chair did lack a cushion so I did something unusual for me….I picked one fabric and kept it simple. I only had one fat quarter of the fabric so had to choose a coordinating backing….a strip of the front material helps it blend in. I was having an off day when I made this – the recycled cushion was lumpy…uneven in shape and the tight amounts of backing fabric meant that getting a nice overlapping envelope was tricky….I think I unpicked and re-sewed this umpteen times. I hid two poppers underneath the opening to keep it square…its not brilliant but it will do…hey we all have off days at the machine! One thing I do love though is the fabric choices..the front material in particular is lovely.

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Monday 11 February 2013

A sneaky peek

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Its a wedding present so I can’t show you any more until march…..have fun guessing!

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Dragonfly memo Board

I’ve often fancied a go at making one of those fabric noticeboards and the crafty stars have finally aligned through a combination of events! My sister over at mylittlemancreations beat me to it which meant that she had gone ahead and purchased the required staple gun (win for the thrifty me!), I cleared my crafting area which yielded an old canvas print that I had long ago fallen out of love with (win for the up cycling me!), I had a gigantic box from a car seat that had yet to be recycled (a win for the lazy housekeeper me!), our Christmas stockings had won star letter in a magazine (win for the lucky me!)….the magazine said that instead of sending a random prize we could choose our £50 goodies from abakhans….£25 for me and £25 for my sister….(all versions of me jumped up and down at this point!!).

It took a great deal of deliberation to choose my prizes but with my sisters creation in mind i decided that the time was right to nick her staple gun and make a memo board and included in my prize wish list some wadding, ribbon, fabulous ceramic buttons (they were expensive but I decided they were worth it!) and some fabric.

The crafting gods smiled upon this project once more and the parcel arrived the day before my sister came up for our crafty weekend. I decided the canvas felt a bit too flimsy so after many failed attempts I liberated the humongous car seat box from the spare room before my nephew went to sleep – this took about four goes as every time they slept we crafted but I never thought to move the box until my nephew was nicely tucked up asleep (and no it wasn’t worth waking him!!!!). I cut the cardboard to size and slipped it behind the canvas so it was held in between the picture and the frame. I then quizzed my sister lots and we had a bit of a role reversal – she was trying to quietly concentrate on her makes and I was the noisy one for a change!. The wadding was stretched tight and stapled…followed by the fabric…then came the precision placement of the ribbons. I am normally a haphazard type of person and this took a lot of willpower to stop myself from just stapling anywhere and saying Ta Dah!!. Finally the ribbons were stapled and I sewed my lovely buttons in place. Would you like to see?

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The dragonfly fabric I chose was thinner than expected (always a gamble buying fabric online) but I really like the way some of the colours from the canvas come through and add a little extra depth. Can you see them the odd splodge of navy and pink? the wadding tones it down and obscures any definite lines so I am left with just colour graduations which make me really happy. the navy ribbons worked well and the two central ones with the white stitching actually came wrapped around a pair of my boys pyjamas (another win for the hoarder me!) I am really glad I went for the expensive ceramic buttons as I really liked them and by using them for this project it means that they were a) used and not just put away never to grace a project because they are too precious and b) I’ll get to see them everyday……well as soon as my husband bangs in a few nails for me to hang it up! I promise a picture of it in situ will follow soon!

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Tuesday 5 February 2013

Thank you for the rain!

Its raining indoors at the Deryn Du house….raining INSPIRATION!!

My sister came up to stay for the weekend with my nephew and brought along this crafty little guy. She had been sending me sneaky pictures all week…could you have guessed what was heading my way?

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A clown? a sun? a doll? nope it was an inspiration cloud! raining colourful felt raindrops on silvery shiny thread!

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This little slice of craftiness was meant for my sewing room to help me out of a little creative slump I was in. See the embroidery on the back?? every cloud has a silver lining….and this one went especially well in my conservatory with my heart garland. This way it can be much admired and seen everyday.

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I do like watching the little raindrops dangle!

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If you want to check out what my sister was thinking with this cloud then check out her post here. There will be more on our crafty weekend coming soon so for now just a little note for a little sister

Thank you for the rain!